Laughter as dissensus: Kant and the limits of normative theorizing around laughter

Giamario, Patrick T.

doi:10.1057/s41296-020-00447-9

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The ability to speak and laugh freely is at the heart of the issue that modern comedians experience. Laughter, as theorized by Kant, "is an intensely dialectical experience" (Giamario, 2021 which can be compared to the act of speaking in its ability to disrupt or transform "the ways subjects see and hear the world" as well as "organize and structure a political community" (Giamario, 2021). Comedians, then, whose industry is based on laughter, find themselves in a precarious situation wherein they hold great social and political power in their ability to make audiences laugh.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Has Comedy Been Cancelled? the Impact of Cancel Culture on Controversial Comedy

Spagnuolo

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

As discussions about inclusion and equity continue to gain importance in Western society, the methods used to achieve this sentiment have become increasingly contentious and highly debated. One of the most controversial methods to arise from this social awakening is cancel culture. The rise of cancel culture has affected many sectors of society, but is most notably present in the entertainment industry. Comedy, as one of the more political facets of entertainment, has experienced a colossal struggle against proponents of cancel culture since its subversive nature often clashes with the ideals of the cancel culture movement. This research investigates the effects of cancel culture on controversial comedy by examining two case studies in which comedians have faced negative criticism for their acts, one which takes place before the accepted rise of cancel culture, and the other which is situated directly in the height of the cancel culture era. These case studies are analyzed by collecting relevant Tweets and news articles which are then inspected using socio-political discourse analysis (SPDA) and a specific codebook. The findings of this study suggest that while cancel culture may not be silencing or censoring comedians, audience responses have certainly changed in a myriad of ways as a result of the cancel culture movement. Consequently, comedians are placed under more scrutiny by audiences and their offensive behaviour is more likely to be discussed, which heightens the possibility of comedians facing negative effects. This research also revealed a significant increase in calls for action against offending comedians, which translates to an increased risk of consequences for what audiences deem to be "undesirable" behaviour. Finally, this study demonstrates the critical role that social media plays in a comedian's fate; the data highlights the impressive significance of social media opinions on both comedy networks and other media outlets.

show abstract

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Has Comedy Been Cancelled? the Impact of Cancel Culture on Controversial Comedy

Spagnuolo

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The figures of the 'second modernity' were marginal, and through marginality they gained their privileged status to capture realities of social life beyond official discourse. In the Anglo-American context this article traces, theorists have noted a shift toward the mainstream for comedy (Smith 2021;Giamario, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Is laughter that punches up good, and laughter that punches down bad (Limon, 2009)? Kant's Critique of Judgement (2007Judgement ( [1790) remained uncertain (Giamario, 2020). Initially, Kant drew a categorical distinction between the way people embody humour: 'A person with whom such variations are not a matter of choice is said to have humours, but if a person can assume them voluntarily … he and his way of speaking are termed humorous' (Kant, 2007(Kant, [1790: 164, original emphasis).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have a vision of transcendence where being unable to escape oneself is, nevertheless, oriented to going beyond oneself through the twin processes of the joke-work: pathos and bathos, inclusion and exclusion, in one and the same moment. While Kant (2007Kant ( [1790: 160-4) reasoned that jokes and laughter appeal to the body, not the intellect, the intellect is far more central to his claims (Giamario, 2020). The talent for humour is: being able to put oneself at will into a certain frame of mind in which everything is judged on lines that do not follow the beaten track (quite the contrary) and yet on lines that follow certain principles, rational in the case of such mental temperament.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The sad clown paradox: A theory of comic transcendence

Smith

2022

International Journal of Cultural Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

One prevailing cultural sensibility of our time is a concern with the state of our mental health, another is our obligation and desire for a good ‘sense of humour’. At present the two are conflated, most often through a long-standing cultural trope: the sad clown paradox – those who make us laugh the most tend to be the most prone to mental health problems. This article views the ‘sad clown paradox’ as less about the peculiarity or exceptional status of a comedian's mind, more about how the cognitive burdens of modernity are rendered bearable and collectively recognised in thought and sentiment by humour. Accounts of comedy and mental health conflate good comedy with mental anguish. By unpacking this knotted relationship, it is argued that comedian's humour performs a way for contemporary people to deal with modernity's fragmentary character of life from within their own inner worlds and selves.

show abstract

“…38(5) 53-71 are invited to question the permissibility of these realities through the medium of comedy. But my purpose in this article is not to adjudicate upon the merits of using comedy when addressing the political present (for this see Giamario, 2020). Instead, the aim is to step in-between these divisions and ask why the desire to use comedy to address these problems arises, and what the ethics underlying these investments consist of.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Joke-Secret and an Ethics of Modern Individuality: From Freud to Simmel

Smith

2021

Theory, Culture & Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Why has comedy become one of our most abiding ethical preoccupations as well as a dominant mode of political critique? It is suggested that comedy appeals to contemporary persons because it provides an apt social-aesthetic form through which to face up to living with others at a time when it is hard to bear others or otherness. The article outlines an ethics of modern individuality by developing a theory of comedy as more about building social bonds and finding out what could be shared knowledge and experience than the toppling of dominant modes of thought or repudiating our mutuality with others. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s ‘The Law of the Individual’, the article develops a Simmelian reading of Freud’s Jokes to argue that comedy is one solution to resolving our mutual un-alikeness by way of forging knotted paths toward recognising how we could be alike.

show abstract

Laughter as dissensus: Kant and the limits of normative theorizing around laughter

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

Has Comedy Been Cancelled? the Impact of Cancel Culture on Controversial Comedy

Has Comedy Been Cancelled? the Impact of Cancel Culture on Controversial Comedy

The sad clown paradox: A theory of comic transcendence

The Joke-Secret and an Ethics of Modern Individuality: From Freud to Simmel

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About