An ethnographic perspective on downtown comedy in New York City
Item
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Title
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An ethnographic perspective on downtown comedy in New York City
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:abe6b6c31670:11962
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identifier
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12626
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Creator
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Jones, Amy M.,
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Contributor
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Vincent Crapanzano
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Date
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2013
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Cultural anthropology | Performing arts | comedy | irony | New York | performance | performativity
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Abstract
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This dissertation is based on an ethnographic investigation of the "downtown" or "alternative" comedy scene in New York City. Downtown comedy emerged as a production model for live performances in the mid-1990s, and its objective was to provide comics with opportunities to try out new or experimental material. Audiences were drawn to this quasi-workshopping environment by a low cost of admission, and an interest in seeing new work in its formative stages. As of this writing, the scene in New York is robust, and has cultivated a loyal fan base in addition to launching the careers of many well-known comics. Participants have successfully cultivated a social sphere that nurtures certain innovative forms of performance and social interaction.;A central theoretical concern of the project was to better understand the mechanics and operation of linguistic performativity. Comedy entails a performative risk---audience members may be mobilized to empathy, appreciation, and even adulation, or they may reject the comic, resulting in ego-injury. Comics are thus enacting an existential drama of self-articulation, and how audience members relate to this drama serves to determine what constitutes efficacious or felicitous speech. Experimental comedy, moreover, can be highly provocative or transgressive, challenging deeply-rooted conceptual frameworks or social conventions. Such provocations often result in microscale crisis moments in the liminoid, leisure-oriented space of the performance venue. A "good" punchline, and the audience laughter that follows it, resonates as the explosive emergence of an entertaining public secret.;Via a combination of ethnography and formal analysis, I trace the reception of specific jokes, the process of commodification of comics via live performances and mass media outlets, and the affective resonances that circulate within this self-described "community". I document the contributions of community members in developing and enforcing the criteria for what constitutes "comedic authority" in this context. I conclude that the transgressive dimension of this authority is often paired with the exercise of unmarked forms of social power. The fault lines of social power along which comics implicitly position themselves, and which are investigated here, include those of race, gender, sexuality, and mental health.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Anthropology
