Miranda July's new novel, All Fours, continues her preoccupation with mediation and role play in the service of intimacy, and her challenge to the notion of an authentic or consistent sexual identity is as daring and disruptive as ever. Several things have changed, however, one being a shift in tone away from her first novel,… Continue reading Miranda July: All Fours
Category: comic license
Dick jokes
The dick joke retains its dominant conceptual status, but it’s no longer the straightforward staple it once was. #MeToo, concerns about ‘toxic masculinity’ and social justice campaigns which prioritise minority groups while challenging the centrality of the white, male perspective are all working to complicate the conventional forms of sexually explicit material. However, these new… Continue reading Dick jokes
Sex comedy
‘Sex comedy’ is a rather nebulous classification; films like American Pie (1999), and much of Judd Apatow’s oeuvre (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Superbad) fit the bill, with ancient Greek and Restoration comedies and the films of Doris Day and Rock Hudson providing a lineage for comedies that revolve around sex. It’s a genre that can be… Continue reading Sex comedy
Jerk
The BBC 3 sitcom Jerk, stars Tim Renkow as an anti-hero who exploits his cerebral palsy to get away with bad behaviour. Widely acknowledged to be ground-breaking in its representation of disability, the series is a radical departure from the narrative conventions that situate disabled characters as either victim or saint. With a clear kinship… Continue reading Jerk
Comedy and cancel culture
Questioning liberal orthodoxy is a formidable prospect given the inevitability of outrage. But as we risk sliding into coercive ideological conformity, opening up space for debate is surely a matter of some urgency. Comedy is one place where such issues can be raised and explored in relative safety, and two recent instances, Leigh Stein’s satirical… Continue reading Comedy and cancel culture
Coronavirus memes: visual banter
There’s much that is positive in the abundance of coronavirus comic memes: in their assertions of shared experience and collectivity they clearly do provide a degree of relief. But as units of communication to be exchanged and circulated, they are often only placeholders for real emotion or feeling. Given that the experiences of strain, anger,… Continue reading Coronavirus memes: visual banter
Armando Iannucci’s David Copperfield
All too often humour is seen as somehow secondary to satire - Harry Levin, for instance, describes satire as ‘purposeful comedy’, with the implication that humour alone is insufficient. Indeed, as the privileged critical category, satire often serves ‘to defend comic art against charges of frivolity’ (Green 106). This tendency is understandable given the distinctions… Continue reading Armando Iannucci’s David Copperfield
Humour in the Arts 