More than a joke… Anita Kapadia Cmns 488 – Art Worlds February 5, 2008

Stand-Up Comedy “an encounter between a single, standing performer behaving comically and/or saying funny things directly to an audience, unsupported by very much in the way of costume, prop, setting, or dramatic vehicle” (Mintz, 1985, p.71)

Comedic Material “The way we as people characteristically look out on the universe may be held up for our gaze by the stand-up comedian. He or she may call attention to general features of our cultural landscape by naming the themes that run through the context of American culture like the major ideas of a novel” (Koziski, 1984, p.59)

Is comedy a low brow art?

Comedians as Anthropologists? Both occupations “…study living cultures in order to reveal something of the habits and thoughts of that culture the function of that culture’s institutions” (Koziski, 1984, p.61)