Blog Post 5 - Knapp

I found “Hannah Gadsby: On the Limits of Satire” a cool in-depth analysis of why stand up comedy is such a great way to unpack difficult subject matter. In the reading, Rebecca Krefting covers how Hannah Gadspy uses satire to talk about gender violence, sexual assult, and homophia, all while keeping an audience laughing and engagned. While stand-up comedy isn’t necessarily a conversation, there’s still an interesting dialogue being exchanged between the comedian and the audience’s reactions. “Gadsby uses comedy to interrogate comedy and the ways production and consumption are gendered, among them the pressure placed on women to self-deprecate in order to satisfy gendered cultural values and expectations of femininity.” Gadsby is using the medium not just to entertain, but to challenge expectations of her identity, which is what makes her comedy special subversive.

The writing about this comedy special reminds me about the controversy around Dave Chapelle’s stand-up comedy special from a few years ago. Chapelle is known for his edgy style of humor, but he often doesn’t comment in detail on social political topics, but he gave his opinion on how he didn’t quite understand transgender people. This sparked quite a bit of backlash but I don’t think it was warranted. I’m not defending Chapelle or jokes he might have made in the past, but I think it’s important that we allow space for things like this to be said. There was no malus intended towards transgender people, and I think that having room in stnad-up comedy for comedias to represent their true selves is important for the medium.