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  • Humor as Politics: The Political Aesthetics of Contemporary Comedy by Nicholas Holm
  • Matthew R. Meier (bio)
Humor as Politics: The Political Aesthetics of Contemporary Comedy. By Nicholas Holm. London: Palgrave Studies in Comedy, 2017. 223 pp.

The question of whether or not humor is political is exhausted. Nevertheless, it seems to drive any number of books, articles, and studies of humorists and their humor. Unless we limit our definition of politics exclusively to actions taken by governments, humor is political. Thankfully, Humor as Politics—Massey University lecturer Nicholas Holm's recent contribution to this conversation—goes beyond the simple answer. Rather than wondering whether or not humor is political, Holm explores how humor is political by considering what he calls the "political aesthetics of humor." Over the course of seven chapters, Holm describes three different modes of humor—the uncomfortable, the provocative, and the absurd—as unique political interventions with both ideological and epistemological consequences. Essentially, Holm argues that these and other forms of humor operate politically at the foundation of sense making and therefore disrupt old and establish new grounds for imagining political possibilities.

The book proceeds in three sections. The first three chapters interrogate scholarship of humor as a liberating force of political dissent. In this section, Holm argues that overemphasis on dissent or liberation through comedy privileges a particularly liberal, rational conception of politics incapable of [End Page 270] considering the political potential of comedy that does not feature politics as its topic. Contrasting examples of what he calls "politicized" humor such as The Daily Show with conventional or traditional humor in the form of situation comedies like Friends, Holm draws attention to a major—and ever-present—hole in humor theorizing: namely, that any humor theory will eventually run up against an example that it cannot explain. The political capacity of humor evidenced on The Daily Show finds its opposite in the normative humor of Friends.

The second section explores a series of humorous modes as political aesthetics, drawing on three examples of television programs or films as exemplars. The first chapter in this section describes what Holm refers to as "uncomfortable humor" using Jackass, The Office (British), and Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat as examples. Aesthetically, "uncomfortable humor" focuses on bodily and mental discomfort through physical pain and violations of social norms. Notably, by lingering on the pain and awkwardness resulting from the humor's conceit—as when the camera refuses to turn away after Jackass' Johnny Knoxville incurs serious bodily injury—the uncomfortable mode of humor avoids tidy categorization and disturbs the norms on which it is premised.

The second chapter in this section deals with what Holm terms "provocative humor" through examples from Chappelle's Show, The Sarah Silverman Program, and Chris Morris's Four Lions. For Holm, provocation also takes aim at social norms but draws particular attention to norms about taboo and decorum. By presenting outrageous statements or conceits—for example, Chappelle's character Clayton Bigsby who is a black white supremacist—provocative humor deliberately crosses established boundaries of decorum in such a way as to demonstrate their fabrication. Delighting in offense and standing against political correctness, provocative humor combines deeply unsettling subject matter and discourse with comic inquiry in such a way as to leave the audience laughing uneasily.

In the third chapter of this section, Holm addresses what he calls "absurd humor" drawing on animated comedy in the form of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park as his examples. Because animation can break the otherwise fixed boundaries of time and space and disrupt narrative logic at a whim—exemplified by the Family Guy cut-away gags—it provides particularly fertile ground for the cultivation of absurdity. This aesthetic, which encourages its viewers to suspend and desire disbelief in their comic [End Page 271] experience, fosters deep-seated uncertainty about the potential outcomes and consequences of any narrative turn.

In the final section, Holm returns to the political nature of humor and, particularly, its aesthetic qualities. Drawing on Adorno and Rancière as well as postmodern approaches ranging from Jameson to Baudrillard, Holm contends that the political capacity of humor's aesthetic arises from its ability to...

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