Abstract
This article considers the normative and critical value of popular comedy. I begin by assembling and evaluating a range of political theory literature on comedy. I argue that popular comedy can be conducive to both critical and transformative democratic effects, but that these effects are contingent on the way comedic performances are received by audiences. I illustrate this by means of a case study of a comedic climate change ‘debate’ from the television show,
In a 2014 episode of his weekly television program,
This article considers how political theory might treat performances like these, where comedy or comedic rhetoric is employed in ways that do not conform to the normative expectations of democratic theories. I argue that these kinds of popular comedic performances can prompt deliberation, reflective judgment and democratic will formation by facilitating what I call a ‘dissonant’ reception. I begin by assembling and evaluating a range of political theory literature on comedy. I argue that popular comedy can be conducive to both critical and transformative democratic effects, but that these effects are contingent on the way comedic performances are received by audiences. In the second half of the article, I examine
Comedy and political theory
Many works of political theory focus on tragedy. Indeed, tragic texts, like Sophocles’
Curiously, comparatively less has been written in the discipline of political theory on comedy. 3 This is odd not just because attending comedic plays (like attending tragic ones) was an important feature of Athenian civic life, but also because comic genres are very popular today – particularly as a foray into the political. Many of the most watched television programs and movies are comedies, and comedic late-night shows are frequently cited as a primary source of news, especially among younger audiences. 4 There is reason to assume that comedy’s political influence may be high, and, indeed, an empirical literature exists exploring precisely this question. 5
When political theory does engage comedy, it is often to suggest that comedy is worthy of analysis insofar as it is popular. 6 That is, comedy is significant in so far as people consume it. Alternatively, comedy is sometimes addressed as a conservative force – one which perpetuates the status quo or promotes the interests of the elite. Horkheimer and Adorno’s criticisms of the ‘culture industry’ stand out, 7 but so too do more contemporary critiques. In a chapter comparing ‘old’ (Attic) and ‘new’ (television) comedy, J. Peter Euben, for example, highlights the disdain with which many scholars regard television comedy. Euben summarizes eleven reasons why television programs – particularly situation comedies – are regarded as a deeply conservative, anti-political, anti-democratic and anti-emancipatory force by critics. 8 The case goes: television often acts only to get us to buy more stuff, tune out of politics or make us feel good about the status quo – even if it is deeply flawed. In situation comedies, potentially troubling news is put right at the end of 22-minutes of action, resolving any ‘dissonance’ or discomfort the shows might have caused. This neat resolution means the emancipatory or critical potential of much of popular comedy is muted at best. 9 This criticism is echoed by professional comedians, such as Hannah Gadsby, who questions whether she should give up comedy altogether because of its conservative ramifications and structure. For Gadsby, comedy can facilitate the cathartic release of tension, thereby enabling audiences to avoid acknowledging difficult subjects. 10 Further, comedy can function to entrench oppression by preying on the already oppressed (e.g. racist or antifeminist jokes), and there is a philosophical literature exploring how and in what ways these types of humour may contribute to racism, sexism, etc. 11 In these accounts, comedy can contribute to oppressive beliefs and practices by tapping into or furthering destructive prejudices.
However, comedy can also be theorized as critical, emancipatory or democratically beneficial. In what follows, I assemble and scrutinize some of the literature on this topic, contributing a perspective focused on the receptive effects of comedic performances. I argue that comedy can produce critical and positive transformative effects, but caution that these effects are contingent on how the comedy is received. I then illustrate the importance of reception via an analysis of the
Comedy as critical and transformative
Arguments have been made for comedy possessing both episodic and enduring transformative benefits. One of the more common claims made by those arguing for comedy’s episodic impact is that laughter can prompt people to confront their own and each other’s biases and prejudices, combating what Clarissa Hayward calls our ‘motivated ignorance’ about subjects we choose not to acknowledge due to the psychological costs. 12 To this end, laughter among citizens may facilitate a type of democratic exchange that does not require the erasure of difference, and which might prompt reciprocal practices of reflection.
There are both interpersonal and societal variants of this claim. John Lombardini, for example, takes interpersonal exchanges as paradigmatic, arguing that Aristotle’s conception of ‘wittiness’ can inform ‘a contemporary ethos of democratic laughter’.
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This is the case because laughing with ‘friends, enemies, and strangers with whom we disagree’ may prompt agonistic practices of reflection.
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While helpful for pointing towards cognitive and dispositional benefits, analyses that foreground the interpersonal tell us little about relatively one-sided comedic exchanges, such as those we find with television comedies, where there is considerable asymmetry between the joke-teller and the audience. For Lombardini, for example, trust and reciprocity are required for comedy not to devolve into antagonism, and wittiness works best within what Lombardini calls ‘virtue friendships’ – a level of very close friendship beyond what we could ask for with most people with whom we engage in discursive exchange, let alone what we could hope for with comedians who we watch on television.
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With popular media, like
A different approach is therefore needed for asymmetric comedic performances. One avenue is to evaluate humour from a ‘systemic approach’, 16 where humour is considered based on its ability to advance various functions within broad democratic systems. While he does not explicitly use the language of deliberative systems, Sammy Basu argues that humour has cognitive, dispositional and political democratic functions, which are tracible to humour’s ability to interrupt or ‘suspend’ ordinary arrangements, enabling new and different ways of seeing and associating. 17 Cognitively, ‘humour dilates the mind’, permitting us to play with ideas or view them in new lights. 18 Dispositionally, humour prompts ‘ease, modesty and tolerance’, democratic virtues that Basu sees as conducive to democratic deliberation. 19 Most importantly, politically, humour ‘lubricates’, provides ‘friction’ and also acts as a ‘glue’. 20 That is, comedy provides avenues for new issues to be put on the table (it lubricates), it can allow for dissent and criticism to be both raised and heard (it creates friction), and it can do all of this while reducing societal tensions and creating citizen bonds (it acts as a social glue). In other words, humour provides normative rupturing in order to facilitate new ways of thinking and acting regardless of whether the humour emerges from symmetrical or asymmetrical exchanges. Indeed, Euben makes a similar claim, noting that comedy, at its best, can break taboos and allow an audience to ‘[laugh] at its own prejudices’. 21
In these accounts, humour provides epistemic democratic benefits, including potentially emancipatory ones. Echoing Iris Marion Young, Basu, for example, argues that too narrow a conception of political communication marginalizes oppressed groups who may communicate differently than do those with power. Additionally, treating comedic rhetoric as non-serious forecloses affectively attuned forms of communication. Driving home this point, Charles Mills frequently began his lectures on philosophy and race by making his audience laugh. He explains: ‘I use humour not just because discussing oppression can be disheartening but because—especially for the largely white audiences of philosophy events—it disarms people, and gets the message across more effectively than through accusation and straight polemic’. 22 Marrying the serious and the comedic enables audiences to delve into uncomfortable ground with greater ease.
Moving beyond comedy’s episodic functions, comedy has also been said to possess more lasting attributes. Lars Tønder, for example, argues that ‘comic acts’ make ‘
A similar claim is made by communication studies theorist Robert Hariman, who argues that comedy serves both critical and constitutive functions, which conventionally eloquent deliberation, civility, etc., cannot serve. Indeed, Hariman goes further than Tønder, arguing that without parodic contributions to the public sphere, the very ground upon which we make and sustain claims might dissipate. 28 Parody is essential because it takes an object of understanding and turns it into an ‘image of itself’, enabling epistemic play which is facilitated by the critical distancing made possible by parodic mimesis. 29 This epistemic play, in turn, enables forms of knowing that conventionally eloquent speech precludes and it adds to societal pluralism by broadcasting new and different perspectives. Hariman writes, ‘When the weight of authority is converted into an image, resistance and other kinds of response become more available to more people’. 30 Once this happens, we are able to laugh at the image humour produces, subverting its power, allowing us to see with new eyes and restructure our ideas and actions accordingly. Hence, Hariman posits, ‘Were every speaker a Pericles and every discussion a model of rational-critical debate, we would be in deep trouble’. 31
I agree with Lombardini, Basu, Euben, Mills, Tønder and Hariman that comedic exchanges and comedic rhetoric more generally can have profound critical and transformative effects, which are significant for democratic politics. I argue, however, that these effects are conditional on how the comedy is received by audiences. Are comic acts received in a way that induces reflection or in a way that confirms existing biases? What prevents comedic rhetoric from being received as merely a cathartic release or as simply an assertion of superiority by those ‘in’ on the joke? Most importantly, might there be attributes specific or intrinsic to comedy itself that facilitate critically engaged forms of reception rather than more complacent ones?
In what follows, I argue that the reception of comedic rhetoric informs the political effects it will go on to produce. However, I see comedy as especially suited to shaping its own reception compared to other kinds of rhetoric, and to do so in ways that foster critical reflection. I attribute this to comedy’s ability to facilitate what I call dissonant modes of reception. Not all comedy facilitates dissonance and not all audiences will receive a given piece of rhetoric in the same way, but comedic rhetoric, I argue, is especially likely to produce dissonant receptions and thereby facilitate reflective judgment. To illustrate the importance of reception as well as dissonance, I turn now to John Oliver’s ‘climate change debate’, which I unpack from the perspective of a critical/democratic rhetorical theory. I show how this comedic performance may play both critical and transformative functions, depending on how it is received by audiences. I argue that the comedic form of the sketch increases the likelihood that the ‘debate’ will be received by audiences as ‘dissonant’, thereby promoting acknowledgement and reflective judgment.
Last Week Tonight and the politics of democratic debate
John Oliver’s weekly television program,
Oliver’s ability to maintain viewership even given these unusual program features is testament to a point that is addressed by many of the theorists covered thus far in this article: if a topic is made aesthetically pleasing, amusing, enjoyable or funny, audiences are likely to listen (and continue to listen) even if the topic is not immediately interesting to them or is uncomfortable and difficult. The items covered on
Unlike the politics of dialysis, climate change does not lack public awareness (although many still do not deem it to be a particularly serious issue).
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While some politicians have made addressing climate change central to their platforms, actions taken so far have been insufficient to address the many threats posed. Because media representation is linked to public will formation, it is not uncommon to hear calls for greater and more informed media attention.
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This is not to say that climate change is never discussed in the news-media; it clearly is.
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However, it is precisely the issue of
News programs frequently discuss climate change (and other significant issues) by way of a debate or other forms of ostensibly serious competitive or argumentative discursive exchange. Typically, these debates have a similar number of participants on various sides of issues, although there are exceptions – particularly with explicitly partisan media, where one side might be overrepresented or where the host might choose a side rather than act as facilitator. Climate change coverage often proceeds in this manner, with participants brought in to advocate a position on questions like: is climate change occurring? is it caused primarily by human actions? and, most importantly, what should be done about it? Sometimes these debates are consensus-oriented; other times the debates are agonistic. Either way, normatively, the aim is that audiences who witness these debates are offered a range of perspectives, allowing for more ‘objective’ or less partial or one-sided ways of viewing. If this occurs, audiences will be provided with the resources to make more informed judgments and decisions.
This practice of airing debates or discussions seems to correspond to the normative expectations of both deliberative and agonistic variants of democratic theory. Participants present perspectives, they exchange in reason-giving, and they are provided an opportunity to question each other, thereby scrutinizing each other’s reasons and presuppositions. Audiences watching at home are given a chance to witness a range of perspectives, which are vetted and contested by dialogue and exchange. If the debate is fair and conducted in a way that seeks to amplify propositional rather than strategic content (to the extent these are distinguishable), audiences are provided an opportunity to use their own capacity for reason to decide on the most persuasive position and are given resources to defend that position. Generally, the hope, to speak with Habermas, is that these performances will provide a platform for ‘the forceless force of the better argument’ 38 to be distillable for audiences.
A number of potential criticisms emerge when we consider televised debates on issues like climate change. One might ask if television debates can ever do a reasonable job separating propositional and strategic content. These debates are often more about scoring points, hitting soundbites, and appeasing a base of support than they are about ideational exchange or contest. Further, in an age of conspiracy theory, alternative facts and wilful (or motivated) ignorance, how much faith should we put in the idea that, all things being equal, good reasons will prevail over weaker ones? While we might be uncomfortable with deferring to expert knowledge (something that motivates many of the authors discussed above), in a world where, for example, ‘flat earthers’ are growing in number despite overwhelming evidence that the earth is round, downplaying the privileged opinions of experts may be dangerous.
These are not, however, Oliver’s principal criticisms of climate change debates specifically and television debates generally. They are also not the criticisms I seek to make in this article. I see two main criticisms at work in
The second critique Oliver’s sketch offers concerns sober and ‘rational’ discourse and debate itself. To this end,
These forms of debate are
More concerning, however, are the
Thus, even if the rhetoric of deniers is not immediately successful in convincing audiences, it may have the slow-forming, iterative effect of transforming worldviews, by way of transforming the linguistic worlds in which people are situated. Because linguistic worlds and horizons, to borrow Gadamer’s term, 42 are not rigid with clearly demarcated borders, but are blurry and always changing, the language that we receive has profound effects on us moving forward in time. If, as we grow used to them, these debates and the positions being espoused in them are increasingly unsurprising, what once might have seemed like a fringe view can become increasingly normalized and then acceptable. Thus, the more we witness these debates, the more the perspectives on offer entrench themselves. 43
In the skit, Oliver points to a feature of many television climate change debates that makes this problem particularly acute. The issue: the speaker defending the scientific consensus is very frequently the same person across various networks and debates – Bill Nye, The Science Guy. A possible effect of repeatedly having the same person represent one side of the debate is that viewers might come to see the perspective as associated with only that one person, and not the vast majority of the scientific community. This is especially problematic given that Bill Nye is someone who is perhaps most famous for having a television show designed for children, making him more dismissible as an expert for some audiences.
Thus, a typical way climate change is addressed on television news-media – debate and discourse – may not only do a poor job of prompting reflective judgment, it may contribute to the entrenchment of climate change denial due to resonant receptive effects. Oliver, however, provides an alternative, which is born from comedy and is productively captured as ‘dissonant rhetoric’.
Dissonant comedy and democratic non-debate
What makes Oliver’s sketch particularly interesting is not simply that it is critical of common forms of mediation. Rather, what is most significant is that the show provides a transformative alternative for climate change coverage. The show’s comic, cacophonous and parodic ‘statistically representative climate change debate’ not only proposes an alternative form of climate change mediation, it performs it.
Oliver claims that if these debates must occur, they should do so in a way that is representative of the scientific consensus. Oliver, therefore, assembles 100 debate participants and crowds them onto his stage. Three ‘debaters’ represent the 3% of scientists who are sceptical of climate change, 97 ‘debaters’ represent the 97% of scientists who agree, at least minimally, that climate change is real, caused predominantly by human actions and is of serious concern. The debate begins with Oliver briefly inviting one of the three climate change deniers to speak. He then asks for a response from the 96 scientists (and Bill Nye, The Science Guy), who all talk at once, rendering any specific claim undiscernible. Before long all 100 participants join in on the cacophony, rendering it impossible for viewers to distinguish any single view expressed by any one participant. Viewers are left with no choice but to take the performance itself (the non-debate) as the object of understanding, rather than any specific claim made by any of the debate participants. The only speaker whose voice the audience is able to make out clearly is Oliver himself, who says against a background of undecipherable noise, ‘this whole debate should not have happened’. 39
Oliver does, however, arrange for the debate to ‘happen’, albeit not in a way that corresponds to how we might view debates normally unfolding. There is no reason-giving, no arguments are made and no positions can be heard. The debate both occurs and it does not occur. It is a debate in form, but not a debate in substance.
This comedic non-debate, I argue, has the potential to make an important contribution to the public sphere, acting as a kind of rupture. More than simply providing the ‘friction’ that Basu argues comedy can provide, the non-debate disrupts the regular flow of typical media occurrences. The experience of watching the debate is likely to stand out as it is both contrary to our normative expectations of debates and is laughter-inducing. Because of its absurdity, the debate creates, not just an ‘image’ of climate change media in the sense that Hariman uses the term, but one that is discomforting, unexpected and jarring. Stated differently, the performance is disruptive not simply because it presents an image of a debate that is substantially different from typical debates but because the comedic cacophony of the performance itself is discordant and noteworthy.
Disruption itself, however, need not be normatively or critically productive. Rather, disruption (comedically induced or not), can be a vehicle for manipulation. We may be warned that a crisis is occurring (e.g. by being told that a group of people are out to get us), which may well be experienced as disruptive. The fear created by this disruption can then be manipulated into support for policies that many may not have supported otherwise. Disruption can also function to release social tension, which can relieve people from dwelling on those matters which are uncomfortable. Indeed, as comedian Hannah Gadsby remarks, unproductive comedy can do this, allowing people to laugh their way out of difficult situations or uncomfortable truths. 44
The non-debate, however, has two features, which are facilitated by its comedy, that increase the likelihood that it will be received not merely as disruptive, but potentially as
These two features, which are facilitated by the show’s comedy, greatly increase the likelihood that the vignette will be received as dissonant. The performance is conducive to reflection or evaluative judgment because the comedic form brings audiences in and the comedic (lack of) resolution pushes audiences to do work themselves to make sense of what they have witnessed.
While this may be the best-case reception, this reception is made possible by the vignette’s comedy. It is the comedy of Oliver’s vignette that make it unlikely that it will be received in stride; that it will be received as resonant. If Oliver’s mediation was not comedic, if it were a typical debate, for example, it would not have the same receptive effects. Comedy is, thus, key to the positive episodic and transformative effects of the vignette, but these effects are conditional on the comedy facilitating dissonance. This is the case, because, first, if audiences do not find the sketch funny, they may not tune in or continue to listen when the uncomfortable fact of climate change is raised. Second, if audiences are not compelled to laugh, the sketch may not be jarring; laughter facilitates reception that is not resonant. Finally, laughter provides a different outcome than a rhetor navigating an audience to a clear and simple solution. Laughter enables dissonance to persist. It is in this sense that comedy may be especially conducive to a dissonant reception and the reflective judgment associated with it.
Deliberation and judgment
These claims contribute new insights to both deliberative theory and judgment theory. Within the ‘systemic approach’ to deliberative democracy, we can see the performance as serving both epistemic and democratic functions. Epistemically, while the non-debate may not immediately ‘produce preferences, opinions, and decisions that are appropriately informed by facts and logic and are the outcome of substantive and meaningful consideration of relevant reasons’,
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over time, I argue, the non-debate can further these epistemic ends. Comedic dissonance can check discursive power and provide for more sustained reflection on matters of systemic concern. Comedic performances, like the one on
Additionally, the non-debate (and comedic performances like it) provide a democratic function.
Finally, comedy can also serve a third, ethical, function by criticizing practices of oppression and by broadcasting and amplifying the perspectives and opinions of the oppressed. The comedic sketch from
The positive effects I claim for comedy also fit with judgment theory. Linda Zerilli argues that acts of evaluative judgment are acts of world-building in that they contribute to and help to sustain a common world, which is predicated on a pluralism of shared ways to view common objects of understanding. When we judge, we represent and consider various viewpoints and, ultimately, contribute our own point of view, broadcasting it for others to represent in their thought. In this way, judging both relies upon and produces a ‘common world’. 50
I see Oliver’s non-debate as helpful for this world-building process. This may seem paradoxical in that Oliver is in some respects criticizing perspectival pluralism as it relates to climate change. Moreover, he is silencing (also paradoxically through the noise of a hundred people speaking at once) the perspectives of debate participants. However, all of this is done in order to facilitate the activity of judgment in audiences. While judgment is ‘ordinary’, we do not always do the best job of facilitating it. This is where comedy and dissonant rhetoric more generally can be helpful. Because it has the potential to instil dissonance, the climate change non-debate may propel citizens to judge not merely the positions of sceptics versus scientists but, more importantly, the very practices of mediation that are at work in our democracies. The objective is not for citizens to simply parrot the views of partisans who participate in television debates, which could be ineffectual in fostering genuine evaluative judgment. Instead, the ‘non-debate’ may aid in ‘enlarging our sense of worldly reality’, 51 providing us with new material which we can represent in our thought. In this way, the non-debate facilitates world building through reflective judgment and acknowledgement brought about by instigating a dissonant reception.
This is particularly significant in that comedy can motivate us to acknowledge and evaluate topics on which we might otherwise avoid dwelling. As Rob Goodman argues, judgment can be painful and carry with it ‘subjective costs’. 52 Because climate change, systemic racism, tax policy, etc., may be difficult or uncomfortable topics to either dwell upon ourselves or discuss with others, we may avoid engaging in evaluative judgment concerning them. Comedy can spur us to do so.
Comedy as dissonant rhetoric
It is my position in this article that comedy is especially suited to fostering receptive dissonance. This is not to say that all comedy guarantees a dissonant reception, nor is it to say that all comedy is productive in the way that Oliver’s sketch might be. Comedic performances can be of the type that Lombardini (and Aristotle) caution against, where would-be comics use ‘humour’ to assert superiority or belittle others. Indeed, comedy can sometimes entrench oppression by preying on the oppressed. More generally, comedic performances can be manipulative or pandering and work to foreclose evaluative or reflective judgment as in some of the eleven criticisms of ‘sitcoms’ to which Euben is responding. 53 Critical theorists should also keep in mind Gadsby’s concerns that comedy too frequently allows us to laugh our way out of seriously acknowledging or acting on societal oppression. For example, Alex Shephard argues that a 2010 comedic rally by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert failed to instigate actual change or progressive momentum because it functioned as a mechanism for audiences to feel good about themselves without doing any real political work. 54
These important critiques notwithstanding, in this article I have attempted to show that comedy also has the potential to prompt important moments of affective turbulence – instances where discordant messages are married with aesthetic attunement and remain unresolved, soliciting audiences to do the work of judgment and acknowledgement. Other types of rhetoric (such as sober debate) are less likely to prompt this kind of reception because they lack the features (aesthetic attunement and unresolved discordance) that make dissonant receptions likely.
And while not all comedy will solicit dissonance, John Oliver’s comedy is not alone in doing so. I see a similar process at play in the Marx Brothers’ lampooning of nationalism and the glorification of war in
Even Gadsby, who is highly critical of comedy because of its conservative potential, uses comedy herself to facilitate audience acknowledgement and judgment. Indeed, she delivers her criticism of comedy as a stand-up comedy routine, telling her audience, who frequently laugh at her jokes, that she wants them – especially the straight White male audience members – to experience the uncomfortable tension that arises from taking seriously the experiences of the oppressed.
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Gadsby’s ‘
Indeed, other comedians sometimes defend their comedy by highlighting the dissonance it might cause. In a famous debate concerning the uproar following the release of Monty Python’s
This is difficult, and it is difficult in a way that is perhaps best incapsulated in a notorious scene from the film. Brian is a mistaken prophet who, contrary to his own wishes, has legions of followers who desire to emulate his every act and follow every piece of advice. But this non-prophet does not want the attention and yells out to his masses of unwanted followers, ‘You’ve got to think for yourself! You are all individuals’. The crowd’s response is telling. In unison they respond: ‘Yes, we are all individuals!’ Not to let the joke end there, Brian again implores the crowd: ‘You’re all different’. Once again, in unison they respond: ‘Yes, we’re all different’. One crowd member then proclaims: ‘I’m not’. The irony of the remark and the laughter it produces both highlights the difficulty of soliciting reflective judgment in audiences and provides an opportunity for such reflection to occur.
This is not to say that the comedy of Oliver, Gadsby or Monty Python (or other popular comedians) is necessarily helpful for addressing highly divided populations, which is a role Lambardini, Basu and Hariman each see comedy as potentially filling. A comedic delivery does not guarantee global appeal. Not everyone will find the same things funny,
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nor will they do so for the same reasons. Comedy does not spring from nowhere, and those people who have self-selected into viewing
Nevertheless, rhetoric generally and comedic rhetoric specifically need not convert someone from across the political aisle in order to be critically productive. Rather, dissonant rhetoric generally, and dissonant comedy specifically, can achieve transformative effects simply by shifting how ideas fit together. It may also spur acknowledgement or action where passive compliance was formerly acceptable. While many know climate change is real, how many of us have truly acknowledged this fact and live our lives in accordance with it? 59 Further, how many of us have spent time contemplating the political consequences of talking-heads debates as a form of news mediation? By prompting dissonance, comedy invites reflective judgment and political acknowledgement.
Conclusion
While no given reception is inevitable, there are features intrinsic to popular comedic performances like
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Peggy Kohn, Simone Chambers, Ronald Beiner, Torrey Shanks, Carey DeMichelis, an anonymous reviewer, and participants in Vanderbilt University’s political theory workshop for valuable advice and feedback on this manuscript.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (756-2020-0242).
