Description
Book SynopsisAs the saying goes, Comedy equals tragedy plus time, but in the face of tragedies on a national scale, comedy becomes the medium through which audiences untangle accepted understandings of what it means to be American.
Trade ReviewFocusing on comedy programs from the 1990s and early 2000s, including
Family Guy,
South Park,
The Simpsons, and
In Living Color, the author adeptly explains how these programs not only offer a means of escape for viewers processing national trauma, but also create new narratives that bleed out into national dialogue, with perhaps unintentional but wide-reaching consequences reverberating in the United States today...A must for media and communication studies departments, this work will also appeal to many comedy fans, traumatologists, and the generally curious. * Library Journal *
Tragedy plus Time feels prescient. Reading the book, I got the sense that I was immersed in a discourse that society will be examining for the foreseeable future in trying to understand the relationship between comedy and trauma...
Tragedy plus Time advances a noteworthy collection of ideas about how collective trauma is (often unexpectedly) processed through humor...While aimed toward comedy scholars broadly, this book is particularly valuable to those curious about comedy’s intersection with history and politics. * Studies in American Humor *
[An] insightful and innovative book...Scepanski is fairly thorough in his writing on both the general topic as well as its neatly-ordered subtopics. * Houston Press *
[A] truly excellent new book...
Tragedy Plus Time is sophisticated, compelling, timely and well-written. It has a wide appeal for readers of all generations and backgrounds—just like television itself. * Northeast Popular & American Culture Association *
Scepanski effectively demonstrates throughout his book that the perceived status of television comedy as lowbrow entertainment, its ever-narrowing target audience, and its propensity to offend combine to place the TV comedy genre in an opportune position to address sensitive topics...Perhaps more than ever, this sort of historical and contextual perspective on television comedy is urgently needed for the complex mapping of the current American media culture and its ramifications. If comedy is an often quickly overlooked or dismissed genre, Scepanski proves that it should not be, given its significance in shaping Americans’ sense of national identity and history. * Film Quarterly *
Tragedy Plus Time takes a serious look at how comedy and satire in American media make light of dark matters...thorough and engaging...Scepanki’s study is useful to understand the ways that comedy constructs a view of the past, thereby influencing perceptions of historical events. Those lessons do not disappear but become integrated into worldviews going forward, shaping how national trauma plays a role in both national and individual identity. * PopMatters *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Broadcast Nationalism, National Trauma, and Television Comedy
Chapter 1: The Kennedy Assassination and the Growth of Sick Humor on American Television
Chapter 2: Censored Comedies and Comedies of Censorship
Chapter 3: Emotional Nonconformity in Comedy
Chapter 4: Conspiracy Theories and Comedy
Chapter 5: African American Comedies and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots
Chapter 6: Television Comedy and Islamophobia after 9/11
Chapter 7: Comedy and Trump as Trauma in Narrowcast America
Conclusion
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
