Taking a Stand: Contemporary US Stand-Up Comedians as Public Intellectuals

This volume appears at just the right time in recent history. After the election and presidency of Donald Trump, many pundits said over and over again that his speeches and policies were immune to comedic resistance, at least on the surface level of social media and entertainment television. However, this volume poses a different question: Are certain comedians American versions of the public intellectual? It’s a fascinating question, and anyone interested in public intellectualism in its present forms should definitely check out this volume whose editors stress that comedians were afforded power “in the public sphere as knowledgeable and creditable articulators” of ideas in the early days of humor (4). Are they, however, afforded this power now? If so, what can they do with it?

The comedians that are presented and critiqued in this volume present a wide range of perspectives, and each brings their own particular form of questioning of the status quo to the stage. Like public intellectuals of bygone days, none is without faults, some more glaring than others, as a chapter by David Gillota on Louis C. K. foregrounds. Phil Scepanski’s historical treatment of the transformation of Chris Rock’s comedic writing in more progressive directions over the life of his career makes a similar point about his work. A chapter by Rebecca Krefting on Maria Bamford probably goes the furthest in making the case, both generically and in the particular case of Bamford, for the comedian-as-public intellectual thesis that frames the volume. As she writes, “Because they ‘see’ our culture from many angles, comedians can use humor to make the normal seem strange, so that we might reexamine our behaviors. In other words, comics scrutinize aspects of life so we have to rethink our norms” (56).

The chapters are organized in aptly titled sections. The first, “Comedic Bodies and the Body Politic,” features essays on Mo’Nique, Tig Notaro, Bobby Henline, and Maria Bamford. These chapters outline the relationship of the performer’s body to the audience and also highlight the role of “cringe” in the complicated politics of timing, bodies, and audiences, a crucial endeavor given that we are experiencing enormous upheavals in our politics and that the public itself seems so out of touch with our changing environment and the relationship of bodies to it, even while it itself is a part of it. Living in truly bizarre times in which politicians and media influencers desperately try to shore up a kind of fake sense of “normalcy” is bound to produce opportunities for comedians to highlight cringe moments to bittersweet effect. These were enjoyable essays to read.

The second section, “Complicated Subjectivities,” looks beyond the physical (whether in words, performance, or bodies) to the way that comedians explain identity and the shifting relevance of it to audiences who may not be as savvy or even paying attention. The comedians featured (Chris Rock, Lisa Lampanelli, and Louis C. K.) all perform contradictions in their routines: Rock on race and class, Lampanelli on racism and parody, and C. K. on sexism and professionalism. Raul Perez’s chapter on Lampanelli is especially adept in its tracing out of the gaping moral problem presented in her mid-2000s performances (she has since retired the act), pointing out that her protestations in interviews that she’s “not performing racism” remind the reader of other comedy examples from the time period, like South Park and The Office (British version).

The third and final section (there’s no conclusion, although I might have recommended one) is “Changing Values in America,” which centers on the increasing encroachment of technologies that shift our values on us, and the anti-intellectual response to or avoidance of such technologies. The section starts with essays on W. Kamau Bell’s “hashtag” approach to revealing racial contradictions through media and Aziz Ansari’s anthropology of social media. In the middle, we are treated to a lively chapter on Stewart Huff...