Stand-Up Comedy and the Climate Crisis
Exploring the potential for ambiguity and irony in the form of stand-up comedyBy Tom Felix Veltman (12908789)
Supervisor dr. Hanneke Stuit Word count 15181
Table of Contents
Introduction ... 3
Chapter 1: Irony vs Cynicism in Stand-Up Comedy ... 9
Chapter 2: Ironic Authenticity as Antidote for Cynicism in Stand-Up Comedy ... 22
Chapter 3: The limits of Inside the Greenhouse’s Climate Comedy 2020 ... 34
Epilogue ... 42
Appendix A ... 45
Introduction
A relatively recent development in environmentalism and ecocriticism is the growing interest in the role of humour, both in the objects of study and academic writing itself. In Michael P. Branch's contribution to The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism, “A Modest Proposal for Environmental Humour” he points towards the overuse of rhetorical devices such as the jeremiad and elegy in ecocritical writing and suggests that humour might breathe new life into the “stultifying conventions of environmental discourse” (386). In a similar vein, Nicole Seymour has explored works that make an attempt at addressing environmentalist topics with irony and irreverence rather than sanctimony and sincerity. Her work in Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the
Ecological Age looks at works that reject the affects and sensibilities1 that are usually ascribed to environmentalism and do this not only by addressing the climate crisis but also mainstream environmentalism itself. It is in the conclusion to her book that she takes a brief look at stand-up comedian Simon Amstell’s vegan mockumentary Carnage as an example of what “bad environmentalism” has to offer. She defines this bad environmentalism as “environmental thought that employs dissident, often-denigrated affects and sensibilities to reflect critically on both our current moment and mainstream environmental art, activism, and discourse” (6). This interest in stand-up comedy and its potential for climate communication is what I hope to build on in this thesis.
For Nicole Seymour irony is an important feature of bad environmentalism and she defines said feature as the Oxford English Dictionary does: "A state of affairs or an event that seems
1 Replacing these “guilt, shame, didacticism, prescriptiveness, sen- timentality, reverence, seriousness, sincerity, earnestness, sanctimony, self-righteousness, and wonder” with
“irreverence, ambivalence, camp, frivolity, indecorum, awkwardness, sardonicism, perver- sity, playfulness, and glee” (4).
deliberately contrary to what was or might be expected; an outcome cruelly, humorously, or strangely at odds with assumptions or expectations." However, she adds Sianne Ngai's observation that irony is also a rhetorical attitude with an "affective dimension" (8). Seymour goes on to claim that the whole of the environmental crisis can be seen as ironic "insofar as it constitutes unintended and unexpected consequences of human actions" (8). Irony is also a mode, then, according to Seymour, in which many of us experience the climate crisis. Another way in which the climate crisis is ironic for Seymour is in the Anthropocene narrative in which “human kind” is responsible as a whole for the damage but has really been caused by a handful of elite (Malmm and Hornborg, 2014) and has disproportionately affected marginalised groups.
Despite their interest in the topic, both Branch and Seymour seem hesitant to delve too deeply into the efficacy of humour as a tactic. They see this analysis and discovery of the humorous or comedic in the environmental more as an expansion of our understanding of environmentalism; the mapping out of an alternative environmentalism that could be used to supplement rather than replace mainstream environmentalism. Both Branch and Seymour believe that we miss out on interesting revelations inside the humorous aspects of nature writing or other eco-art if we only use the lens of doom and gloom traditionally used by academics and activists. There are, however, other academics who are more explicit in their claims of the efficacy of humour and comedy as a means of communication when it comes to environmentalism. Maxwell Boykoff and Beth Osnes, for instance, have done research into sketch comedy, stand-up and improvisation, claiming that it can change the way we think about the climate crisis. This research is based on a theoretical framework that draws on theories of biopower and affect theory; the latter also playing an important role in Nicole Seymour’s Bad Environmentalism. They have also started a project called
Inside the Greenhouse. A website that contains the content of a course they do with university
students in which the climate crisis is addressed through comedy.
This thesis does not aim to judge which of these perspectives is better. Indeed, both are invaluable additions to our understanding of alternative ways of thinking and speaking about the environment; especially in a field which tends to lean heavily on a serious mode of communicating its ideas both in creation and critique. The alternative here is to include humour and frivolity both in analysis and in practice. The claim is made, however, that when considering this new form of comedy about the environment those most suited to explore and develop the actual jokes are in fact comedians. While the attempts of Boykoff and Osnes and their Inside the Greenhouse project are valiant and well-meaning, they and their students just aren't as funny as someone who does it professionally. They underestimate the amount of work that great comedians put into writing and testing a joke. Reverse the roles and you would not expect a comedian to write a dissertation just because they took one course in it. The skills of academia and comedy might have some overlap here and there but are certainly not completely transferrable. My interest, therefore, lies mostly with those that joke professionally: stand-up comedians.
I have chosen this focus on stand-up comedians for a number of reasons. Although immensely popular, as evidenced by a proliferation of late-night shows, sketch comedy, nowadays, is not as ground-breaking as it used to be. Late-night television is not generally the place for pushing the frontier of comedy. Lauren Feldman (2017) writes on the way that these tv-shows can change the discourse on and attitude towards science. They are in a better position to address certain issues due to their use of comedic rhetoric as they are "not constrained by norms of objectivity and related journalistic conventions" (323). These shows are also better suited to address these scientific topics due to the fact that these news satire tv shows can spend far longer
on one topic than other television or radio news sources, allowing more depth and nuance in their coverage of the topic. As Feldman shows most news outlets spend an average of two minutes per topic, whereas late night hosts such as Jon Stewart or John Oliver spend four to ten times as long (323). Another reason these tv shows engage their viewers is due to their relating serious subjects to popular culture (324). However, due to the political nature and leanings of these shows, jokes can be polarising rather than a constructive addition to the conversation around the climate debate and don't do a lot to change our conceptual understanding of the crisis. Stand-up comedy, on the contrary, while also producing some "superstar" comedians2, is still often seen as a boundary-pushing field within comedy that challenges the very form of comedy. It is this challenging of form that I am most interested in. What does it take to joke about serious topics? Stand-up comedy as a form of comedy has also long relied on self-reflexiveness and self-critique, qualities that make it a good candidate for bad environmentalism, as Seymour has already noted.
Stand-up comedy, however, is a very western, white, male-dominated field. This lack of diversity in perspectives is a problem in itself as it has led to problematic power dynamics in the industry, but it also something that will be considered over the course of this thesis. Like stand-up comedy, ecocriticism already tends to be euro-centric with many academics such as TJ Demos, in
Decolonising Nature, emphasising the importance of keeping an eye open for these biases.
Stand-up comedy is not a field that will change easily, but I would argue, however, that this is precisely the time for comedians to look beyond what has been the status quo. At the moment, stand-up comedy as a field is heavily invested in and is reaching a larger audience than ever before through streaming platforms such as Netflix. This is an opportunity to reform comedy and with this change the topics we joke about, such as the environment.
While stand-up comedians can be self-reflexive and critical of themselves, there are still plenty of examples of comedians “punching down” (people in power joking about those who are not). Indeed, Berlant and Ngai go into the issues of comedy in their introduction to the Critical Inquiry on comedy. They say that while comedy has the capacity to reduce anxiety, it can also increase it by "risking transgression, flirting with displeasure, or just confusing things in a way that both intensifies and impedes the pleasure" (233). According to Berlant and Ngai the problem of comedy is in its relation to the social, stating that the disagreement that might arise from a bit is the cause of comedy's ability to "test or figure out what it means to say ‘us.’ … it helps us figure out what lines we desire or can bear" (235). Comedic situations are not just present in comedy, but also in the real world, as Berlant and Ngai say. This ties into Nicole Seymour's statements concerning the ironies and absurdities of environmentalism and the scripts that come along with them. By realising how close comedy and these scripts are we can start to see how a joke might create alternatives for this script.
The first chapter of this thesis will be an exploration of the form of stand-up comedy. In it, a number of examples will be given to understand the anatomy of a joke and how this anatomy determines the tendencies comedians have when joking about the environment. By introducing Timothy Morton’s concepts of hyperobjects and dark ecology it becomes clear that while stand-up comedy clearly draws from the embodied human experience, there is still comedy to be made by humourising our finitude. After a brief explanation about set-ups and punchlines I give an example of a poorly executed joke about the environment and a joke that has potential but ultimately fails to remain ambiguous and ironic by becoming explicitly political and therefore leans towards satire. The potential of the joke does give some direction as to what a comedian can do to function within the realm of bad environmentalism. Bad environmentalism, however, does
not pertain solely to the climate and by linking Seymour’s work to the concept of “petro-masculinity” it becomes clear that the scripts of climate anxiety and gender anxiety are more closely linked than one might think.
It is with this idea, that multiple anxieties and their behavioural and rhetorical scripts are intertwined, in mind that my second chapter considers the work of Daniel Sloss, a comedian who has built an entire show with the explicit purpose of creating an ironic persona that can address a serious topic like sexual assault. The idea here being that he has found a way to speak about a traumatic event without taking away the survivor’s voice. Finally, in the third chapter these rhetorical techniques gleaned from Sloss are put to the test in an analysis of Climate Comedy 2020 a 1,5-hour video compilation of environmental comedy sketches and stand-up put together by the
Inside the Greenhouse initiative. The sketches fall short of being effective for the audience,
although researchers and coordinators Osnes and Boykoff have found that creating these comedic routines are effective for the creators themselves. The stand-up segment falls short of being what we would hope for some bad environmentalist comedy, but is a good start in the sense that it highlights the intersectional approach that must be taken in our response and attitude towards the climate crisis.
Chapter 1: Irony vs Cynicism in Stand-Up Comedy
This first chapter will investigate the tendency of comedians, when they joke about the environment, to rely more heavily on certain modes of comedy than others. They are more cynical and sarcastic, rather than ironic. The punchline of the joke is usually political rather than conceptual. And the overall affect associated with the bit is fatalistic rather than hopeful. These preferred comedic modes do not take away from the comedian’s ability to give the audience some release, in which laughter smooths over some of the rough edges of what it is to live through the current moment of environmental crisis. However, we need only look at the definition of being a “cynic” in OED (“One who shows a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions, and is wont to express this by sneers and sarcasms”) to realise that this reliance on cynicism and sarcasm does reduce the possibility of humour functioning as a tool that can bring people together or give them a sense of agency. In this chapter a number of examples will be given to illustrate these claims, not to argue for or against the efficacy of humour, but rather to gain a better understanding of how comedians joke about the environment in the contemporary moment. This is relevant not only to understand better our own affective responses to the climate crisis, but also provides a counter-voice for mainstream environmentalism which tends to close down conversation by relying on overused affective modes (guilt, shame, didacticism, prescriptiveness, etc.) listed by Seymour that were mentioned in this thesis’ introduction.
There are immediately some issues that come with stand-up comedy as a form. In traditional comedy jokes often rely on set-ups and punch lines that, the anatomy of which leave little space for ambiguity or closure. As a field, stand-up comedy tends to lean on certain perspectives more than other, such as anthropocentrism. I will address these issues through Timothy Morton’s concepts of hyperobjects and dark ecology after which I will give some context
for the rest of the chapter concerning the anatomy of jokes pertaining to the premise or set-up and the punchline. After that, two examples from comedians Ilana Glazer and Marc Maron will be analysed to investigate the productive differences between cynicism, has been associated with a reluctance to perform organizational citizenship behaviours and intentions (Andersson and Bateman, 1997), and irony, which Seymour associates with ambiguity open-endedness. Finally, these attempts by comedians at joking about the climate crisis will be linked to the work of Nichole Seymour, who has also studied works that introduce some level of ambiguity and self-reflexivity to subvert typical narratives surrounding the environmental crisis and activism. This type of environmentalist work makes use of what she calls “bad environmentalism” which makes use of “bad” affects such as irreverence and irony that are not generally associated with mainstream environmentalism. Seymour claims that it is bad environmentalism’s use of bad affect, its queerness and rejection of purity politics that allows for a way of doing politics that is closer to our “deep and abiding ambivalence at the heart of our contemporary relationship to environment” (232). I go further by linking Seymour’s work to Cara Daggett’s “petro-masculinity” which allows us to see more clearly the connections between climate anxiety and gender anxiety and the scripts associated with these anxieties. This will prepare us for the second chapter of this thesis in which numerous techniques will be discussed that can be used to joke about these anxious topics, and provide insight into how various social anxieties seem to be entwined.
The difficulty of joking about the environment
The first concern with joking about the environment or the climate crisis is that these issues are simply too big or not concrete enough as topics to reduce to a comedic bit, a form that is, besides, generally anthropocentric in nature. In political comedy, for instance, there is almost always a politician to chastise, legislation to criticise, or voters to ridicule. In observational comedy, human
behaviours are deconstructed and gender roles are either exaggerated and generalised or subverted and ridiculed to the point of recognition for the audience. These are subjects that humankind has analysed and narrativised for ages. The climate crisis and the discourse surrounding it, however, are relatively new and reflect changes at a rate that is difficult to keep up with for mostly everyone not spending their days thinking about or researching it.
The enormity of climate change is helpfully described by Timothy Morton when he defines it as a hyperobject: objects “that are massively distributed in time and space” (207). In its wake, the ecological crisis also makes other hyperobjects, like toxic masculinity and slow violence (cf Nixon) visible to us3, but even though these hyperobjects glide into view, they are still difficult to grasp and even more difficult to embody within the form of stand-up comedy because of their all-encompassing nature. Besides, comedians often accentuate their jokes by making faces, sounds and movements that specifically reference the human experience. How would one incorporate that in a joke about the environment? Sure, the comedian can make jokes about experiences of living through the ecological crisis, but how can they do that without becoming too cynical, fatalistic or political in ways that alienate parts of their audience?
Here Morton might be able to help in two ways. The first is that his description of global warming as a hyperobject does not remove individuals from the narrative; every element of the hyperobject still has a significant role to play. The second way that Morton’s conceptualisations in Dark Ecology offer alternatives for cynical and fatalistic modes lies in his description of the “dark-sweet layer” of ecological awareness (116). Here he argues that a level of funniness, an “ontological hilarity” lies in “how much you can leave the irreducible gap in things alone,” which means “radically accepting your finitude” (153). This is in direct opposition with what he calls
agrilogistics, which is based on “locking down a certainty of life and livelihood” that is in direct opposition with ambiguity and irony. This rejection of certainty might be where the answer for stand-up comedians lies: rather than getting their jokes from a neurotic grasping at and clinging to life, health, beauty (in the form of complaining about their own shortcomings) maybe the way for comedians to joke about the environment is to find ways of humourising our finitude. By joking we may come to terms with the ways in which uncertain realities and futures are presented within an ecological crisis, or, as will be shown in the next chapter, in situations of trauma in which case humour can be both a cure and a hindrance to our anxieties. Before giving an example of what this ironic and ambiguous form of stand-up would look like it is helpful to look at the other side of the spectrum. Comedy that is concrete in what it is trying to achieve.
A good example is the opening monologue of late-night talk shows in the United States in which the host discusses the news of that day with a number of one-liners to punctuate each section. These jokes are often written by a large team of writers, performed in front of an audience that is in essence only there to provide a live laugh track and meant for millions of viewers who expect their hosts to have moderate, non-controversial views and jokes. This is vastly different from the expectations and setting of a comedian in a comedy club and also differs from most comedy specials, but it is interesting to look at some of these jokes over the years as the genres overlap in their use of the form of the punchline. The relative simplicity of the jokes offers an instructive view on the anatomy of jokes consisting of a premise or set-up and a punchline and how these aspects of the joke are related to each other.
The jokes often begin with a descriptive set-up that reminds or informs the audience of a particular development like in one of Jay Leno’s opening monologues where he opens with: “According to a new U.N. report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally
predicted” after which he presents the punchline: “Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet” (“Climate jokes 1/5”). Most jokes follow this formula, a set-up that introduces the audience to the premise (in this case “things are getting even worse”) after which there is an immediate release in the form of a punchline that either takes the premise to an absurd conclusion, underlines the absurdity of the premise/situation or in this case does a bit of both while also questioning the authority and knowledge of the U.N. scientists that are making predictions about the climate crisis. As opposed to long-form stand-up there is no expectation for the audience to remain in a state of anticipation for very long before the joke's meaning becomes explicit and depending on the show’s demographic the political tenor of the host’s joke is also predictable, unambiguous and satirical. This satirical stance is important for our discussion as it implies a sense of certainty the joker has about the topic. Put another way: comedian Hannah Gadsby, in her critically acclaimed special Nanette, describes the set-up and punchline as “a question with a surprise answer” that is artificially imbued with tension by the comedian. In the case of late-night comedy there is very little tension in the set-up, which is why this kind of comedy will not generally leave an audience member gasping for air in laughter.
Political satire seems to be the preferred angle of the late-night show, which is understandable as most of these jokes are made in response to the president saying or doing something. They ridicule President Bush or John McCain and their “dumbness”. It is interesting to note that these jokes became less prevalent when a democratic president was elected. When Donald Trump’s presidency started, however, this type of joke returned with the structure remaining basically the same and only the name changing. This suggests that the jokes are an affirmation of a satirical "truth" amongst left-leaning comedians and talk show hosts: the right is
stupid and does not understand the science or the severity of the climate crisis. Not a very ameliorating stance to take or the set-up for a reasonable discussion.
This form, however, is understandable for the context. Late-night shows are not trying to push the boundaries of comedy; they are trying to attract mainstream attention. Stand-up comedy is more suited for experimentation, but even within that field there is a spectrum to that. This next example is from Ilana Glazer’s first stand-up special: The World Is Burning. Glazer was the co-creator of the critically and commercially successful Broad City. Her comedy special is performed with the same energy and fervour for social justice as her alter-ego in Broad City, but misses the mark when it comes to the actual jokes. In fact, many elements of this special are an example of how not to joke about the environment. The special’s title, unambiguously named The World Is
Burning, foreshadows the subtlety of most jokes but not the number of jokes about the climate
crisis. The only joke is a one-liner that ascribes the lack of climate change action to “ultimate FOMO” (fear of missing out). The rest of her show is mainly an emphatic affirmation of her awareness of societal issues and her progressive attitude.
Although Glazer has created a set that focuses on important topics, it does not live up to the expectations of a comedy special. The problem lies in the structure of her jokes, as the relationship between the premise and the punchline is not comedic in the way as described in the example of late-night shows above. This is not to say that all comedy must follow those rules to the letter. In fact, alternative comedy often thrives by subverting the audience’s expectations by breaking those very rules. In the case of Glazer's special, however, it would be too generous to say that she was trying to challenge the form. Her punchlines do not relate to the premises and are simply louder reiterations of the same point or a simple reference to pop culture (FOMO). Compare it to a joke from Hannah Gadsby’s special Nanette (which will be discussed in more detail in the
next chapter), where she tells the audience “I wouldn’t want to be a straight white man, not if you paid me”. Glazer might have ended the joke there, repeating “you couldn’t pay me”, but Gadsby continues and creates a comedic relationship between the set-up and the punchline by adding “although the pay would be substantially better.” Overall the show is more sarcastic and cynical than ironic and ambiguous. Even in its moments of self-reflexivity, there is a sense that that reflexivity will not lead to a new realisation for either audience or performer. This is not to say that the audience or any viewer of this special is wrong for laughing at its content, but simply that it lacks the potential to challenge the ways of thinking about or attitudes towards the topics it addresses.
Alternatives for environmental comedy
So what would be a better way of joking about the climate crisis? In her conclusion to Bad
Environmentalism, Nichole Seymour looks to the work of comedian Simon Amstell for an
example of what comedy can do within bad environmentalism. What is interesting about Amstell's work, according to Seymour, is that it "insists that "good" affects—empathy, love, compassion, and happiness—are crucial to a vegan future, but it engages in "bad" affective modes to present that argument" (228). Seymour praises his work for being self-reflexive and self-critical, which allows him to frame environmental activism in a more positive light than mainstream environmentalism usually allows for. Bad environmentalism, according to Seymour, is an alternative to mainstream environmentalism in matters of approach but also on the levels of the philosophical and political. Bad environmentalism relies on ambiguity and irreverence, where mainstream environmentalism often does not. Simon Amstell's speculative4 comedy in combination with absurdity, self-reflexivity, and anti-sentimentalism can offer a different
4 Speculative in the sense that he is imaging futures from a certain perspective, in the case of his documentary Carnage that of a vegan future.
narrative, one that subverts the unhelpful affective modes generally found in mainstream environmentalism. In this analysis I will show how a joke by Marc Maron starts off ambiguously and self-reflexively, but slowly becoming more explicit, cynical and fatalistic due to his reliance on the political and satirical scripts that many comedians use in their jokes and the inherent limits of jokes when they consist of only a set-up and a punchline. The speculative nature of the joke also suffers from these modes as it is not a playful, ambiguous speculation, but a fatalistic one.
Marc Maron has seen a surge in mainstream success due to his popular podcast WTF with
Marc Maron and his involvement with the tv-show GLOW. He released his third special on
Netflix5 entitled End Times Fun in March 2020. Marc Maron is not an active environmentalist but has often expressed his agreement with the overall scientific census of the climate crisis’ severity and its anthropogenic cause. On his 2009 comedy album Final Engagement he jokes: “I live in L.A. I know global warming exists, I don’t doubt it, because I know you’re not supposed to taste air.” The special’s title already sets the tone for the show: ambiguous, irreverent and ironic. While the show as a whole does not have an environmental focus, the bit in question (see appendix A for a transcript) does function as a good object for this chapter as it contains both ambiguous, ironic elements as well as cynical, fatalistic elements. Furthermore, it is possible to identify the point at which Marc Maron switches between these two modes which might give us the opportunity to investigate what the switching between those modes does in terms of relatability and effectiveness. The joke begins with an assertion that the world has “certainly been ending environmentally for a long time”, claiming that everyone is aware of this, and that our lack of caring, fear or sadness is not based on a disbelief of the crisis’ severity. Maron claims it is because, as he slowly approaches
5 Whereas HBO and Comedy Central used to be the main producers of stand-up comedy specials, Netflix has
his punchline with mock seriousness and compassion, “all of us … in our hearts … really know we did everything we could”. As the audience laughs at this initial critique that ironically points out the opposite truth of what Maron just said, the comedian builds on the joke maintaining his faux-severity and helplessness as he explains: “… I mean about it. We brought our own bags … to the supermarket. And uhm … Yeah that’s about it. We brought the bags right when they told us”. The joke showcases the flawed assumption many of us have that creating positive change and fighting the climate crisis is a simple and non-intrusive change of lifestyle. This is, unfortunately, not the case and thinking this way can even be counter-productive when trying to convince people that change is necessary on a larger scale and on structural levels. By emphasising the vast disconnect between not using plastic bags and the entire climate crisis, Maron highlights the absurdity of these assumptions. He builds on this absurdity when he proposes the solution might lie in our not using straws anymore: “maybe that’ll keep the polar bears from drowning. Sometimes the answer’s right between your mouth and your soda. And you just take that out of the equation and the human species survives”. Here he contrasts a straw with a drowning polar bear or the survival of the human species. The affective mode of this joke could be described as helpless or fatalistic. The delivery is dry and sarcastic and while the set-up suggests there might be something we can do, that alternative is not given.
The joke lends itself as a cathartic tool for laughter about a serious subject, but in that way it also does not offer hope or alternative mechanisms for coping with the fear and anxiety that comes with living through the environmental crisis. Later on in the special, Maron references this joke as he describes the end of the world and says to an imaginary person standing next to him: “Hey don’t look at me, I brought the bags”. This lends a speculative element to the bit as Seymour describes in reference to Simon Amstell. Maron is speculating about a future moment when the world is
going up in flames and gets a joke out of the absurdity of someone avoiding blame by saying they did something as trivial as bringing the bags. However, whereas Amstell uses speculation as an opportunity to reflect on alternative futures in light of which we can discuss the present of Maron’s joke is still very much grounded by its fatalistic affect. This is no judgement of the function or quality of that joke (in that sense I would argue it is successful), but an assessment of its boundaries. The borders of which are rearranged when the next joke references the straw bit and how the political right would blame the liberals for “taking away ma straw”. This leads to a stronger in-group cathartic experience for those agreeing with Marc Maron (I doubt his audience will contain anyone not in that group) and alienate those that might feel offended at his characterisation. So specifically when he starts faking the reaction of a republican with a silly voice he’s lost some audience members who otherwise might still have been on board. And the laugh he gets from it isn’t necessarily any better than the one he got before. This is an interesting point where one could speculate on the level of the joke that a political element removes ambiguity. Although it is difficult to measure this as there are a number of factors that play along with this such as the political leanings of the comedian (the audience might have certain expectations in that case) or the culture the comedian is performing in (the Dutch comedic form of “cabaret” is much less concerned with the political for example).
In fact, it is especially important to consider the sensitivity of our enjoyment and politics in the context of comedy as Berlant and Ngai propose that the debate6 surrounding comedy’s borders have more “affective intensity, fierceness, [and a] sense of urgency” (242) than a debate that is not as closely linked to our tatse or enjoyment. They ascribe this to the importance we place
on enjoyment, noting that “people seem to get more upset when their capacities for enjoyment are questioned or pressured by the comedic than when their capacities for empathy are tested” (242). Berlant and Ngai claim this importance leads to a critical rigidity in the academic that is unique to comedy. In the case of Marc Maron’s joke, the initial joke lets the audience and comedian laugh at their communal ignorance but disrupts this community when he makes the joke explicitly political. At first there is some sense that he is ridiculing a specific group with his sarcastic tone, but the exact borders of that group are still ambiguous. When he makes those borders more explicit by actively ridiculing republicans that ambiguity is lost and with it the audience members that might identify with the group that have now become the target of his joke.
Overall, this joke starts off with potential for irony, ambiguity and self-reflection but slowly loses its open-ended potential and becomes more cynical, sarcastic and fatalistic due to the techniques and forms stand-up comedians tend to use. It is clear, however, that this need not be the case. In fact, Simon Amstell’s comedy seems to be able to maintain this sense of ambiguity and irony. As Seymour notes the “lack of straightness” (231) both in the content of his work (he discusses his sexuality in his stand-up) and in the form. She ascribes the queerness of form in Amstell's work to John Limon's theory that stand-up depends on "mini-climaxes … that are "not readily convertible into straight lines for a meta climax or punch line of the whole" (Limon qtd. in Seymour 231). Throughout her book Seymour has analysed this queerness of her objects in the following sense: “what we might consider queer about many of my works is not only that they fail to follow the available scripts for appropriate environmental feeling but that they fail to feel in ways that are clearly directed or otherwise obviously “useful.”” (21). Comparing Glazer and Maron, it then becomes clear that that Glazer falls into the scripts that are already generally associated with social justice. Glazer's work is not a series of mini-climaxes, just set-ups and
impassioned reinforcements of those setups instead of a punchline. Maron starts off on the right foot and, like Seymour says, “fail[s] to feel in ways that [is] clearly directed or … [useful” (21). That is, until he falls into the overused and unambiguous script of political satire. Maron does maintain the tension and every line gives the audience mini-climax of sorts that does not remove the ambiguity, until he makes it political and that tension disappears.
It is these scripts that comedians follow that are interesting to look at in the context of jokes about the climate crisis as they do not exist in a vacuum but are actually interlinked with other scripts. This becomes clear when we look at the relationship between power and environmentalist attitudes. Following Seymour’s productive insistence on the “queerness” of her objects, it is worthwhile to look at the dynamics of the society to which jokes are responding. Cara Daggett has recently published a paper on “petro-masculinity” that looks at the relations between authoritarianism, masculinity and fossil fuel systems, noting that the latter is not only important for profits and consumer lifestyles, but also “secure[s] cultural meaning and political subjectivities" (27). Her paper analyses the links between gender and climate by doing a feminist reading on climate denial and "fossil fuel boosterism" (28), specifically in Donald Trump's U.S. This paper and the observations it contains are useful to my own work in the sense that it informs us of the landscape in which stand-up comedy and the other examples of comedy primarily operate. By looking at the link between climate anxiety and gender anxiety we might be able to start answering why it is so difficult to joke about the climate crisis.
This link between gender and the climate is explicitly made by Cara Dagget in that when “challenges to fossil-fuelled systems … become interpreted as challenges to white patriarchal rule” (29). While these challenges are sometimes an explicit goal for some artists such as Hannah Gadsby, in general the challenging of patriarchy is less prevalent in stand-up comedy most likely
due to it historically being a field saturated with straight white men mostly from the United States7. Besides that, Daggett also shows that this challenge to white patriarchy, whether it is intentional or not, is often met with hyper-masculine reactivity. And as Berlant and Ngai have shown, comedy might actually also be a place where those anxieties are increased. Some comics have routines, personas and even careers built around reactivity8 so these might not be best suited to tackle this issue. Even the more progressive comedians are more likely to operate with ecomodernist optimism because they generally do not hang around Humanities departments where these ideas are being challenged. They, like most people, still assume that technology will save us from this ecological disaster, whereas this line of thinking is generally outdated in ecocriticism and environmental activism.
The boys club of stand-up comedy seems to be changing (slowly), however, and there might be hope for the form to play a role in creating new, affirmative narratives around the climate crisis. Still, it is difficult to create stand-up that allows the audience to envision alternative futures when the rules of the form are so strict and the breaking of said rules is met with swift judgement (“you’re not funny”). That is why specials such as Ilana Glazer’s are not helpful: they reinforce the sense that social justice isn’t funny and that the comedians doing it aren’t funny. In my next chapter I look at how comedians can make serious subjects funny in an analysis of Daniel Sloss.
7 Although a recent release on Netflix showcases 47 (30 male, 17 female) stand-up comedians from thirteen
different countries.
8 Think of the genre of insult comedy where comedians such as Don Rickles, Jeff Ross, and Jimmy Carr (this
Chapter 2: Ironic Authenticity as Antidote for Cynicism in Stand-Up Comedy As discussed in the introduction and the first chapter there are numerous reasons one might turn to comedy for an alternative mode of speaking about the environmental crisis. By combining Seymour’s and Daggett’s work on the connection between gender anxiety and climate anxiety this chapter will focus on how certain rhetorical techniques are used to subvert the scripts generally associated with these anxieties. The stand-up special that will be discussed was created by Daniel Sloss, a 29 year old Scottish comedian who has developed a reputation for ending his shows by discussing a serious topic without straying from the form of stand-up comedy nor becoming obtuse or sanctimonious. In one of his shows Dark, he talks about his sister’s disability and eventual death, telling the audience that when he laughs about her it does not come from a malicious place, but that laughter can be a way to “bring a level of humanity back to a moment that seems to lack it.” In another show he discusses toxic relationships, a bit that has been the cause of over 7000 break-ups (Oron, 2018). In his tenth show, X, he tackles topics such as toxic masculinity, the distressingly poor quality of sexual education in schools, and growing out of your own ignorance whilst still having remnants of bias. It is at the end of this particular show, however, that he goes into a subject that most comedians would not address at this length and with his level of seriousness. He talks about the rape of a close friend of his. This chapter will show how a number of rhetorical techniques allow Sloss to do this in a self-reflexive but potent manner. He achieves this by creating an ironic persona that can be authentic without being concrete and thereby maintain its ambiguity and fluidity allowing the audience to come along with his argument more easily.
This is a sensitive topic that I approach with as much caution and sensitivity as possible. How do I discuss both humour and sexual assault without being incredibly insensitive to those who have experienced it? To what extent should my voice and my privilege take up space in this discussion and how do I navigate the risk of speaking for other people when I should be
giving them the opportunity to speak? On the other hand, as comedian Kelly Bachman states in her Times article: “a lot of the work in calling out rape, rapists and rape culture unfortunately still falls on survivors.” My hope is that the analysis in this chapter is a useful addition to this conversation and showcases a possible way in which an ally, specifically in the field of comedy, might approach using their platform to speak up for survivors of sexual assault. Much in the way that Daniel Sloss goes about it. I also hope to show the potential of laughter to open up a conversation or offer alternative scripts to behaving around serious subjects while still remaining aware of and reflexive on the sensitive nature of said subject.
Another issue that should be mentioned is the issue of my selection of objects. In choosing my sources and the object of my analysis I am also framing the field of stand-up comedy in a certain way. There are a number of examples of female comedians who have jokes about rape such as Sarah Silverman and Cameron Esposito (her special is even titled Rape
Joke). Why not study the work of a survivor of sexual assault? These specials and jokes will
not be the focus of this chapter because while they do humourise a serious topic they do not do so by subverting the scripts generally associated with those topics. In the case of Esposito the joke’s foremost function is not to educate the audience, but to highlight a shared experience of oppression rather than to change anyone’s mind. The audience was not defensive because Esposito had them on her side to begin with and her jokes were primarily meant to create a sense of solidarity and healing for those involved. Daniel Sloss’ show is meant as a wake-up call for those who are not actively aware and involved yet, which in this case means: most men. Esposito’s framing is also explicitly political9, which, as discussed in chapter one, is not ideal when trying to maintain a sense of ambiguity and irony. It is clear that Esposito’s audience members will be on her side no matter what because they know what kind of
9 She opens her show with an admonition of the Trump administration calling every second of it a “living
comedian and ideology they signed up for. On the other hand Daniel Sloss’ audience might be a bit more surprised at the way in which he ends his show X. By choosing Sloss’ show I am not saying his approach is perfect; there are still many things to be improved on his end when he talks about toxic masculinity. However, his style, particularly his way of building up an ironic persona in the course of his specials, works instructively towards keeping various groups in the audience on board. Environmental activists already use humour for its community building function, be that in the form of inside jokes or meme pages focused on the woes of activists10. However, my interest lies in the potential for comedy for those that aren’t within that group yet and what comedy can do to facilitate conversation between these two groups.
Sexual assault is not completely absent from the history of stand-up comedy and the topic has been touched upon more over the past years since the #MeToo movement. In Standing
Up, Speaking Out, Christopher A. Medjesky discusses a particular instance in which a popular
comedian, Daniel Tosh, was making claims that rape jokes are always funny and when confronted by a female audience member said “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by, like, five guys right now?” (195). Medjesky critiques this situation, comparing it to a joke made by George Carlin11, an arguably better comedian both on the level of craft and social consciousness, arguing that with this type of subject irony must turn into satire for it not to be problematic (209). George Carlin uses the rape joke to comment on a terrible problem in society and follows it immediately with an analysis of how we talk about sexual assault that criticises the current state of discourse surrounding the topic. As with all jokes about sensitive topics it can still be debated whether or not it is funny to joke about, however self-reflexive
10
https://alluviamag.com/2019/06/20/6-environmental-meme-pages-that-will-make-you-think-about-climate-change/
11 Carlin on the topic of what is and isn’t funny: “I can prove that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer
Fudd. … I know what you’re going to say. “Elmer was asking for it. Elmer was coming on to Porky. Porky couldn’t help himself, he got a hard-on, he got horny, he lost control, he went out of his mind.” A lot of men talk like that. A lot of men think that way. They think it’s the woman’s fault. They like to blame the rape on the
and woke the context surrounding that joke. Daniel Tosh’s approach, however, seems to be irredeemable as he operates from an assumption that the rape joke is inherently funny no matter the execution. Nichole Seymour also mentions on Tosh’s Bad Environmentalism where she shows that Tosh has a habit of engaging with sarcastic modes rather than ironic ones, which leads to an affirmation of traditional social hierarchies by "mischaracterising political objection as personal oversensitivity" (32). A sarcastic statement or joke works on the assumption that there is a right answer and the joker is undeniably right. Irony, on the other hand, plays a dissembling role which leaves more space for ambiguity (Fernandez & Huber qtd in Seymour, 32). Medjesky states that “to study the rhetoric of stand-up comedy that engages with taboo topics requires an examination of the comic persona, the function of irony in that persona, and the humor ideologies that shape it and guide it” (210). That ironic persona creates an intimacy and trust with the audience.
Daniel Sloss takes advantage of the dissembling function of irony in his show X. His final segment emphasises the horrible consequences of sexual assault, while still acknowledging the ambiguity for those involved. Despite something horrible happening, there is no clear answer to how to respond. Because of this ambiguity, Sloss needs to make sure the audience is entirely on his side, invested in his ironic persona so that there can still be a clear and coherent message at the end of that segment. He gets people on his side by being accessible; by showing his flaws but also his good intentions; by appealing to people’s desire to be good and seen as good and not feel judged. At the same time, he also puts forth his ideals when it comes to what you can and cannot joke about. This brings into question the matter of authenticity, which will be discussed later in this chapter. Whereas Medjesky’s focus is mainly on the creation of an ironic persona that the comedian uses to discuss tough subjects like sexual assault, I believe that Daniel Sloss uses other rhetorical techniques as well in his show.
Throughout the first hour of X there are numerous moments when Daniel Sloss makes a joke or comment that makes him relatable and sympathetic to the audience. The show starts off with him stating how much he loves children and how strange it is for a man to say that. He goes on to tell a number of anecdotes and jokes about his three year old cousin Eva and how much he loves spending time with her and pranking her. He talks about toxic masculinity and how he’s coming to terms with the parts of his personality that might be influenced by that toxicity: “I believe my emotions are my own responsibility so I just bottle them up.” He approaches toxic masculinity in a way, however, that wouldn’t incite any hostility or reactionary response from other men (which typically does not take a lot) because he’s constantly poking fun at himself. Sloss does not portray himself as better or worse than his audience, but keeps building on the idea that we can be both flawed and good at the same time. He highlights the ridiculousness of this toxicity in a way that it’d be difficult not to agree with him.
Toxic masculinity, as Bryant W. Sculos summarises it, is a “loosely interrelated collection of norms, beliefs, and behaviours associated with masculinity, which are harmful to women, men, children, and society more broadly” (1). Sloss is by no means perfect in his personal growth or in his representation of the finer details of toxic masculinity, but he does not try to hide this. In fact, he is very candid about how far he still has to go and the struggles he’s had so far because it has made him start the process of redefining what masculinity means for him. This creates a space where men start identifying with him and his will to be a better person without feeling judged. Because the topic is often met with fear as it is seen by many on either side of the political divide as a “threat to themselves or society more broadly,” Sloss’ approach is crucial in reaching out to otherwise unwilling audiences (Sculos 1). At the same time, however, he makes clear that just being aware of your toxicity isn’t enough, he jokes with ironic smugness that he’s not going change but “at least I’m self-aware and that’s half the
battle” pausing briefly before adding “but not the half that matters.” He addresses the men in the room and calls on them to get into contact with their emotions because “it’s not like having a super power, but it’s like having every other man’s kryptonite.”
Another thing Sloss does is create an understanding with the audience that just because you have bad thoughts that doesn’t mean you’re a horrible person, the importance being placed more on how you act than how you think. He ascribes these “bad thoughts” to “the echoes of a less educated me … the residue of ignorance.” Daniel Sloss creates a narrative in which thoughts and opinions are kept in an old archive managed by a kindly old man named Nigel. Whereas Daniel Sloss as a person is trying to be better and grow, Nigel is the keeper of the opinions that haven’t been properly updated since he was a teenager or younger. He goes into how growing up using the word “gay” as a negative word has left a mark and that even though he’s come to learn that sexuality is more of a spectrum than a binary there are still parts of his subconscious that need to be “updated”. He emphasises that these “shitty opinions” often come from a place of ignorance and that while “hate and ignorance go hand in hand … ignorance is easier to cure … and everyone is ignorant”. He brings home this point by quizzing his male audience members about how female hygiene products work, once again highlighting his own ignorance. All of this to create an experience of safety that sets up expectations of cathartic relief for the men of the audience. By making them feel comfortable they are invested enough to not reject the final bit of the show which will not allow them to reach the end of the show with an easy cathartic experience.
Towards the end of the show, before the last segment, he spends a substantial amount of time discussing the state of sexual education in Britain12 from his experience as well as what he’s heard from friends and partners. This segment both highlights a shared experience between him and the audience and repeats the point that everyone is ignorant without blaming
individuals but by targeting the system that we live in. He calls for an improvement of sex education and how it should be made compulsory, stating “if you want proof why [it is] needed now more than ever, look at the current sexual climate that we live in”. This is a hour and three minutes into the show and the turning point of the special. The work that has been put in so far has been to make the comedian relatable, to make the audience feel un-judged and understood. As he introduces the topic of sexual assault he recalls earlier bits and characters such as Nigel to talk about what Sloss believes most men’s reaction were to the #MeToo movement. He tells the audience about his agent’s experiences with sexual intimidation. As the topic is moved to the center of the special Daniel Sloss becomes more serious, only joking when it is at the expense of himself. He returns to the jokes later on in the final segment, but for now he is letting the audience know that he’s about to talk about something serious and that the jokes that are going to be made aren’t made just because they’re funny but because he’s trying to bring across a certain point. Joking about serious topics is something that Daniel Sloss has done a lot before so long time fans know what they can expect, but even so he makes sure that every special is built up in a way that prepares the audience for jokes about topics that might not seem funny at first. He does this in a number of ways.
While he is winning the audience over he is also preparing them for the type of comedy that they can expect from him for the rest of the show. The show starts with his advice for the audience to “get comfortable, but if you’re not don’t worry about it too much, I’m about to provide plenty of material that’s going to make most of you very uncomfortable.” He goes on to joke about his three year old cousin who he teaches to “flip off” horses under the ruse that it means “I love you” for horses. He presents all of his jokes with an attitude that seems to remind the audience that he has been completely open about what they can expect from him. He
explicitly reminds the audience of his ideology13 about jokes after a traumatic experience clear. Recalling a previous special in which he joked about his sister’s disability and how he saw the laughter that came from those jokes as a coping and healing mechanism for himself. Or in another special, Dark, where he tells the story of when his friend’s father died and how the dynamics of their friendship as well as his being compassionate before and after created the space in which a well-timed joke could play a healing and releasing role.
Another point of development throughout the show is the importance of being open to changing your mind about something. This is showcased in Daniel Sloss’ conversations with the imaginary Nigel, but also in other examples. He explains how the longer we have an opinion the more valid it seems and makes the claim that that is why some older people are quite stubborn in their beliefs. He eloquently makes clear that he disagrees with this approach to life stating that “just because you become an adult doesn’t mean you stop growing and learning and if you do you fucking suck.” This is exactly what Seymour wants from her bad environmentalists: to be self-reflexive.
The final tool Daniel Sloss uses to engage his audience is an abrupt turning point where he switches from a comedic mode to a serious mode; bathos in reverse. This is characteristic of his shows. In fact, in X he reminds the audience that he has done this in previous shows, self-deprecatingly acknowledging this uncommon structure for a comedian: “After 70 to 75 minutes of telling jokes … once I’ve legally fulfilled my contract as a comedian I do a sad fifteen minute TED talk”. While he’s been preparing the audience for what is to come, the moment it happens is still accompanied by a feeling of shock. In his special Dark Daniel Sloss tells a number of jokes about his sister throughout the show and in the last ten minutes reveals that she died when he was 11. He does this so that the audience can feel some form of what he
13 According to Sloss people make jokes about serious subjects because it’ll pop into their head and stay there
and that there doesn’t have to be anything inherently wrong with that. It all depends on how you tell that joke and how you follow up on its consequences.
felt when he found out his sister died; the shock that is accompanied by such a revelation. While it’s not the same it reaffirms the bond that he’s created with the audience throughout the show. When Daniel Sloss tells the story of how a close friend of his was raped by another friend there is no way to not feel shocked at that moment. Sloss isn’t trying to shock people for the sake of it, however, he is trying to bring people along with how he felt in that moment. One moment he’s joking with his friend about a drunken night out, the next the conversation has a completely different tone.
Daniel Sloss starts off with the first justification of talking about sexual assault as a male comedian because “it affects the people around me … the people that I love”. Throughout the final segment Sloss remains consistent in the perspective of his story, he is talking from his own experience and reminds the audience of this periodically so as not to create the idea that he is talking for his friend who was raped. This segment, as Daniel Sloss says at the beginning of it, was co-written by this friend and the only rape jokes that occur are ones that she made in conversation with him. The rest of the show has Daniel Sloss telling the audience what he has learned from all of his talks with this friends and an explicit call for change; something that isn’t very common in stand-up comedy, but made possible because of his careful preparations throughout the first hour of the show. He also addresses the issue that even with all of his explanations of why he thinks we should be able to joke about tough subjects that there still might be people that don’t agree with him and he emphasises that he respects that but at the same time asks them to trust him that his heart is in the right place.
Here it might be helpful to ground Sloss’s attempts in the debate surrounding authenticity. Authenticity as an ethical ideal or orientation has seen a re-emergence after a period of its being dismissed for its propensity to end up in aestheticism or self-indulgence, meaning that one could do whatever they wanted and ascribe it to being “authentic” which requires none of the self-reflexivity associated with the current understanding of authenticity.
As mentioned in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy scholars have advocated for a reconstruction of the term that circumvents these previous critiques by emphasising the social elements of authenticity. Taylor, for example, reintroduces the self-transcendental aspect of authenticity, which is not achieved by self-absorption but stems from the part that we play in a language community and is dependent on our understanding of the “collective questions of worth that point beyond one’s own preferences” (29). Varga, on the other hand, discusses authenticity in the context of contemporary capitalism, calling it the paradox of authenticity. Focusing on the “self-help” discourse that is prevalent and leads to “performative authenticity” that leads to attempts at authenticity to end up doing just the opposite (157). Varga points out that this paradox leads to the following: whereas authenticity used to be a way of challenging social and institutional hierarchies it now seems to have become an institutionalised demand itself.
The persona that Daniel Sloss creates for his audience throughout the first hour of his special is authentic in opposition to Taylor’s definition of communal authenticity: he makes the jokes he wants to make, revelling in the awkwardness or shocked responses of his audience. He doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of him and seems incredibly confident in his ideology. At the same time, however, his form of authenticity is specifically engineered to get in the good books with the men of his audience; it is inherently social and linked to the implied values of his audience. At the same time, one could say that through this ironic authenticity he manages to create a sense of ambiguity that challenges the audience’s understanding of the topics that he is discussing (to the extent that a straight, white, cis-gendered male can do that during a comedy show).
Sloss details how he dealt with the rapist, another friend of his, how his initial reaction was a typically toxic male reaction - wanting to beat him up - but how he ended up talking to him and the rapist confessed and made excuses. How he and his friends decided to remove that
friend from their group (acknowledging that he doesn’t know whether or not this was the right decision). He tells the audience that the rapist has made no efforts to change his life around (regarding his drug and alcohol use) and how horrible it was to find out that it was not an isolated incident. Throughout this he is constantly self-reflexive and reminding the audience that he is telling this story through his perspective but that it isn’t his story. He informs the audience that 97% of rapists never spend a day in jail. There is a moment of silence and he asks the audience “How do we fix this? How do we as society stop this from happening?”
His final appeal is explicitly aimed towards the men, acknowledging that for women this isn’t as much of a shock as for the men in the audience: “to the women in the room, I know you all know this, none of this is new information to you … Your voices are more important and necessary in this discussion than mine”. He asks the men to not see any of this segment as an attack on them or their friends but as a warning for the dangers of not actively participating in the solution: “don’t sit back like I did and think, well I’m not part of the problem therefore I must be part of the solution … If you think this does not affect the women in your life, it’s not because it’s not happening to them, it’s because they don’t trust you enough to talk to you about it and that’s the single worst thing I ever learned about myself”. He talks about how he’s crafted the show, how his friend told him that he should talk from his own perspective “because men will listen to you, which isn’t fair but it’s true”. He reveals that every joke along the way was to get all the men on his side, mostly poking fun at himself as he does this. At this point he is still performing his authenticity, but he has revealed one of the layers to the audience.
The segment is a showcase how to joke about something terrible by creating an ironic persona, using rhetorical tools such as reversed bathos and emphasising self-reflexivity through the ambiguity that an ironic mode lends itself to. The reason it lands with the audience is because Daniel Sloss expertly builds up to it, creating good will with the audience by highlighting his relatability, the level of ignorance that many of us are working from and
putting forth his ideology that laughter can be a source of coping and healing. Of course there is still the question of its efficacy and whether or not a male comedian should be tackling these subjects at all, but the fact is that comedians will keep looking for different topics in their search for what society finds funny and if they do decide to talk about serious subjects the least they could do is take an example from the care that Daniel Sloss has put into creating this bit.
Chapter 3: The limits of Inside the Greenhouse’s Climate Comedy 2020
The previous chapter shows how the careful construction of an ironic persona and reversed bathos can help a comedian subvert part of the scripts we usually associate with a comedy show that addresses serious topics. With these methods in mind, this chapter will contain an analysis of climate comedy to see to what extent these methods can be translated to the environmental. More specifically I will look at the work comedian Chuck Nice in Climate Comedy 2020 and make the claim that he is at his funniest (and potentially most effective) when he is making use of ironic authenticity. Climate Comedy 2020 was developed by the organisers of Inside the Greenhouse, a project that has been running for the past six years and is led by Maxwell Boykoff and Beth Osnes. Both are associate professors in environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Besides releasing papers on the topic of climate change and comedy, they have organised events and classes that focus on “creative framing and storytelling of issues surrounding climate change” through various media in an attempt to “connect a wider audience to the deep and pressing need to address climate change” (“Who we are”). The project is quite extensive, with classes, workshops and internships available year-round. Each year the project organises a contest to recognise and stimulate “creative climate communicators”, academics, activists, journalists and this year an actual comedian (Chuck Nice). They also host an open international video competition for comedy sketches that engage their audience in matters of the ecological crisis. Climate Comedy 2020 is a compilation of these many different entries, played over a video call rather than in person due to the COVID-19 related lockdown in the U.S.
Osnes and Boykoff have co-authored a number of papers together, of which two will be briefly discussed to lend some context to their thinking on the matter of comedy and the environment. In “A Laughing matter? Confronting climate change through humor” they looked at the power exerted by comedy and how “experiential, emotional, and aesthetic learning” (1)
informs scientific ways of knowing. The paper theorises on how comedy influences the way “meaning course[s] through the veins of our social body, shaping our coping and survival practices in contemporary life” (1). In a follow-up paper Osnes and Boykoff have shown that students participating in projects focused on creating “good natured14” comedy feel more agency, hope and growth as “communicators of climate” (224).
One would expect that a department whose focus lies so heavily on comedy and the climate might be quite effective at creating the comedy that has been envisioned in the past two chapters. Namely, comedy that functions within the conception of bad environmentalism by choosing modes of irony and ambiguity over cynicism and fatalism. However, they do not seem to be aware of these trends within environmental humour and have not cited Seymour in their work. This would explain the lack of any form breaking comedy in Climate Comedy 2020. In this chapter I will first explain the different types of content in Inside the Greenhouse’s film/collage, explain my decision to focus on certain elements and then summarise what we can learn from this comedic endeavour. Namely, that while the process of creating these comedic sketches might be therapeutic and empowering for the participants, it might have less of an effect on the audience than irony, ambiguity and the bad environmentalism that have been discussed in this thesis.
The issues with Inside the Greenhouse’s comedy
There are numerous forms of comedy within Climate Comedy 2020. To find the sketches that are most appropriate for this thesis I went through a selection process. The first type of content is basically interstitial space where Boykoff and Osnes introduce the sketches and tell brief anecdotes. The video also includes “celebrity endorsement”, where individuals of some renown in the field of environmental sciences reiterate the main message of how important the work
14 Intended by the authors to mean both "good for nature" as well as "kind in intent," emphasising that it also
being done by Inside the Greenhouse is. The function of these two types of content is to basically stitch together the show rather than to be comedic and were therefore not analysed. The remaining sketches varied a great deal, from educational videos whose main audience seemed to be children, to satirical parodies of mainstream media such as the sketch “weather girl went rogue,” to a Bear Grylls parody that is looking for trash in the wild rather than animals. All of these sketches clung to the scripts of mainstream environmentalism to varying degrees, but none were innovative or subversive to the extent that they could lead to new ways of thinking and talking about the ecological crisis, in the sense of creating a dialogue between opposing sides of the argument, or even between activists and those still uncertain of how they can contribute. In fact, when regarded through the lenses offered in the previous chapters, where we looked at the link between climate anxiety and gender anxiety, for instance, some of the Inside the Greenhouse sketches were distressingly conservative and tone deaf15. For example, in the “weather girl went rogue,” a woman becomes very angry about people enjoying the warm weather rather than seeing it as a sign of impending environmental disaster. At the same time her male co-host effectively shrugs it off without a second thought, feeding into unhelpful narratives about the overly emotional “angry eco-warrior/feminist/etc” versus the calm, rational man. Even if they had avoided this, the general tone of the angry monologue given by her did not manage to escape the fatalistic tone of mainstream environmentalism, which also made the sketch less effective.
Some sketches fared better. The Bear Grylls satirical sketch had a college student impersonating the television survival instructor, stalking a trash bag in the wild and discovering a nest of coke cans as if they were animals. This was quite funny and has some reference to the tv show Wildboyz, praised by Seymour for its irreverence and irony, that has former Jackass
