The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy Patrice A. Oppliger 9783030372163

This book focuses on the "dark side" of stand-up comedy, initially inspired by speculations surrounding the death of comedian Robin Williams. Contributors, those who study humor as well as those who perform comedy, join together to contemplate the paradoxical relationship between tragedy and comedy and expose over-generalizations about comic performers' troubled childhoods, addictions, and mental illnesses. The book is divided into two sections. First, scholars from a variety of disciplines explore comedians' onstage performances, their offstage lives, and the relationship between the two. The second half of the book focuses on amateur and lesser-known professional comedians who reveal the struggles they face as they attempt to hone successful comedy acts and likable comic personae. The goal of this collection is to move beyond the hackneyed stereotype of the sad clown in order to reveal how stand-up comedy can transform both personal and collective tragedies by providing catharsis through humor.

About the Author

Patrice Oppliger is Assistant Professor of Mass Communication at Boston University, USA. Her most recent book is Tweencoms Girls: Gender and Adolescence in Disney and Nickelodeon Sitcoms.

Eric Shouse is Associate Professor of Communication at East Carolina University, USA. His work has been published in HUMOR, Comedy Studies, and Text and Performance Quarterly.

Reviews
"The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy reminds us that tragedy can be equally the source, target, inspiration, and frictional underside of our laughter ... . The Dark Side of Stand-Up Comedy provides an important introduction to an obviously germane aspect of the form and is very welcome in the rapidly emerging field of (Stand up) comedy studies." (Antti Lindfors, The European Journal of Humour Research, Vol. 10 (2), 2022)



Book Information
ISBN 9783030372163
Author Patrice A. Oppliger
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Series Palgrave Studies in Comedy
Weight(grams) 454g