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Paper short abstract:

On and offstage, stand-up comedians will defend their offensive material by reaffirming the “role” of the comedian as inveterate truthteller, permitted to leave no topic unexplored. In dialogue with a stand-up comedy artworld, this comprises an effort to define both comedy and the comedian.

Paper long abstract:

Building on the tacit assumption that the “role” of the stand-up comedian is in part to be an inveterate truthteller, and as such has tacit permission to leave no topic unexplored, comedians who have been called to account for offensive material have taken the opportunity to reaffirm this role, in turn attempting to define both comedy and the comedian. This occurs both on and offstage: that is to say, in fora where the comedian is in a ludically-framed imbalanced dialogue with a co-present audience where the primary demonstration of cognitive and aesthetic appreciation is laughter, and those where laughter is not the primary objective and the relationship with the audience is notably different. Critics from within and without the stand-up comedy artworld engage in similar and complementary discussions, in turn invoking and (re)shaping these definitions. Finally, transgressions may not be onstage verbal performances but offstage real-world actions which, in turn, can become partly accounted for through direct or indirect allusion to the character of “stand-up comedian.” This paper is an early effort to frame the issue of “going too far” within both the vernacular and academic literatures on comedy and taboo.