This book argues that recent developments in contemporary comedy have changed not just the way we laugh but the way we understand the world. Drawing on a range of contemporary televisual, cinematic and digital examples, from Seinfeld and Veep to Family Guy and Chappelle's Show, Holm explores how humour has become a central site of cultural politics in the twenty-first century. More than just a form of entertainment, humour has come to play a central role in the contemporary media environment, shaping how we understand ideas of freedom, empathy, social boundaries and even logic. Through an analysis of humour as a political and aesthetic category, Humour as Politics challenges older models of laughter as a form of dissent and instead argues for a new theory of humour as the cultural expression of our (neo)liberal moment.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
1. Introduction: Living in Comic Times. - 2. Dissent in Jest: Humour in the Liberal Moment. - 3. Telling Jokes to Power: The (A)Political Work of Humour. - 4. Humour without Anaesthetic: The Discomfort of Reality Comedy. - 5. Humour without Pity: The Scandal of Provocative Humour. - 6. Humour without Reason: The Nonsense of Absurd Humour. - 7. All That is Solid Collapses into Giggles: Examining the Political Aesthetics of Contemporary Humour. - 8. Conclusion: The Last Laugh.
