This essay theorizes a millennial-era iteration of stand-up comedy: refractive comedy. Through close textual analysis of Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette (2018), I argue refractive comedy alters the message, affective nature, and form of stand-up comedy through a rejection of the dominant worldview and subsequent centering of marginalized standpoints. This essay examines Gadsby’s refraction in a broader discourse of industrial and cultural, gendered, and racial gatekeeping. I examine how refractive comedy, additionally, has inspired critical conversation on comedy’s role in relation to shared and collective trauma, as seen in Bo Burnham’s Inside (2021).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.