Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth

Humour is often dismissed as cruel ridicule or harmless fun. But what if laughter is a vital force to channel rage against patriarchy, Islamophobia, or mass incarceration? To create moments of empathy and dialogue between Black Lives Matter and the police? These and other such questions are at the heart of this powerful reassessment of humour.

Here Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett address the four major theories of humour-superiority, relief, incongruity, and social play-through the lens of feminist and game-changing comics such as Wanda Sykes, Margaret Cho, Hannah Gadsby, Hari Kondabolu, and Tig Notaro. They take a radical and holistic approach to the understanding of humour, particularly of humour deployed by those from groups long relegated to the margins, and propose a powerful new understanding of humour as a force that can engender politically progressive social movements.

Drawing on a range of cross-disciplinary sources, from philosophies and histories of humour to the psychology and physiology of laughter to animal studies, Uproarious offers a richer understanding of the political and cathartic potential of humour. A major new contribution to a wider dialogue on comedy, Uproarious grounds for us explorations of outsider humour and our golden age of feminist comics-showing that when women, prisoners, even animals, laugh back, comedy along with belly laughs forge new identities and alter the political climate.