The Refractive Comic: Nanette and Comedy From Inside Identity

Abstract

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).

Performing pregnancy: Comic content, critique and ambivalence in pregnant stand-up comedy

“…However, in recent years we have seen some comedians performing stand-up comedy while pregnant and referring directly to their pregnancy. Pregnant stand-up comedy emerges from a contemporary context that centres the consumer potential of maternal femininities, comedy focusing on gender issues under ‘popular feminism’ (Banet-Weiser, 2018) and an inclusive ‘millennial-era of resistive stand-up comedy’ that celebrates a ‘non-dominant perspective’ (Bennett, 2022: n.p.). These new pregnancy representations warrant critical reflection.…”

“…Stott (2005: 98) provides another explanation for the reluctance to refer directly to a comedian's pregnancy, arguing that such 'treatment of women speaks not so much of a risible and caricatured sexuality, but a fear of female corporeality and the reproductive consequences of male fantasy'. Recent research on the representational politics of television comedy combines textual analysis with analysis of the industrial/economic context to reveal tensions and ambivalences surrounding identity-based performances (see Bennett, 2022;Krefting, 2019;Marx, 2019). In his analysis of Comedy Central comedies such as Inside Amy Schumer and Broad City, Marx observes that when Comedy Central's industrial context is considered the 'seemingly progressive and feminist meanings of these shows shift' as it serves to 'reaffirm the power of its longtime audience of straight white men' (Marx, 2019: 126).…”

“…Similarly, in her analysis of race in the comedy Little Britain, Malik observes that it 'manages, in different ways, to produce a range of readings that might be determined as either inferentially or overtly racist or anti-racist in the same episode, sketch and even representational moment' (2010: 76; see also Lockyer, 2010 on ambivalence in class comedy). Ambivalence becomes central to understanding comedy when textual analysis combines with industrial/economic analysis to illustrate how commercial media serves to undermine comedic cultural critique (see Bennett, 2022;Krefting, 2019;Marx, 2019).…”

“…As Tomsett observes, these successes link to a broader feminist context whereby feminist campaigns and activities have become increasingly prevalent in mainstream culture (Tomsett, 2017: 57–8; see also Banet-Weiser, 2018). In addition, they link to broader market decisions based on ‘Western millenial values of inclusion’ (Bennett, 2022: n.p. ).…”