{"product_id":"when-comedy-goes-wrong-hardback-9780253072528","title":"When Comedy Goes Wrong (Hardback) 9780253072528","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eWhen Comedy Goes Wrong\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eChristopher J. Gilbert (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780253072528\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 1 April 2025\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e244 pages, 7 b\u0026amp;w illus.\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.499 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"The debate over if you can take comedy seriously is settled: You can and you must, considering comedy's emergence as a major social force, surprisingly central to cultural discourse. This means comedy's power to unite and its power to divide demand our attention. Gilbert fortunately is willing to get his hands dirty, taking the reader deep into the latter. It won't make you feel better about everything that's happening, but you will feel like you have a better understanding of the current state of comedy and how it is being used and abused.\"—Jesse David Fox, senior editor and comedy critic at \u003ci\u003eVulture\u003c\/i\u003e, host of \u003ci\u003eGood Ones: A Podcast About Jokes\u003c\/i\u003e, and author of \u003ci\u003eComedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture—and the Magic That Makes It Work\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Brilliantly argued and deeply relevant, Gilbert tackles the darker underbelly of comedy—the kind that aspires not merely to raze the roof but to burn it all down. From the Capitol Insurrection to the alt-rights weaponization of humor, he offers a compelling critique of how comedic forms and exchanges can distort, if not altogether compromise, democratic ideals. This book is a highly readable and thought-provoking examination of how laughter can unite in order to divide, challenging readers to reconsider the redemptive power and responsibility of the comic voice in the modern world.\"—Beck Krefting, Professor of American Studies and Director of the Center for Leadership, Teaching, and Learning at Skidmore College, author of \u003ci\u003eAll Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Chris Gilbert has a keen eye to the cultural sensibilities of the moment, skillfully linking a seemingly disparate range of cultural texts, comedians, and events. He keeps those of us who study comedy honest, discouraging us from myopically examining only the objects that we personally find funny, instead compelling us to grapple with the full range of comedy—in all of its glory and malaise.\"—Amber Day, Professor of History, Literature, and the Arts at Bryant University, author of \u003ci\u003eSatire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It's often said that good comedy should punch up rather than punch down. Yet, from Joe Rogan to the carnivalesque atmosphere of insurrections, a lot of punching down now takes place under the guise of punching up. Speaking to a moment when comedy, as Chris Gilbert puts it, has become the measure of what counts as consequential, this timely book provides a sweeping lens of the topic's dark side. In an environment where the comic impulse pleads to be taken seriously and not seriously, counted and discounted, Gilbert draws our attention to the ways in which civic responsibilities and the possibilities for building together get deflected rhetorically in so many acts. Casting a spotlight on comic forms that remain unaccounted for in scholarship and unaccountable to the public interest, this fascinating, well-written book is a critical contribution for understanding how comedy can as easily bring out the worst as we pursue the best of which humanity is capable.\"—Don Waisanen, Professor of Public Affairs at Baruch College, author of \u003ci\u003eImprov for Democracy: How to Bridge Differences and Develop the Communication and Leadership Skills Our World Needs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"This book presents a timely and meticulous interrogation of comedy at a moment when fools can act as kings and kings may act as fools. What does it mean when jokes are driven by egoism, fear, pride, and disdain? Is it disingenuous to claim comic routines with ideology and repercussions, delivered by public figures to legions of followers, are merely words or \"just jokes?\" Gilbert presents a series of deep dives, applying serious analysis to ostensibly unserious things, and in doing so holds a mirror to a jocular and media-modeled culture at a perilous moment, when the free expression and impunity afforded to the comedian becomes a tool to silence, to swagger, to self-aggrandize, and to dismiss.\"—Casey R. Schmitt, teacher of rhetoric and communication at West Chester University and co-editor of \u003ci\u003eStanding Up, Speaking Out: Stand-Up Comedy and the Rhetoric of Social Change\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile conventional wisdom has it that humor embodies a spirit of renewal and humility, a dispirited form of comedy thrives in a media-saturated and politically charged environment.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eWhen Comedy Goes Wrong \u003c\/i\u003eexamines how, beginning in the late-twentieth and carrying into the early twenty-first century, a certain comic dispirit found various platforms for disheartening cultural politics. From the calculated follies on talk radio programs like the Rush Limbaugh Show through the charades of \"cancel culture\" and ultimately to so-called Alt-Right comedy, the transgressions, improprieties, and ego trips endemic to a newfangled comic freedom produced entirely unfunny ways of being. To understand these unfunny ways, Christopher J. Gilbert challenges the prevailing belief in humor's goodness, analyzing radio personalities, meme culture, films, civil unrest, and even the language of ordinary individuals and everyday speech, all to demonstrate what happens when humor becomes humorless. As such, Gilbert imagines a nuanced sense of humor for a tumultuous world.\u003cbr\u003e Ultimately, \u003ci\u003eWhen Comedy Goes Wrong\u003c\/i\u003e transcends partisanship to explore the uglier parts of American culture, imagining the stakes of doing comedy—and being comical—as a means of survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003cbr\u003e Introduction: High Times for a Comic Dispirit\u003cbr\u003e 1. Comedy at Cross-Purposes: Paul Shanklin and the Show of Conservative Force\u003cbr\u003e 2. Poe's Law and the Moot Points of Million Dollar Extreme\u003cbr\u003e 3. Killing It: \u003ci\u003eJoker\u003c\/i\u003e and Comedy beyond Recognition\u003cbr\u003e 4. Fools on the Hill: Trumpsters and the Capitol Insurrection\u003cbr\u003e 5. Comedy Is Dead, and Living as Rage in the Comic Language of the Alt-Right Machine\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion: Comedy on the Low Road\u003cbr\u003e Epilogue: There Is No Denying the Comedy of Earthly Survival\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Indiana University Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52525706543384,"sku":"9780253072528","price":52.79,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/when-comedy-goes-wrong-hardback-9780253072528","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}