Book Announcement: Comic Performativities: Identity, Internet Outrage, and the Aesthetics of Communication by Dustin Bradley Goltz

Dustin Bradley Goltz

Routledge, 2017

https://www.routledge.com/Comic-Performativities-Identity-Internet-Outrage-and-the-Aesthetics/Goltz/p/book/9781138742604

Comic Performativities studies patterns of criticism and public debate in the relationship between humour, identity, and offense. In an increasingly reductive and politically charged debate, right-wing pundits argue leftist politics has compromised a free and open discussion, while scholars take right-wing critics to task for reifying systems of oppression under the guise of reason and respect. In response, Goltz scrutinizes twenty-first century "comedic controversies," the notion of "political correctness," and the so-called "outrage machine" of social media. How should we appropriately determine whether a joke is "sexist," "racist," or "offensive"?

Informed by communication, performance, and critical identity theory, Goltz examines infamous controversies involving performers like Sarah Silverman, Amy Schumer, and Seth MacFarlane, and the social media backlash that redefined these events. He investigates the ironic interplay between spoken word, identity, physicality and, as a result, the contrasting meanings potentially construed. Consequently, the book encourages a greater appreciation of the aesthetics involved in comedic performance that help signpost interpretation and emphasizes the role of the audience as self-reflexive and self-aware.

This book highlights the significant parallels between the nature of performance art and comedic performance in order to elevate analysis of, and discussion around, contemporary comedy. In doing so, it is an important critical contribution to the field of performance studies and cultural criticism, as well as communication studies and social media, at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: what Rock Said: Don't Tweet This

  1.  Ironic Performativity: Amy Schumer and the Conventions of Embodiment

  2.  The End of the Discussion: The Crisis of Judgment

  3.  The joke is on YOU: Audience Contexts, Criticisms, and Investments

  4.  "We Saw Your Boobs": "Bro Camp" and Subversive Coaching

  5.  Conclusion: Racial Humor and Performing White Innocence

Reviews:

This book shows why humor and our responses to it matter. … Rarely has performance been more clearly and consequentially articulated, dialogue more subversively coached, nor aesthetics so vitally defended. Comic Performativities implicates the entire cultural landscape in a compelling appeal for more self-reflexivity, dialogue, and art.

  -       Kristin M. Langellier, Professor Emerita of Communication and Journalism, University of Maine.

By examining “comic controversies,” Dustin Goltz reminds us … that comedy is not always just entertainment, but can cross into politics and philosophy and become part of socio-cultural struggles. Grounded in communication and performance theory, we as readers come to understand more deeply the reigning comedic controversies of our time and the need for self-reflexivity when thinking about comedy and politics.

  -       Kent Ono, Professor in and Chair of Department of Communication, University of Utah

With clarity and insight, Goltz offers a much-needed analysis of comic performativity. Through consideration of hotly contested comic controversies, he deftly provides a critical template for evaluating the aesthetic, rhetorical, and political dimensions of stand-up comedy, elucidating the importance of audience investment and appropriation in the evolving new media landscape.

  -       Joanne Gilbert, Charles A. Dana Professor of Communication and New Media Studies, Alma College