Tragedy Plus Time : : National Trauma and Television Comedy / / Philip Scepanski.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Scepanski, Philip,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.)

Following the most solemn moments in recent American history, comedians have tested the limits of how soon is “too soon” to joke about tragedy. Comics confront the horrifying events and shocking moments that capture national attention and probe the acceptable, or “sayable,” boundaries of expression that shape our cultural memory. In Tragedy Plus Time, Philip Scepanski examines the role of humor, particularly televised comedy, in constructing and policing group identity and memory in the wake of large-scale events. Tragedy Plus Time is the first comprehensive work to investigate tragedy-driven comedy in the aftermaths of such traumas as the JFK assassination and 9/11, as well as during the administration of Donald Trump. Focusing on the mass publicization of television comedy, Scepanski considers issues of censorship and memory construction in the ways comedians negotiate emotions, politics, war, race, and Islamophobia. Amid the media frenzy and conflicting expressions of grief following a public tragedy, comedians provoke or risk controversy to grapple publicly with national traumas that all Americans are trying to understand for themselves.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Broadcast nationalism, national trauma, and television comedy -- Chapter 1 The Kennedy assassination and the growth of sick humor on American television -- Chapter 2 Censored comedies and comedies of censorship -- Chapter 3 Emotional nonconformity in comedy -- Chapter 4 Conspiracy theories and comedy -- Chapter 5 African American comedies and the 1992 Los Angeles riots -- Chapter 6 Television comedy and Islamophobia after 9/11 -- Chapter 7 Comedy and Trump as trauma in Narrowcast America -- Conclusion -- Afterword -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index