[ecrea] Book Announcement: Comic Performativities: Identity, Internet Outrage, and the Aesthetics of Communication

Comic Performativities: Identity, Internet Outrage, and the Aesthetics 
of Communication

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


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