Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Dimino, Andrea

Keywords

Stand-up, Performance, Comedy

Area of Concentration

English

Abstract

This thesis examines questions of audience, gender, and comic persona in three recorded works of �alternative� stand-up comedy. After establishing a historical and literary context for the study of stand-up comedy, the project splits into three chapters. Chapter I examines Demetri Martin�s 2006 album These Are Jokes. This first chapter focuses on questions of the comic-audience relationship, in which Martin manipulates stage power dynamics. Muting himself with a second performer, Martin shifts creative opportunity onto the audience. Chapter II examines Maria Bamford�s 2007 album Unwanted Thoughts Syndrome. This chapter complicates the traditional power dynamic by appraising how the comic persona can fragment. Slippery and aloof, Bamford�s rapid character-shifting works to dissolve gender expectations. Finally, Chapter III investigates Patton Oswalt�s 2007 album Werewolves and Lollipops. Drawing on Julia Kristeva�s theory of the abject, this chapter probes Oswalt�s work for that which is somehow both intimate and objectionable. Like traditional comic performance, �alternative� stand-up comedy subverts authority, but it also actively challenges binary thinking in the most subtle and personal ways. In the co-creative moment, no seat is safe: �alternative� stand-up calls everyone to perform.

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