HOW COMEDIANS LEARN TO USE HUMOR TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES

by

Nancy Ann Goldman

Dissertation Committee: Professor Marie Volpe, Sponsor Professor Victoria Marsick

Approved by the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Education

Date

HAY 1 8 2011

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in Teachers College, Columbia University 2011

UMI Number: 3484355

All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

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ABSTRACT

HOW COMEDIANS LEARN TO USE HUMOR TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES

Nancy Ann Goldman

During these unprecedented complicated times, there is an equally unprecedented need for an informed citizenry. Many of us watch democracy get played out on the 24-hour news networks. Still others bear witness to it in the social commentaries embedded in the entertainment provided by late night comedians like Jon Stewart. Humor provides a largely acceptable means by which to hold our ideologies up to the light for inspection and critique. By challenging our prevailing assumptions, highlighting absurdities about social and political issues, and showing us alternative ways of thinking and being, these comedians are raising our awareness and consciousness. In this way they are educating. The sources of data for this qualitative case study were interviews with 14 elite comedians, a focus group of 8 comedians, and a document review. The three findings indicate that (1) the primary way in which comedians raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives; (2) in order to do so, they need to know the social/political landscape and need to question prevailing points of view; and (3) they learn to do this through informal means by drawing on past experience, observation, and learning by doing. A noteworthy commonality between several participants who have a questioning point of view is that they belong to a minority - they're either gay, Black, bi-cultural, Jewish, female, or some combination. A fundamental rule of comedy is to attack those

in power, not those that are powerless. Humor provides a vehicle for the oppressed to experience liberation as well as an opportunity for praxis, reflection, and action. Freire calls this process of becoming aware of the oppressive forces in one's life "conscientization." These comedians engage us in that process. However, having the perspective of an outsider is not necessarily defined by one's outward appearance or group identification. Sensitivity to hypocrisy and absurdity, and the ability to question the status quo, is available to all through the use of humor.

HOW COMEDIANS LEARN TO USE HUMOR TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES

by

Nancy Ann Goldman

Dissertation Committee: Professor Marie Volpe, Sponsor Professor Victoria Marsick

Approved by the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Education Date H A Y 1 2tHt

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Education in Teachers College, Columbia University 2011

 Copyright Nancy Ann Goldman 2011 All Rights Reserved

DEDICATION

To my dad, Bernard L. Goldman For giving me his appreciation of humor. I wish you were here to share this with me. To my mom, Connie M. Goldman For giving me her appreciation of education. You'll always be my star. Thank you both for giving me the opportunities you didn't have. To my nieces and nephews I hope this inspires you to look beyond what is, to what can be.

in

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My heartfelt appreciation goes to the NYC comedy community, especially the comedians. I'm touched by your artistry, humanity, sense of responsibility, and bigheartedness. Rich Brooks, Al Martin, Yomeri Recio, "comedy experts," publicists, managers, Erin Keating, Gabe Pacheco, Eric Hanson, Modi and Erik Rivera helped make this possible. I must thank Dr. Marie Volpe, my sponsor, who taught me that education is about making connections - not just between chapters, or between practice and theory, or the brain and heart. Education is about love. Having experienced your love as a student, I can't give any less as an educator. For this, your boundless energy and endless hours, I'm beholden. Persis Luke - 1 could not have done this without your unwavering faith in me. Period. You are my rock. My family - thanks for your terrific sense of humor, for believing in me no matter what I do, and for keeping me grounded by reminding me I should have never left the bank. Dr. Victoria Marsick, my second reader - your wisdom always makes my work better and in doing so makes me better. Dr. Lyle Yorks, your support and enthusiasm for my dissertation from the beginning has meant so much to me. Dr. Jeanne Bitterman, thank you for believing in me enough to challenge me to go out of my comfort zone. Thank you to my AEGIS XXI classmates, Dr. Kate Wall, and Dr. Zuno Kristal for being so wise and generous, and most especially to Tes, who led me and laughed with me. Katy Finch - you shepherded me into a new career and identity as an educator. You are a wonderful mentor who gave me guidance and space to find my voice at work and the support I needed to find it outside of work. N. A. G.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I INTRODUCTION TO PROBLEM Background and Context Overview Discourse and Democracy Social and Political Context Reflection and Democracy The Historical Role of Humor in Society Role of American Humor in Democracy Problem Statement Purpose and Research Questions Methodological Approach Anticipated Outcomes Assumptions of the Study Rationale for the Study Significance of Study The Researcher Definitions II LITERATURE REVIEW The Purpose Rationale for Topics Humor Introduction Origins of Humor Definitions of Humor Theories of Humor The Role of Humor in Democracy Ways in which Humor May Educate about Political Issues Ways in which Humor May Educate about Social Issues Summary Adult Learning Introduction Formal Learning Informal Learning Learning Through Reflection Learning Through Critical Reflection Learning Through Discourse Experiential Learning Schon's Theory of Reflection-in-Action Summary Page 1 1 2 2 4 4 5 7 9 10 11 11 11 12 13 13 14 16 16 17 17 17 18 20 20 21 25 29 31 32 32 34 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Chapter The Conceptual Framework III METHODOLOGY Introduction and Overview Rationale for Qualitative Research Design The Research Sample Overview of Information Needed Contextual Perceptual Demographic Theoretical Research Design Overview Methods of Data Collection Interviews The Research Sample Methods of Data Analysis and Synthesis Literature on Methods Qualitative Methods Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviews Advantages and Disadvantages of Review of Documentation Advantages and Disadvantages of Focus Groups Ethical Considerations Issues of Trustworthiness in Study Design Credibility Dependability Confirmability Transferability Limitations of the Study Chapter Summary IV FINDINGS Introduction Participant Profiles Finding #1 Overview Present Alternative Perspectives Challenging Assumptions Acting Unconventionally Highlighting Absurdities Discussing the Un-discussable Motivating Others Motivating Others to Discuss Issues

Page 41 43 43 44 46 48 49 49 50 50 51 53 54 56 58 60 60 60 61 62 63 64 64 65 66 66 67 69 71 71 72 80 80 81 82 83 83 84 85 86

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Motivating Others to Feel Motivating Others to Act Synthesizing Information Expressing Themselves Finding #2 Overview Awareness of Contemporary Social and Political Landscape Know What You're Talking About The Role of Emotions The Willingness to Question Prevailing Points of View Question Authority or the Status Quo Point out the Illogical or Absurd Be Funny Not Preachy Connecting with the Audience Create Relatable Material Establish Trust Take Risks Be Confident in Your Opinion Finding #3 Overview Drawing on Past Experience Drawing on Previous Jobs Influence of Family Drawing on Their Life Experiences Observation Observe Other Comedians Observe the News and World Around You Observe Audiences' Reactions Learning by Doing Role Models Comedians as Role Models Family Members as Role Models Reflection Reflection-in- Action Reflection-on-Action Dialogue with Others Partly Innate Summary of Findings

86 87 88 88 89 89 90 90 93 95 96 98 99 101 103 104 105 107 109 109 110 110 Ill 113 114 115 116 117 118 121 121 124 125 127 129 130 132 133

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Chapter V ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, AND INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS Analysis and Synthesis Presenting Alternative Perspectives to Potentially Motivate Others The Need to Challenge Prevailing Assumptions Learning in Informal Ways Summary of Analysis and Synthesis Interpretation Summary of Interpretation Summary of Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation Revisit Assumptions Contributions to the Literature VI CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion 1 Conclusion 2 Conclusion 3 Recommendations Recommendations for Recommendations for Comedians Recommendations for Recommendations for Researcher's Reflections REFERENCES Appendix A B C CI D E F G H I J K L Letter of Invitation Subject Consent Form and Participant's Rights Participant Data Inventory: Demographic Inventory Participant Demographics Researcher's Biography Interview Protocol Sample Interview Transcribed and Coded Focus Group Protocol Documents Reviewed Final Conceptual Framework Coding Legend Audience Reaction Feedback Survey for Second Survey Distribution Chart for Research Question 1 vin 179 180 184 185 186 188 189 194 195 197 199 201 202 135 137 137 144 149 152 152 158 159 160 161 163 163 163 164 165 165 165. 166 166 167 169

Up and Coming Comedians Managers of Up and Coming Adult Educators Future Research

Appendix M N O Distribution Chart for Research Question 2 Distribution Chart for Research Question 3 Evidence Table of Focus Group's Contribution to Understanding of Findings

Page 203 204 205

IX

LIST OF TABLES Table 1 2 3 4 5 Studies Demonstrating Social Impact of Humor An Outline of Finding #1 An Outline of Finding #2 An Outline of Finding #3 How Participants Go about Raising Awareness and Consciousness about Contemporary Social and Political Issues Page 30 81 90 110

142

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Conceptual Framework Page 42

XI

Chapter I INTRODUCTION TO PROBLEM

Background and Context Overview Americans are living through complex social and political times. The historical tension between freedom of expression and repression (Maslon & Kantor, 2008) has intensified in the post-9/11 environment. Ongoing national conversations about what should be available on the Internet and how; legislation regarding the rights for gays and lesbians to marry, and policies regarding the fight against terror are everyday examples of this countrywide conflict. The average citizen must learn how to navigate between their First Amendment rights and the conservative, Puritan ethic (Maslon & Kantor, 2008) so they can contribute to the national dialogue. We live in an age of too much information. The Library of Congress has over 142 million items, which includes 32 million catalogued books. The list of magazines, newspapers, and journals appears endless. As of July 2008, Google recognized over 1 trillion unique URLs on the web, and that number is growing exponentially. Some people are overwhelmed and don't know how to decipher all this information and assess its various sources, and still others who don't have access to such resources are at a learning deficit. The average citizen must learn how to make sense of all this information so they can create knowledgeable opinions.

We live in a world that is global and interdependent, and yet we are divided. There is bipartisanship and intolerance. Stereotypes built on fear are destructive and divisive. Mezirow (2000) wrote, Our culture conspires against collaborative thinking and the development of social competence by conditioning us to think adversarially in terms of winning or losing.... We tend to believe that there are two sides to every issue and only two. We set out to win an argument rather than to understand different ways of thinking and different frames of reference, and to search for common ground, to resolve differences, and to get things done. (p. 12) Rational discourse has been overshadowed by talking heads and 15-second sound bites. The average citizen must learn how to engage in a conversation in ways that are disarming and cooperative. During these unprecedented complicated times, there is an equally unprecedented need for an informed citizenry. Americans must overcome the aforementioned challenges so that we may increase our participation in democracy. Youngblood (2007) reminds us, "Adult education has always had learning for participation in order to secure a democratic society as one of its central tenets" (p. 57). Discourse and Democracy The need to communicate is fundamental; Cranton (2006) summarizes Habermas's (1971) conviction that all societies transmit knowledge about shared beliefs and behaviors through communication. Habermas, she says, refers to this need to understand each other through language as communicative knowledge and much of adult education centers upon its acquisition and practice. It is not surprising then that discourse has been a core principle in adult education. Mezirow (2000) described discourse as "that specialized use of dialogue devoted to searching for a common understanding and assessment of the justification of an interpretation or belief (p. 10). Cranton (2006) observes that a variety of learning theories refer to the importance of the role of discourse in learning, including "Belenky and Stanton's (2000) full-circle conversation, Kegan's

(2000) 'discourse of inner contractions,' and 'developmental discourse,' Palmer's (2004) 'circle of trust,' and Mezirow's (2000) description of empathic listening in discourse" (p. 191). Armstrong (2009) recounts that Socratic dialogue was a joint effort, requiring a disciplined, openhearted exchange. By listening to one another, the conversationalists learned to inhabit each other's points of view. Biesta (2007) reiterates Dewey's position that discourse, and the social interaction that results, is inexorably linked with democracy in two ways: one's ability to participate in democracy is formed through social interaction, and, conversely, we become better at social intelligence through our participation in democracy. Lerner and Schugurensky's (2007) findings confirm that, by taking part in citizenship and democracy, participants became "more knowledgeable, skilled, democratic, engaged, tolerant, and caring. They became better able to deal with conflict and difference, and gained more political efficacy, that is, the feeling that they can make a difference in the political process" (p. 86). Progressive educators who have adapted this line of thinking believe that one of the roles of education is to assist learners in becoming active participants in democracy. However, discourse need not be relegated to schoolhouses and universities - it may occur anywhere people congregate, whether at coffee shops, online in virtual communities, at meetings in organizations, and among patrons in the theater. Habermas, as described in Finlayson (2005), articulated this: "These unregulated spheres of sociality provide a repository of shared meanings and understandings, and a social horizon for everyday encounters with other people" (pp. 51-52). Youngblood (2007) acknowledges that this has been historically true: "Since the time Rousseau's social theories became widely understood, having settings for democratic participation in all areas of society, not just the formal political institutions, has been seen as important for the political socialization of the democratic citizen" (p. 57). The value of discourse, it seems, transcends time and place.

Social and Political Context The turn of the century, and the technological advances that came with it, has widened the scope and opportunities for discourse. It has also provided us with several "firsts" in American history about which we can discuss. For example, the events of 9/11, the first of its magnitude, continue to define us in many ways nationally and internationally. Perhaps a most prominent first since then has been America's election of our first African American president. Born of biracial parents, he is uniquely poised to be a president to all people. He is setting a tone for collaboration and inclusivity. In a recent speech (Obama, 2009), he expressed the need for mature dialogue between races and countries in an attempt to heal fissures: "In order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground." He catalyzed another first in our nation's history: the appointment of a Latina Supreme Court justice. Even as we appear to make inroads regarding our racial divide, we are reminded of inequalities and injustices experienced based on sexual orientation. For the past few years, the fight for civil rights has been at the intersection of sexual orientation and religion as gays and lesbians battle for their right to marry. In 2004, Massachusetts was the first state to legalize same-sex marriage, and progress in other states has been erratic. This past year has been marked with unparalleled financial uncertainty. The National Bureau of Economic Research recognized that a national economic recession began in December of 2007, possibly the worst since the depression of the 1930s, creating a backdrop of fear. Additionally, unemployment rates are broaching 10% according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and, as a result, Americans' spending has contracted.

5 Reflection and Democracy These social and political matters impact our daily lives and call upon us for increased tolerance, non-partisan information, and self-reflection. Our development as a nation, as well as our individual growth, depends upon our being aware and informed citizens. Jenkins (1984) wrote that it is necessary for each of us to actively question the government and social mores, debate issues; confront injustices; and expose corruption. Brookfield (2000) stresses the importance of critically reflecting upon society's ideologies; what he defines as our "values, beliefs, myths, explanations, and justifications that appear self-evidently true and morally desirable" (p. 129). Doing so, he posits, is an inherently social process: "We need others to serve as critical mirrors who highlight our assumptions for us and reflect them back to us in unfamiliar, surprising and disturbing ways" (p. 146). Because democracy is "by the people" as well as "for the people," it is not sufficient to be a passive participant. Dewey (1987) believed that "all those who are affected by social institutions ... have a share in producing and managing them" (as cited in Biesta, 2007, p. 11). Similarly, Biesta (2007) notes that the relationship between society and individuals is reciprocal. The Historical Role of Humor in Society That humor is a natural part of human nature seems obvious. Hall, Keeter, and Williamson (1993) remind us that humor is universal to all societies and is an important means of reflecting and understanding our social world. Jenkins (1984) notes that from the days of Old Comedy in ancient Greece, humor has played a critical role in maintaining democracy. At that time, he says, the theater was the courtroom for national dialogue, "problems were debated, corruptions was uncovered, and injustices were corrected" (p. 10). He describes how humor was used to dismantle cultural norms and political authorities: "Aristophanic comedy was a complex mechanism through which the public was exposed to a model of problem-solving similar

to the one they were expected to follow in Athenian democracy. Questions were debated, dissected and decided upon in the context of high comic art" (p. 10). Fast forward centuries later to the Middle Ages, and the court jester assumed the voice of the average citizen (Pollio, 1996). Pollio notes that despite the court jester's low position, it was his role to mock the king and tell him those unpleasant truths others could not. In this way, he says, society's clowns both breach the social order and, at the same time, act as guardians of the very social order they mock. Historically, Mintz (1985) observes, comedians have often played the role of social commentators: "Shakespeare made extensive use of the fool's traditional license to have the innocent but sharp, shrewd observer speak the 'truth' which was universally recognized but politically taboo" (p. 76). This idea that the average man can be a social commentator can be seen in early American humor as well. Will Rogers, America's most popular comedian during the 1920s and 1930s, emerged as one of these "Crackerbox Philosophers," an expression that, according to Walker (1998, p. 24), was taken from the box of crackers available at a general store where people discussed the news of the day. Jenkins (1984) concurs, "By comically questioning government policies and satirically attacking political leaders American clowns demonstrated that even the humblest of citizens was capable of analyzing public problems, debating controversial issues, and making decisions for themselves" (p. 2). Combs and Nimmo (1996) point out that in the past "making fun of mistakes called attention to them in order to seek a corrective" (p. 6). But that is not the case in all forms of government. The power of humor has been recognized by the Soviet Union, where it, along with other arts, was controlled to ensure it was in service of the state (Morreall, 1983). Additionally, Morreall notes, Hitler was so threatened by humor that he set up special "joke courts" (p. 102) to punish those who named their dogs and horses "Adolf," among others. Even in America's recent history, in the tentative days following the

attacks of 9/11, one comedian's jokes caused a national uproar and cost him his network television show. Role of American Humor in Democracy Except for the pall that was cast over Americans' funny bones the dark days after 9/11, humor in America provides a largely acceptable means by which to inspect and critique our ideologies. The end result is the creation of new perspectives - a kaleidoscope of images, metaphors, and messages - things are seen in a new way. Speaking up, and standing up, is our right. It is also our obligation. Walker (1998) agrees: "The fact that democracy encourages the participation of its citizens in the development of its institutions allows those same citizens freedom to criticize both the nation's leaders and its laws" (p. 8). Therefore, in a very important way, humor serves a uniquely democratic function. Walker (1998) says, Because the ideals embodied in the promises of democracy are just that ideals and not necessarily realities - a great deal of American humor, whether overtly political or not, has pointed to the discrepancies between the grand promises of equality, prosperity, and fulfillment and the actualities of socioeconomic class differences, discrimination, and corruption, (p. 8) Since comedians speak about topics that might be considered taboo in other settings, and because their commentary is embedded in a comedic context and disguised as entertainment, their messages are more easily received. Koziski (1984) wrote about the similarities between stand-up comedians and anthropologists. She cited Victor Turner (1977), who remarked that stand-up comedians "cut out a piece of society for the inspection of his audience [and] set up a frame within which image and symbols of what has been sectioned off can be scrutinized, assessed, and perhaps remodeled" (p. 60). However, unlike anthropologists, comedians often communicate in a public sphere with access to, and the attention of, millions. As a result, they have the potential to influence public opinion on a mass scale. Their commentaries

and insights, since given in a public domain such as a television program, concert hall, comedy club, or on the Internet, become part of the discussions held at the water coolers of offices, in bar rooms and living rooms across the country. Finlayson (2005) writes that Habermas sees the public sphere as "the origin of the ideal of democratic politics, and as the ground of the moral and epistemic values that nourish and maintain democracy equality, liberty, rationality and truth" (p. 14). Today, many of us watch democracy get played out among the hosts and guests on the 24-hour news networks. Still others bear witness to it in the social commentaries embedded in the entertainment provided by late night comedians such as Jon Stewart, Jay Leno, and David Letterman. Some research shows that satirical television programs such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are more than amusement; they are sources of information. In 2005, the Pew Research Center for People and the Press reported the following: "The percentage of 18-to-29 year olds who said they learned about the campaign from comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show doubled between 2000 and 2004. For young people, programs like The Daily Show are now nearly as important sources of campaign news as network news and newspapers." These latenight comedians play not only a popular role, but also a pivotal and increasingly critical role, in our national dialogue and, therefore, can be seen as educators. Various experiential learning theories define the role of educators somewhat differently. For example, Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner (2007) describe constructivists' belief that the role of educators is to foster critical reflection on listeners' assumptions. The researcher believes that comedians such as George Carlin foster critical reflection by making comments such as, "I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it" (www.thinkexist.com). Jokes like these can provoke questioning of society's hegemonic forces and potentially foster critical reflection. Those who take a critical approach to education, Merriam et al. (2007) state, deem it essential that educators help others see the influence of power in their lives. This

researcher would argue that comedians such as Jon Stewart who act as satirists facilitate this with comments such as, "If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that" (www.thinkexist.com). Satirical comments increase awareness of our cultural norms and even proffer an acceptable means by which to criticize them. Merriam et al. say that still others who support complexity theory believe that part of the role of an educator is to help learners understand change within complex systems. It is the researcher's position that comedians such as Chris Rock who are social commentators fulfill that function by making observations like the following: "There are people who would like to get rid of minimum wage. But we have to have it, because if we didn't some people would not get paid money. They would work all week for two loaves of bread and some Spam" (www.thinkexist.com). Merriam et al. (2007) state that "educators serve as facilitators of reflection and encourage learners to discuss and reflect on concrete experiences in a trusting, open environment" (p. 169). This definition inhabits some of the ways in which comedians are educators. Henceforth, for the purposes of this research, adult education is viewed as the process by which people become more informed or more critically aware of their assumptions about how we live in the world together and matters regarding the governance of our society, in the public sphere where adults congregate rather than within the educational system per se. Consequently, comedians who further the national dialogue by performing in shared spaces and increasing audience members' critical reflection and discourse about social and political issues are, for the purposes of this study, considered educators.

10 Problem Statement Throughout the ages humor has been a way to entertain, amuse, and even distract people from the mundane preoccupations of life. It is widely recognized that humor is valuable in helping individuals personally and interpersonally. Humor is a part of our daily lives at work, home, and play; yet it is often taken for granted. A potent tool, humor is actually a double-edged sword that can be used for positive impact as well as negative. For most comedians, as Koziski (1984) acknowledges, their central drive is to be entertaining, while for other comedians, as Mintz (1985) believes, "this is less interesting, even less important than their role as a comic spokesperson, as a mediator, an 'articulator' of our culture" (p. 75). However, little is known about how these "comic spokespersons" learn to use humor as a means of education. The more we know about how humor is learned, the more likely we will be to utilize it for positive educative outcomes and teach others to do so as well. Therefore, a better understanding is needed about the role humor plays in learning about social and political issues and the ways in which humor can contribute to a more informed citizenry.

Purpose and Research Questions The purpose of this study was to explore how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. This study was comprised of one-on-one interviews with a purposeful sample of 14 comedians, a focus group consisting of a convenience sample of 8 comedians, and a review of written, audio, and video documentation generated by and about each participant. To carry out this purpose, the following research questions were explored: 1. How do participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues?

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2.

What elements do participants perceive are necessary to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues?

3.

How do participants learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues?

Methodological Approach The study was a qualitative design composed of three data collection methods: one-on-one interviews with a purposeful sample of 14 professional comedians, a focus group with a convenience sample of 8 professional comedians, and review of written, audio, and video documents generated by and about each participant. The primary method was one-on-one interviews with 14 comedians in hope of yielding rich insights and nuanced descriptions of their learning experiences. A secondary method was a focus group comprised of 8 comedians who were not interviewees and who were selected as a separate sample by the researcher to garner additional information. A third method was a review of written, audio, and video documentation generated by and about each participant.

Anticipated Outcomes Humor has been shown to be a powerful device that can help adult educators positively affect changes in people's knowledge, attitudes, skills, and aspirations (Warnock, 1989). The more we learn about how comedians learn to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, the more likely we will have a social climate of greater acceptance and tolerance.

12 Assumptions of Study A key assumption embedded here is that humor can be learned although it might be partly innate. A second assumption is that certain comedians are purposive in their intent to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. While some comedians may educate unintentionally, the researcher believes that others have the intention to raise awareness and consciousness. A third assumption is that comedians believe that humor can be learned and that they will be able to make their processes conscious and be able to articulate them as well as be willing to share them. A fourth assumption is while there will be commonalities among participants, each individual has his/her own methodology and way of achieving the goal of raising awareness and consciousness about social and political issues. A fifth assumption is that comedians can make a contribution to American society by raising awareness and consciousness about social and political issues.

Rationale for Study Adult education has long extended beyond the traditional boundaries of the classroom to include the family and media where social and political issues are discussed. In the '50s a new wave of entertainer, the stand-up comedian, created another avenue by which to understand and question social and political issues. Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were comedians who were also social commentators and critics. They blazed a trail for today's satirists, including comedians such as Jon Stewart, who was recently voted the most trusted newscaster in America.

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Comedians make a contribution toward a more critically aware and informed citizenry. By understanding how this group of educators helps citizens see other perspectives, others can learn to do so as well.

Significance of Study Humor provides a socially acceptable means by which to critique contemporary social and political issues. By understanding how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues, others, such as educators, may have an additional means by which to engage students in these important concepts. Also, humor offers a vehicle that may help some learners think more critically and provides a non-threatening way to challenge existing assumptions.

The Researcher As a teenager, I loved comedy. I grew up in the heyday of Saturday Night Live and the comedy of the '70s, when it was revolutionary to parody mainstream culture. Humor was an acceptable vehicle through which I could question authority and social norms. Satire and sarcasm were also safe ways to express my adolescent anger and rebellion. Humor provided me with common ground to find friends who shared similar ideas and tastes and, ultimately, identities. When coming out as a lesbian in the early '90s, I began promoting live comedy shows for gay and lesbian audiences. It was still fairly uncommon then for people to be "out" in the workplace or to see gay characters depicted in mainstream media. These comedy shows provided a great service to me and to the queer community because the comedians validated the gay experience by mirroring our lives, created a forum to socialize and discuss, provided information, raised awareness, shaped and solidified our

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identities and more. I believe these performers helped foster a social climate of greater acceptance and tolerance, which blazed the trail for people like Ellen DeGeneres to play the first lead homosexual character on a national television series in 1997 and helped further the integration of gays into mainstream society. Similar phenomena occurred for blacks and women in the '60s and the '70s with comedians like Bill Cosby, Dick Gregory, and Richard Pryor, as well as Joan Rivers and Elayne Boosler. Freire (2000) asks, "Who are better prepared than the oppressed to understand the terrible significance of an oppressive society?" (p. 4).

Definitions Hard News - The staples of serious news programs and publications, such as international, financial, government, and political news.1 Humour (Humor) - any message - transmitted in action, speech, writing, images, or music - intended to produce a smile or a laugh.2 Parody - while often critiquing content, uses wit to make fun of form as well.3 Satire - uses wit to criticize content.4 Soft News - news that is not of a serious nature and more than likely includes, but is not limited to, entertainment, culture, arts, and sports.5

'Pew Research Center for the People & the Press - http://people-press.org/ commentary/?analysisid=34 Bremmer. J., & Roodenburg, H. (1997). Humour and history. In J. Bremmer & H. Roodenburg (Eds.), A Cultural History of Humour. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Maslon, L., & Kantor, M. (2009). Make 'em laugh: The funny business of America. New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, p. 62.
4 3 2

Maslon & Kantor, p. 62. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

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Stand-up comedy - an American literary form that involves one person, usually uncostumed, on stage for the explicit purpose of telling jokes so as to elicit laughter from an audience.6

Tafoya, E. (2009). The legacy of the wisecrack. Boca Raton, FL: BrownWalker Press.

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Chapter II LITERATURE REVIEW

The Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. To carry out this purpose, literature regarding the following two topics was reviewed: (1) Humor (including its definition, origins, the history of American humor, the role of humor in democracy, and ways in which humor may educate); and (2) Adult learning theory (including formal and informal learning, as well as learning from experience, discourse, reflection, and reflection-in-action). Each of these topics was researched using various library catalogues at, and affiliated with, Teachers College Columbia University as well as Internet search engines such as Google and Google Scholar. These searches identified dissertations, books, journal articles, magazine articles, newspapers, websites, and conversations with comedians and comedy industry professionals that were included in this review. Search terms included the following in several varied combinations: humor, adult learning, adult education, democracy, history of humor, American humor, origins of humor, and political humor. Reviewing this literature allowed the researcher to evaluate the information garnered in order to determine the following the questions: (1) How do participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and

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political issues? (2) What elements do participants perceive are necessary to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? (3) How do participants learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues? The literature review was ongoing throughout the dissertation process.

Rationale for Topics A selected review of the literature about humor and adult learning was deemed relevant for this study since the study's purpose is to understand the phenomenon of the use of humor to educate about social and political issues. Little literature was found at the intersection of adult learning and the use of humor to educate. Therefore, the literature review begins with an examination of humor by providing a historical look at the changing meanings of humor, its origins, and its evolving role in democracy and then explores how it educates regarding social and political issues today. Secondly, the literature review explored adult learning starting with an introduction to informal learning, paying particular attention to the role of reflection and discourse, learning through experience, and reflection-in-action. Some of the theorists discussed include Dewey (1938), Habermas (1971), Brookfield (2000), and Schon (1983). Marsick (1990), Watkins (1990), and Volpe (1999) provide a foundational understanding of informal learning.

Humor Introduction Throughout the ages humor has been a way to entertain, amuse, and even distract people from the mundane preoccupations of life. It is widely recognized that humor is

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valuable in helping individuals personally and interpersonally. Humor is a part of our daily lives at work, home, and play; yet it is often taken for granted. A potent tool, humor is actually a double-edged sword that can be used for positive impact as well as negative. For most comedians, their central drive is to be entertaining (Koziski, 1984), while for other comedians, "this is less interesting, even less important than their role as a comic spokesperson, as a mediator, an 'articulator' of our culture" (Mintz, 1985, p. 75). However, little is known about how these "comic spokespersons" learn to use humor as a means of education. The more we know about how humor is learned, the more likely we will be to utilize it for positive educative outcomes and teach others to do so as well. Therefore, a better understanding is needed about the role humor plays in learning about social and political issues and the ways in which humor can contribute to a more informed citizenry. The following review examined the role humor plays in raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues in order to highlight the ways in which humor can contribute to a more informed citizenry. Origins of Humor Humor has been around since the dawn of man and is said to be an expressly human phenomenon. Critchley (2002) reminds us that in the 4th century B.C., Aristotle, in On the Parts of the Animals, wrote "No animal laughs save Man" (p. 25). Many centuries later, Bergson (1911) still agreed: "The comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly human. A landscape ... will never be laughable. You may laugh at an animal, but only because you have detected in it some human attitude or expression" (p. 10). Therefore, R. Martin (2007) does not surprise us then when he states that humor is a social phenomenon (p. 5). Hertzler (1970), in her seminal book Laughter, expounds on this by saying, "Laughter is born of social contacts, has its roots in social situations, and

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is a peculiarly social activity" (p. 28). However, laughter and humor are not the same. Goodheart (1994) makes the distinction that although humor and laughter are often spoken about hand-in-hand (or even interchangeably), they are different processes: "A sense of humor is learned, laughter is innate. A sense of humor is an intellectual process, whereas laughter spontaneously engages every major system in the body" (p. 33). Dewey, writing in 1894, acknowledged their independence by saying, "The laugh is to no means be viewed by the standpoint of humor; its connection with humor is secondary" (Valsiner & van der Veer, 2000, p. 215). Peterson and Seligman (2004) remind us that for centuries the term "humors" referred to bodily fluids: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Ideally one's humors were balanced because their mixture determined one's physical appearance, physiognomy, and proneness to disease. According to Peterson and Seligman, this definition remained until the 16th century, when it was expanded to include behavior deviating from social norms or an odd or peculiar person. They recount that the definition of humor changed from referring to a physical substance to having a more psychological connotation referring to one's mood - either positive (good humor) or negative (bad humor). Ruch (1998, as cited in Martin, 2007) said that from that point it became easy to associate humor with funniness and laughter. Peterson and Seligman (2004) attribute the next shift in meaning to growing humanism, which argued that people should not be laughed at because of peculiarities in temperament beyond their control; however, it was permissible to laugh at the pompous, the fake, or the conceited. "Good humor was the sovereign attitude of exposing oneself to the criticism and mockery of others" (p. 586). According to Schmidt-Hidding (1963, as cited in Peterson & Seligman, 2004), in the 19th century, humor became a defining English virtue and then an explicit part of the English lifestyle. Ruch (2007) said, "The political predominance of the British Empire spread the concept, and humor as a model life style extended beyond its boundaries" (p. 9).

Definitions of Humor It can be seen how over the centuries the definition of "humor" evolved from a physical characteristic to a virtuous way of being, and today "humor" can be a noun, an adjective, and a verb - one can have a sense of humor, be good-humored, and perform the action of humoring someone. Humor is studied from the perspectives of many disciplines including, but not limited to, sociology, psychology, development, cognition, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, biology, organizational psychology, and education. And even within those disciplines, there are many different perspectives. Davis (1995) says, for example, that positivistic sociologists view humor as a mode of behavior, while phenomenological sociologists see humor as a mode of perception about the way the world is constructed (p. 332). As it pertains to psychological research, R. Martin (2007) summarizes some of the ways in which sense of humor has been conceptualized: as a habitual behavior pattern, an ability, a temperament trait, an aesthetic response, an attitude, a world view, and a coping strategy or defense mechanism (p. 194). Ziv (1981, as cited in Nevo, Aharonson, & Klingman, 1998) defines humor as a method of communication that can therefore be conceived in terms of its comprehension, generation, and appreciation. According to these distinctions, one can have a sense of humor (be able to comprehend and appreciate humor), but not necessarily be funny (generate humor). Given that humor can run the gamut from a cognitive ability to an evolutionary adaptation, as Polimeni and Reiss (2006) describe it, it is almost understandable why E.B. White once said, "Humor ... is essentially a complete mystery" (Goodheart, 1994, p. 33). While humor might not be a complete mystery, many would agree that it is difficult to define. Nonetheless, it is largely desirable. Theories of Humor Morreall (1997), who has been studying humor for more than 20 years, says the theory of humor that dominated thought until only 200 years ago arose from the Greeks,

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who believed that humor originated from feelings of superiority over, and ridicule of, others. Much of the research that examines humor from a superiority perspective (Superiority Theory) deals with aggressive, disparaging, and self-deprecating humor, which elevates individuals above the target of the humor (Gutman & Priest, 1969; Stocking & Zillmann, 1976; Zillman, 1983; Zillmann & Cantor, 1976). According to Morreall (1983), a second theory, referred to as Relief Theory, is derived from a physiological point of view. Based on Freud's theory, it says that laughter is an outlet for psychic or nervous energy, particularly sexual and aggressive inhibitions (Brooks, 1992; Martin, 2007). Morreall (1997) states that the current theory of humor explains it as the experience of enjoying something that doesn't fit our mental patterns. Called Incongruity Theory, this explains humor as a mismatch between what we expect and what we experience. R. Martin (2007) believes that research evidence to date generally supports the idea that incongruity is an important element of humor but also recognizes that the concept of incongruity is still not well defined (Ritchie, 2004, as cited in Martin, 2007). Incongruity is the theory of humor used here. The Role of Humor in Democracy Humor that exists today, while it has its roots in the humor of centuries ago, has its own identity based on the times and the culture. This is why humor is not easily transferable between eras and across countries. Hertzler (1970) agrees that cultural conditions influence laughter, contending that each culture has its own distinctive social, economic, political and intellectual history; its own fundamental values; its own distinctive social codes - folkways, mores, manners, customs, conventions, and laws; its own logic; its own ideology ... its own peculiar complex of social institutions in large part setting the behavior patterns of its people in almost every department of life. (p. 50) Critchley (2002) concurs and believes that this is one way in which humor is a learned phenomenon.

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Goodheart (1994) observes that many of us raised in the Western world have grown up to believe that life is to be taken seriously. The American posture, she notes, is due partly to the Puritanical work ethic, which has been ingrained in our culture. In contrast, she observes, some Eastern philosophies place laughter next to enlightenment, like India, where gathering just to laugh for the sake of laughing is common. Morreall (1983) attributes the American attitude to Plato, who thought that laughter demonstrates scornfulness, that humor causes us to become silly and irresponsible, and who opposed humor because it was morally objectionable and may contaminate us with its wickedness. Combs and Nimmo (1996) write that Aristotle believed that making fun of human mistakes was "not productive of pain or harm to others" (p. 6) and that making fun called attention to that which needed to be corrected. They note that comedy of that time (Old Comedy) featured the work of playwrights like Aristophanes, which "looked at Greek city-state democracy, depicted it as ridiculous, and called for political change" (p. 5). No topic, they say, was too serious or off limits. Matters of great import, such as the gods, rulers, and war and peace, were ridiculed. Combs and Nimmo (1996) report that when the Macedonians conquered Greece and Athens and the Greek territories fell under the rule of Alexander the Great, New Comedy replaced Old Comedy: "With self-rule gone the freedom of citizens to criticize rulers, seek redress of grievances, and demand reforms went with it" (p. 5). The result, they claim, was that the focus of humor turned from politics and civic questions to the trivialities found in everyday life. They observe "early in the history of civilization it became very clear to those in authority that political comedy was dangerous, something that needed to be suppressed or displaced" (p. 5). This type of comedy lasted for several centuries (and, in fact, seems similar to many of today's sitcoms). Combs and Nimmo (1996) relate that the Italian Renaissance of the 15th century introduced the writings of Machiavelli, who used comedy to delight

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and instruct, giving readers and spectators an insider's view of politics and demonstrating that what goes on is not only important but is also funny. Chapman and Foot (1996) note, The view that laughter was closely allied to derision and was a socially disruptive force persisted for some time and Ben Jonson (1599) was one of the first notable litterateurs to suggest that comedy inevitably functioned as a social corrective in its use as criticism of the follies of mankind. Later, Moliere and Swift likewise used humor in the form of satire mirroring the social foibles and hypocrisy of seventeenth and eighteenth century Western society, (p. 1) The court jester has become iconic of the medieval period. Tafoya (2009) explained that the jester's role was to ridicule the sacred. Jenkins (1984) explains that this includes ridiculing the power of the royal court. White, in his article "The Anthropology of Fools" (as cited in Tafoya, 2009), relates "apart from providing a balance to the royal hubris, the primary function of the court jester is to provide comic relief from everyday stressers (sic) inherent to the throne." Jones (2005, as cited in Morreale, 2009) believes that today we see this role being filled by comedians such as Jon Stewart, who "gets to play the fool by using the words of those in power against them, revealing 'truth' by a simple reformulation of their statements" (p. 115). These historical trends and attitudes set precedent to, and are currently evident in, American humor. Bradley (1984) said that in addition, among the early influences of American humor and ultimately stand-up comedy that started to take root in America in the late 19th century, is the strong frontier spirit that is embedded in our national character. He observes that "frontiersmen must be quick and cunning and strong. They must not be taken in by the appearance of things. They will come to value simple integrity of character and homely philosophy" (p. 64). Walker (1998) also attributes United States' origination through rebellion against domination by Great Britain's monarchy and various levels of aristocracy as an instrumental influence in American humor. It helped to create the American comic figure, "a country bumpkin who was treated humorously for his ignorance and lack of

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pretentiousness" (p. 7), commonly known as Jonathan. Tandy (1925, as cited in Walker, 1998) believed that Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Davy Crockett, were all examples of this protagonist. Will Rogers is a popular comedian of the 1920s and 1930s who came to inhabit that persona. Today's comedians portray many of the traits that have inhabited American humor for decades: unassuming in their appearances, comedians take to a bare stage unencumbered by much scenery or any props, with only their words and their microphone, and "kill" an audience. Walker (1998) observes that Americans have devoted a large share of their humor to the expression of political beliefs. And, because the ideals embodied in the promises of democracy are just that - ideals and not necessarily realities - a great deal of American humor, whether overtly political or not, has pointed to the discrepancies between the grand promises of equality, prosperity, and fulfillment and the actualities of socioeconomic class differences, discrimination, and corruption, (p. 8) Jenkins (1984), who is a clown and studied clowns throughout the world, says that "classic comic technique requires the clown to expose the discrepancies between the way things are expected to be and the way things actually are. The resulting incongruity can serve as both a source of comedy and an impetus for political dissatisfaction leading to change" (p. 3). Jenkins observed that by playing the role of the common man, these clowns used laughter to confront injustice, unmask hypocrisy, and debunk pomposity. By comically questioning government policies and satirically attacking political leaders American clowns demonstrated that even the humblest of citizens was capable of analyzing public problems, debating controversial issues, and making decisions for themselves, (p. 2) Richard Pryor, in his autobiography, wrote, "My job, as I saw it, was to throw light where there had been only darkness. I was John Wayne, taking up the fight for freedom and

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justice" (Pryor & Gold, 2006, p. 152). Today, these protagonists are common men (and women) who can be seen at local comedy clubs around the country and on television. The service they provide is entertainment, but the role they play is that of guardians of the First Amendment. Ways in which Humor May Educate about Political Issues For the purposes of this study, political humor is humor that addresses issues that deal with matters of politics including governance, justice, legislature, policy, and politicians. Humor and the nation's political consciousness are often linked together in time. Will Rogers spoke at FDR's speeches, Richard Nixon's election is often attributed to his appearance on Laugh-In, and for many people the most memorable thing about Sarah Palin is Tina Fey's impression of her. For the past century, comedians have played the roles of political observers, commentators, and satirists. Lenny Bruce is among the most noted: "Bruce tried to shock people into serious awareness of racism, hunger, murder by war, deprivation, and violations of human dignity" (Cahn & Cahn, 1978, p. 167). Zoglin (2008), writing about comedians of the 1970s, says, "They took aim at political corruption and corporate greed, made fun of society's hypocrisy and consumerist excess, mocked the button-down conformity of Eisenhower America" (pp. 23). Late-night comics such as Leno, O'Brien, and Letterman, regardless of their political persuasions, are traditionally blind to the political party in power - Democrats and Republicans provide equal fodder for jokes. In this way these comedians are testaments to our freedom of speech and perhaps more importantly function as our comic spokespersons, as mediators, "articulators" of our culture, and as our contemporary "anthropologists]" (Mintz, 1985, p. 75). However, not everyone sees them in a positive light. Peterson (2008) takes the position that "despite their efforts to play it safe by offending equally (and superficially),

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the mainstream late-night comics actually present an extremely bleak and cynical view of American democracy" (p. 12) because they continuously reinforce "the notion that political participation is pointless, parties and candidates are interchangeable, and democracy is futile" (p. 18). Jon Stewart, who is the comedian most often cited in the literature about political humor and "regarded by many as the greatest American satirist of our time" (Lewis, 2006, p. 159), even has critics "who have either questioned satire's ability to engage citizens in any meaningful way or alleged that satire may merely inspire a cynical superiority complex in viewers that removes them from politics" (Gray, Jones, & Thompson, 2009, p. 7). Bill Maher is an example of a comedian who could either be hailed as heroic or be accused of crossing the line or even demonstrating a lack of patriotism. Only a few days after 9/11, Bill Maher said on his talk show, Politically Incorrect, "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly" (Maslon & Kantor, 2008, p. 362). Maslon and Kantor note that this remark sparked the dual effect of igniting advertisers to pull their support, thereby canceling Maher's show, yet simultaneously garnering him the L.A. Press Club's President's Award for "championing free speech." In addition to the controversy about how these comedians are perceived and appreciated, there is also debate in the literature about how much, if at all, audiences actually learn from comedy, specifically in regard to politics. According to Young and Tisinger (2006), who studied the effect of late night television on the 2004 elections, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press published a report in 2000 that revealed that 21% of young people (ages 18 to 29) reported learning something about the presidential campaign regularly from comedy shows like The Daily Show or Saturday

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Night Live, and 13% reported regular learning from late-night shows like those hosted by Leno and Letterman (p. 114). Young and Tisinger (2006) went on to dispel the myth that late-night comedy was the new source of political information for today's youth, which took hold as a result of Pew's study. Instead, the authors hypothesized, some news awareness is necessary as a precursor to understanding the jokes of late-night comedy. The authors analyzed two data sets. One was from the NAES (National Annenberg Election Survey), a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, which included a sample of 20,484 telephone interviews regarding self-reported learning about various television programming and was done pre-election 2004 (from December 2003 to March 2004). And the second data set was from the 2004 Pew Research Center Political Communications Study conducted from December 2003 through January 2004 (pp. 119, 120) to obtain data from 1,506 participants that pertained to self-reported learning from late-night programs like Leno and Letterman and comedy programs like The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live. The results intimate that, contrary to popular wisdom, young people are not watching latenight comedy as their exclusive source of news or instead of traditional news. Rather, according to Young and Tisinger (2006), "young heavy late-night comedy watchers tend to be heavier consumers of all types of news information" (p. 120). Fifty percent of respondents reported never learning from late night, while 59.7% reported never learning from comedy shows. About 8% of respondents reported regularly learning from latenight shows and comedy shows (p. 120). Young and Tisinger's (2006) results indicate that "young people are not watching late-night comedy as their exclusive source of news or instead of traditional news. Rather they are watching both" (p. 128). Moy, Xenos, and Hess (2006) explored whether viewing late-night comedy shows influenced viewers' evaluations of candidates who have appeared on these shows prior to the 2000 presidential election. This study examined a rolling cross-section of data

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collected by the National Annenberg Election Survey from 58,373 phone interviews from September 29, 2000 through the night before Election Day 2000. Respondents were asked if they thought Bush or Gore would do a better job at handling certain issues and to describe their character (i.e., "honest," "provides strong leadership") (p. 201). To test for the effects of media (media priming), they divided the rolling cross-sectional data into six week-long increments so that they might compare late-night comedy viewers with non-viewers in the weeks prior to a candidate's appearance on a particular show, and in the week following his appearance (p. 202). Results with respect to how viewers perceived Bush's and Gore's character traits included a finding that in the week immediately following Bush's Late Show appearance, viewers' favorability rating was significantly higher than non-viewers'. Also, throughout the entire survey period, latenight comedy viewers' assessments of Gore were significantly higher than those held by non-viewers. This study does not address how the candidates swayed the audience and also what role the stars such as Leno - a known Republican supporter - and Letterman played in the results. (What role did their political positions, their comedic styles, or the way the candidates' appearances were produced, play? As someone who has worked in television, this researcher knows that these segments are highly produced, leaving very little to chance.) More research needs to be done to garner further insight into how comedy provides information and sways public attitudes. Some researchers believe that as the public's use of soft news (which includes The Daily Show), as opposed to hard news, increases, the result is a less informed electorate (Graber, 1988, as cited in Baumgartner & Morris, 2008). Baumgartner and Morris (2008) point out that others, most notably, Matthew Baum (2002, 2003a, 2003b), have argued ... that soft news educates the inattentive public on issues which they would otherwise know nothing" (p. 175). They summarize Baum's research findings this way: As individuals seek to be entertained by soft news programming, they can learn incidentally about political events that appear in the coverage.... Even

29 more impressive is that entertainment-based soft news has been found to inspire previously inattentive individuals to begin following hard news. Baum (2003a) refers to this as the "gateway hypothesis." (p. 176) Further, Baumgartner and Morris (2008) point out that Prior (2003) "contends that while individuals do marginally learn from soft news, the information they obtain does not improve their ability to be effective democratic citizens" (p. 176.) In short, Baumgartner and Morris (2008) say there are competing hypotheses regarding how the incorporation of humor-based "infotainment" may influence the learning process. More research needs to be done to garner further insight into how comedy provides information and sways public attitudes. Ways in which Humor May Educate about Social Issues For the purposes of this study, social humor is that which addresses issues relevant to the ways in which we live in society. This encompasses matters of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. In modern American society, humor is very desirable, as a glimpse at the personal ads, popular movies, and situation comedies would reveal. As American essayist Frank Moore Colby (in Andrews, 1993) wrote, "Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humor?" Although humor is seemingly a positive trait, it is actually a double-edged sword that can have both negative and positive impact. Certain types of comedy give the possibility of moving toward inclusion, reconciliation, identification, and harmony (Coughlin, 2004, p. 32). However, other types can be equally destructive: humor is a powerful force when used to attack, demean or insult others, or to express anger. Much of the research regarding social humor results in mixed responses. For instance, according to Omi (1989), racial humor has the ability "despite its 'purely' humorous intent to reinforce stereotypes and rationalize the existing relations of racial inequality" (as cited in Park, Gabbadon, & Chernin, 2006, p. 160). Schulman (1992, as cited in Park et al.,

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2006) agrees that an attempt to critique racism through comedy results in unintended consequences, namely, the reinforcement of the very stereotypes that the humor attempts to ridicule (p. 158). However, Martin (2007), summarizing results from a study by Olson and colleagues (1999), indicates that listening to disparaging humor does not seem to cause one to have more negative attitudes toward the target group. And Gruner (1978, 1997), Martin says, believes that humor that expresses aggression is just play and that people who are truly hostile, racist, or sexist will express it more openly and directly. Ethnic humor demonstrates the same ambiguous reactions. LaFave and Manel (1976) believe that disparaged ethnic groups can use humorous barbs to their advantage by defusing them and making them their own (as cited in Boskin & Dorinson, 1985). On the other hand, Boskin and Dorinson point out that such barbs are made by oppressors attempting to use ridicule to maintain ethnic groups' outsider status along with the status quo. The following table illustrates some of the many research studies performed and the conclusions drawn from each.

Table 1. Studies Demonstrating Social Impact of Humor

Authors Year Findings Status and Hierarchy Maintenance Coser Martineau Long and Graesser 1960 1972 1988 Humor reinforces the hierarchy in relationships and in this way helps to maintain social structure Irony, teasing, sarcasm or satire can coerce group members into conforming Humor can be used to enforce social norms and indirectly exert control over others' behavior Group Identity and Cohesion Gary Alan Fine 1977 Friendly teasing, funny nicknames, shared "in-jokes," and slang terms can contribute to the ways in which small group defines itself and share a sense of belonging

31 Table 1 (continued)
Authors Year Findings Group Identity and Cohesion (continued) Karen Vinton Terrion and Ashforth 1989 2002 Humor created bonds among employees and facilitated accomplishment of work tasks Studied "putdown humor" and observed that humor seemed to function as a social ritual that was governed by implicit norms and enhanced the sense of group solidarity Discourse Management Neal Norrick 1993 Observed the way humor can be used to shift the conversation away from a threatening topic, to change the tone of the conversation to one that is more lighthearted. Also, humor can be used to initiate conversations where there is little shared knowledge

Source: Adapted from text in Rod A. Martin, The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative Approach, 2007. Humor scholars have been divided over the role that social humor plays in society. William and Rhoda Cahn (1978) remind us, "It has been said that the most important function of humor is to render a person more compassionate and understanding of fellow people. Indeed, it is difficult to be hostile and humorous at the same time" (p. 172). However, as the aforementioned research shows, humor can be employed for a variety of contradictory purposes depending on one's goals (Martin, 2007). That humor has so many implications reinforces the importance of understanding humor as a potent social force and why it is imperative to know more about how we can use it as a tool to foster positive social change. Summary Dewey (1916) said, "All culture begins with private men and spreads outward from them. Simply through the efforts of persons of enlarged inclinations, who are capable of grasping the ideal of a future better condition, is the gradual approximation of human nature to its end possible" (p. 111). Doing so requires a precious balance of the tensions

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inherent in our culture: "In our democracy, the process of censorship has been torn between two opposing but unequal forces: freedom of expression, ostensibly guaranteed in the First Amendment as every American's right, and access to that freedom, which is subjected to the ever-changing forces of the marketplace and technology" (Maslon & Kantor, 2008, p. 307). Youngblood (2007, p. 57) said that adult education has always had learning for participation in order to secure a democratic society as one of its core principles. Regardless if one agrees or disagrees with the social or political content that comedians present, as Martin (2007) says, humor is a "useful vehicle for communicating certain messages and dealing with situations that would be more difficult to handle using a more serious, unambiguous mode of communication. The multiple interpersonal functions of humor suggest that it may be viewed as a type of social skill or interpersonal competence" (p. 150). As such, this researcher takes the position that it can, and should be, learned.

Adult Learning Introduction The second topic, adult learning theory, was reviewed and considered relevant because it was important to examine the strategies comedians use to educate through humor in order to understand how these strategies may be helpful to others. Comedians often say they are born funny (Barber, 2008). For instance, Babad (1974) has found that the communication of humor is associated with personality traits such as extroversion and lower anxiety (as cited in Wanzer, Booth-Butterfield, & BoothButterfield, 1995). Lefcourt, Antrobus, and Hogg (1974) have found it to be acquainted with internal locus of control and field independence (as cited in Wanzer et al., 1995). If the ability to be humorous relied exclusively on these personality traits, it would be hard

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to imagine how people like Woody Allen, Steven Wright, Rodney Dangerfield, and Richard Lewis could flourish as comedians. Instead, Wanzer et al. (1995) consider it a means of communicating and refer to it as "a sequential process of message-sending and receiving" (p. 143). Other comedians attribute their humor to having come from funny families. McGhee, Bell, and Duffey (1986) say that parents who enjoy humor serve as humorous role models and likely reinforce their children's attempts at humor, supporting this suspicion (as cited in Martin, 2007). According to Martin (2007), research suggests that a sense of humor is a product of both genetics and environment (p. 256). The technical components of humor, such as structuring jokes, writing premises, showing attitude, picking topics, and performing "act outs," can be found in Carter (1989) and provide additional reason to believe that humor can be learned. In addition, as discussed earlier, because humor is culturally influenced, it must be based on mores and norms that are learned. Since humor is a social phenomenon, its creation is also an interactive process between a comedian and his audience and between a comedian and his environment. Dewey (1938) suggested that "interactions" assign equal attention to both factors in experience - objective and internal conditions. Experience, he believed, does not go on simply inside a person's mind and body; it also involves sources outside an individual. Therefore, in many ways, the creation and appreciation of humor is very individualistic. For these reasons, the researcher's examination is based on a constructivist epistemology; comedy is constructed subjectively, first, internally as comedians search for, and give meaning to, their points of view, characters, and attitudes, and then interpersonally with an audience, since humor is a social phenomenon. Davis (1995) suggests that positivists might reduce humor to that which is measurable, such as the number of jokes or the topics of jokes (p. 328). Alternately, Mulkay (1988, as cited in Davis, 1995) recognizes that a constructivist model would acknowledge that humor is

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constructed not only by the individual generating it, but then again in response to and conjunction with the audience. Formal Learning Little is written in the literature about the intersection between adult learning and humor that provides an understanding of how adults learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. Learning typically occurs in two fashions: formally and informally. Formal learning is that which traditionally happens in a classroom or institutional environment and often culminates in a degree or credit (Merriam et al., 2007). Although formal classes instructing learners how to perform comedy are taught at clubs in major cities, and even at some universities, the researcher anticipates that the bulk of the adult learning strategies that comedians employ will be outside of formal educational environments and will be largely informal. Informal Learning Marsick and Volpe (1999) describe informal learning as "learning that is predominantly unstructured, experiential, and non-institutional. Informal learning takes place as people go about their daily activities at work in or in other spheres of life. It is driven by people's choices, preferences, and intentions" (p. 4). Coombs (1985, as cited in Merriam et al., 2007) defined informal learning as "the spontaneous, unstructured learning that goes on daily" and declared it the form of adult learning that is most common. Merriam et al. (2007) remind us that adults often have difficulty identifying informal learning because it is typically embedded in our everyday lives. Marsick and Volpe (1999) agree, emphasizing that it occurs "just in time," as people face unexpected challenges. This is one of the qualities; say Marsick and Volpe, that make informal learning idiosyncratic. In addition to being haphazard, Marsick and Volpe (1999) say that most informal learning is tacit, making it difficult for some to explain what they've learned or how

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they've learned it. Schon (1987) notes that Polanyi coined the term tacit knowledge to describe this phenomenon, such as when we recognize the faces of people we know in a crowd or the way we perceive a surface just through our touch. Learning through Reflection Dewey (1933) believed that reflection was foundational to learning. Dewey defined reflective thought as "active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends" (as cited in Mezirow, 1991, p. 100). For Dewey, reflection is essential to the process of rational problem solving (Mezirow, 1991). Comedians can spark reflection in an audience. "[The Daily Show] inspires reflection instead of telling people what to think. It generates questions instead of forcing answers" (Heflin, 2006, p. 31). Koziski (1984) says that comedians can cause a shock of recognition: "This occurs as deeply-held popular beliefs about themselves-even the hidden underpinnings of their culture-are brought to an audience's level of conscious awareness" (p. 57). However, the researcher posited that a comedian's own reflection must first inform his humor. Comedian Steve Martin (2007) provides an example of a reflective activity he created to develop new material. '"I laugh in life,' I thought, 'so why not observe what it is that makes me laugh?' And if I did spot something that was funny, I decided not to just describe it as happening to someone else, but to translate it into the first person, so it was happening to me" (p. 73). Like Dewey, Mezirow (1994) sees reflection as crucial to the learning process; however, there are some noteworthy differences. Mezirow developed transformative learning theory and believed that adult learning was a product of the ways learners interpret and reinterpret their experiences. He believes we make meaning through our meaning perspectives, defined as "broad sets of predispositions resulting from psycho cultural assumptions which determine the horizons of our expectations" (p. 223) and our

meaning schemes, which are "specific manifestations of our meaning perspectives" (p. 223). Reflection, according to Mezirow, is triggered by a "disorienting dilemma" and causes one to critique the assumptions underlying one's meaning schemes. Unlike Dewey, Mezirow, (2000) distinguishes the function of reflection on the content of a problem from reflection on the process of solving a problem. Toward that end, Mezirow differentiates three different types of reflection: content, process, and premise. Content reflection, he believes, is reflection "on what we perceive, think, feel, or act upon" (p. 107). "Process reflection" he says, "is an examination of how we perform these functions of perceiving, thinking, feeling, or acting and an assessment of our efficacy in performing them" (pp. 107-108). "Premise reflection," he continues, "involves our becoming aware of why we perceive, think, feel, or act as we do and of the reasons for and consequences of our possible habits of hasty judgment, conceptual inadequacy, or error in the process of judging" (p. 108). The researcher posited that the ability to be reflexive will be important to comedians, who use humor to educate regarding social and political issues. Learning Through Critical Reflection In addition to sparking reflection, Jenkins (1994, as cited in Coughlin, 2004, p. 35) argues that comedy can provide a forum for examining and critically reflecting upon the hegemonic structures around us, finding the ways in which they constrain and confine us and then suggesting avenues for shifting the power behind the social structure. Brookfield (2000) distinguishes reflection from critical reflection saying that the latter requires a "power analysis of the situation or context in which the learning is happening" (p. 126). It is important, he says, to try and identify assumptions that are actually serving the interests of others: "that is, hegemonic assumptions" (p. 126). It is the questioning of hegemonic assumptions and the realization that they are socially and politically constructed that informs transformation. Brookfield acknowledges that our ideologies,

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which he defines as "values, beliefs, myths, explanations and justifications that appear self-evidently true, are deeply embedded in our psychologies and our cultures" (p. 129). Critical reflection is required to make them explicit. The researcher anticipates that critical reflection will play a crucial role for comedians who use humor to educate. " T m a surgeon with a scalpel for false values,' [Lenny] Bruce once said" (Zoglin, 2008, p. 10). Learning Through Discourse One of the key ways in which people learn is through discourse. Dewey (1916) declared, "All communication (and hence all genuine social life) is educative. To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience" (p. 10). Dewey was not only referring to the recipient (in this case the audience), but also to the communicator: "One shares in what another has thought and felt and in so far, meagerly or amply, has his own attitude modified" (p. 6). Because comedians communicate in the public space (defined here as a stage, the internet, film, or television), they have potential to use humor in a way that can significantly influence and be influenced by public thought. "Public space" needn't be that big. Habermas said, "A portion of the public sphere is constituted in every conversation in which private persons come together to form a public" (as cited in Seidman, 1989, p. 231). Habermas defines the public sphere as the place where subjects can hold rational discussion and where public opinion can be formed (Finlayson, 2005). Therefore, public space could just as easily be found around an office water cooler as a comedy club or even behind a computer. Habermas (as cited in Mezirow, 1991) describes this domain of social learning as the "lifeworld" and defines it as the "daily universe of social activity that we take for granted, ... made up of a vast inventory of unquestioned assumptions and shared cultural convictions" (p. 69). Two modes of learning delineated by Habermas include instrumental and communicative learning. Instrumental learning, he believes, is learning

38

"to control and manipulate the environment or other people" (Mezirow, 2000, p. 8). Communicative learning refers to how we understand what others mean when they communicate. Accordingly, Habermas said this involves "feelings, intentions, values, and moral issues" (as cited in Mezirow, 2000). Comedians provide an opportunity for discourse, which is perhaps one of ways in which they make their strongest impacts as educators. For example, comedian Margaret Cho uses the stage as a forum for "citizenship learning" (Lerner & Schugurensky, 2007, p. 87) by promoting human rights advocacy for homosexuals and immigrants. Cho said, "If I can encourage people to use their voices loudly, then that's my reward" (Heintz, 2006, p. 1). However, this researcher expected that in addition to raising the awareness and consciousness of others through discourse, one of the means by which comedians themselves learn how to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness was through discourse. Experiential Learning In addition to learning by oneself, a second way in which comedians learn to use humor to educate is with and through others. Called "experiential learning," this theory proposes that people learn by drawing on their past experiences as well as reflecting upon their current experiences. In his seminal work, Experience and Education, Dewey (1938) suggested that "all genuine education comes about through experience" (p. 13). Speaking about learning from past experience, Dewey said, "Just as no man lives or dies to himself, so no experience lives and dies to itself. Wholly independent of desire or intent, every experience lives on in further experiences" (p. 27). In addition, Dewey believed that what one has learned in one situation becomes "an instrument of understanding and dealing effectively with the situations which follow" (p. 44). However, he also made it clear that not "all experiences are genuinely or equally educative" (p. 13).

Dewey (1938) believed that two major principles must be present if an experience is to be educative: continuity and interaction. "The principle of the continuity of experience means that every experience both takes up something from those which have gone before and modifies in some way the quality of those which come after" (p. 35). In this way learners connect the past with the future. Dewey (1938) says of the second principle, interaction, that "an experience is always what it is because of a transaction taking place between an individual and what, at the time, constitutes his environment" (p. 41). For experiential learning theorists, "Learning is best conceived as a process, not in terms of outcomes" (Kolb & Kolb, 2005, p. 194). According to Kolb and Kolb (2005) experiential learning scholars agree: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. All learning is relearning. Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world. Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world ... learning involves the integrated function of the total person - thinking, feeling, perceiving, and behaving. Learning results from synergetic transactions between the person and the environment. Learning is the process of creating knowledge.

Schon's Theory of Reflection-in-Action Another way in which people learn is by reflecting on current situations. Because humor is, as previously stated, an interpersonal process, much of it is created in the interaction between the comedian and his audience. Schon's theory of reflective practice, which describes how one makes judgments in the moment, addresses this phenomenon. Foremost, Schon (1983) believed that the inquirer is in transaction with the situation. For instance, Schon (1987) says that when a familiar routine produces an unexpected result and something fails to meet our expectations, we may respond to it by brushing it aside or "selectively inattending to the signals that produce it" (p. 26). Or "we may respond to it by reflection." A practitioner who treats each case as unique cannot apply standard theories or techniques to it. Therefore, Schon (1983) says, he may employ

40

exploratory experiment (p. 145), where he tests his hypothesis and in doing so further shapes the situation: "He shapes the situation, but in conversation with it, so that his own models and appreciations are also shaped by the situation. The phenomena that he seeks to understand are partly of his own making; he is in the situation that he seeks to understand" (p. 151). Schon (1987) calls this process during which time our thinking reshapes what we are doing while we do it "reflection-in-action" (p. 26). Reflection-in-action is required, he believes, when our knowing-in-action (or those facts or rules that we know and are static) is insufficient. Schon also differentiates these from reflecting-on-action, which occurs when we think back "on what we have done in order to discover how our knowing-in-action may have contributed to an unexpected outcome" (p. 26). In summary, the researcher hypothesized that how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues is a multifaceted process that has both similarities and differences between and across individuals. Therefore, she surmised that no one of these models alone was sufficient.

Summary The purpose of this study was to explore how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. To achieve this, literature regarding humor and adult learning were reviewed. This included topics about the origins, definitions and history of American humor, and how humor educates regarding social and political issues. Also reviewed was literature regarding adult learning theory, including formal and informal learning, learning through reflection, learning through critical reflection, learning through discourse, experiential learning, and reflection-in-action. These topics were deemed relevant since the study's purpose is to understand how comedians learn to use humor that raises awareness and consciousness

41

about contemporary social and political issues. Comprehension of these phenomena is required in order to understand how these strategies may be helpful to others.

The Conceptual Framework The Conceptual Framework was based on the literature review, data from the pilot interviews, participant interviews, the focus group, the document review and the researcher's own experience working with comedians. The first finding, "Present Alternative Perspectives to Motivate Others," is directly aligned with the first research question and represents the two ways this occurs: (a) by presenting alternative perspectives, and (b) by motivating others. The second finding describes the elements perceived to be necessary to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues. These are identified as (a) awareness of the social and political landscape, and (b) willingness to question prevailing points of view. The third finding refers to how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues. These are identified as (a) draw on past experience, (b) observation, and (c) learning by doing. "Learning in Informal Ways" is the third finding and explains the ways comedians learn to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. Figure 1 is a graphic depiction of the conceptual framework. The Conceptual Framework upon which this is based can be found in Appendix I. The Conceptual Framework provided the basis for the coding legend, which can be found in Appendix J.

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Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

1. PRESENT ALTERNATIVE PERSPECTIVES TO MOTIVATE OTHERS A. Presuming Aliernalhe Perspectives - Challenging assumptions Acting unconventional!) - Highlighting absurdities - Discussing un-discussables B. Motivating Others - Motivate others to discuss - Motivate others to feel Motivate others to act

H, ELEMENTS PARWCIPAN AWARENESS AND QONSCIO A, w?> f Awareness of |hel Social and JPolitical Landscape^ KnoW%hat jou're talking about : Emotional investrnentj "|f "
-^'i

EiVE ARE NECESSARY; l O RAISE F CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL AND SMS B. illingness to Question Prevailing 'ointe^of View -^ ' If ^^QtieMon authority or sta^s;qifo ,/S -Point out illogical-dr absurd - Be fenny, not preachy
* 5
J-

HI. HOW PARTICIPANTS LEARNWO USE HUMOR TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL I N D POLITICAL . 5ISSUES '" .' '"' ''" rB. ;, f C, A. , Learning by Doing Observation . D r a w on past experience j - Observe other comedians Drawjon previous jobs W: - Observe the news and world around them Influence of family : ;, - Observe audiences' reactions , Draw on Hfe experience

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Chapter III METHODOLOGY

Introduction and Overview The purpose of this study was to explore how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. In Chapter I, it was suggested that for the purposes of this research adult education is viewed as the process by which people become more informed or more critically aware of their assumptions about how we live in the world together and matters regarding the governance of our society, in the public sphere where adults congregate rather than within the educational system per se. Consequently, comedians who further the national dialogue by performing in shared spaces and increasing audience members' critical reflection and discourse about social and political issues were, for the purposes of this study, considered educators. As such, they shine a light on society's mores, norms, and ideologies in humorous ways that are disarming, amusing, and even thought-provoking. Doing so permits audience members to think, reflect, and discuss matters that might otherwise be taboo or unspoken. This chapter presents the methodology by which to explore the research questions identified in Chapter I and includes a discussion of the following: (a) rationale for research approach, (b) description of the research sample, (c) summary of information needed, (d) overview of research design, (e) methods of data collection, (f) data analysis

(g) ethical considerations, (h) issues of trustworthiness, and (i) limitations of the study. The final section is a brief summary of the chapter.

Rationale for Qualitative Research Design Marshall and Rossman (2006) note that, historically, qualitative methodologies have been employed toward three goals: to explore, explain, or describe a phenomenon. Merriam (2009) stated that "the overall purposes of qualitative research are to achieve an understanding of how people make sense out of their lives, delineate the process (rather than the outcome or product) of meaning-making, and describe how people interpret what they experience" (p. 14). One reason that qualitative methodology was selected for this study was because the researcher is concerned with understanding a means rather than an end. In addition, qualitative methodology was chosen for the unique characteristics identified by Rossman and Rallis (2003, as cited in Marshall & Rossman, 2006): it "(a) is naturalistic, (b) draws on multiple methods that respect the humanity of the participants in the study, (c) focuses on context, (d) is emergent and evolving, and (e) is interpretive" (p. 2). In these ways qualitative research provides an understanding of the lived experiences of the study's participants, making it the most effective research genre to address the research problem. Creswell (2003) states that a qualitative approach is applied when the researcher subscribes to a constructivist perspective. Guba (1990) suggests that the tenets of a constructivist point of view include the notion that "reality" is the product of a mental framework and that those constructs cannot be separated from the person holding them. Crotty (1998) believes that a constructivist posture validates each one's way of making sense in the world. The researcher operated from a constructivist epistemology and further takes the position that comedians are constructivists. They create material that reflects realities born of their own relative perspectives and personal interpretations.

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Their acts are products of their worldviews, personalities, biographies, and creative expression. In this way, no two comedians are the same. Comedians appear to do what researchers do, in the words of Guba (1990, p. 17), which is to "celebrate subjectivity" not objectivity. In doing so, they profess their own truths. Yet despite the individual and subjective nature of comedians' humor, there are several commonalities among them. This seeming paradox suggests that the means by which comedians learn to use humor to educate is a multi-faceted phenomenon about which little is known. Maxwell (2005) points out that the ability to understand the meaning of participants' experiences and their perspectives, the context in which they act, and the processes by which events and actions take place are among the strengths and goals of qualitative research. Rossman and Rallis (1998) describe qualitative research as "an emergent, interpretive, holistic, reflexive, and iterative process that uses interactive and humanistic methods" (p. 26). These characteristics lend themselves to the study of humor, because comedy is very much a co-creation between a comedian and others. Lastly, because qualitative research typically takes place in a setting that is more natural to the participant, such as their home or office, or in this case a comedy club, the researcher believes that the best way to explore how comedians use humor is through qualitative research design. In order to understand how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues, the researcher employed case study methodology. Yin (2003) states that the unique strength of the case study method is its ability "to deal with a full variety of evidence" (p. 8). This, he believes, is the preferred strategy when the researcher is posing "how" or "why" questions, has little control over events, and is focusing on a contemporary, not historical, phenomenon. Within this qualitative design, there were three data collection methods: one-onone interviews, a focus group, and review of written, audio, and video documentation. According to Yin (2003), any finding or conclusion in a case study is likely to be much

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more convincing and accurate if it is based on several different sources of information. Maxwell (2005) concurs: "This strategy reduces the risk that your conclusions will reflect only the systematic biases or limitations of a specific source or method, and allows you to gain a broader and more secure understanding of the issues you are investigating" (pp. 93-94).

The Research Sample In this section, the researcher discusses how the research samples were determined. Participants for the 14 one-on-one interviews were comprised of a purposeful sample, and the 8 participants of the focus group were a convenience sample. The documentation review included a variety of material from various written, audio, and video sources generated by and about each participant. Following are the three criteria each participant met: 1. 2. 3. Earn his/her living making others laugh Discuss social and/or political issues Live or work in the New York Tri-State area and/or the city of Los Angeles.

Explanations of each of the aforementioned criteria are provided. The definition of comedian for the purposes of this study, and a key criterion for eligibility in the study, was someone who earns his living making others laugh. This was fairly easy to determine by their level of exposure. This criterion was selected because when someone earns a living making others laugh, it implies that the individual is no longer an amateur, but a professional. As with many other professions, one is often recognized as successful by virtue of one's annual income. Comedians vary in their level of success and popularity. Opening acts are comedians who are still young in their careers and typically perform 15-20 minutes of material. Many of them still have day jobs and perform in the evenings. Most comedians

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do not earn a living at comedy for at least the first five years. "Middlers" are performers who typically perform second in a three-person line-up (in the middle) and perform for 20-30 minutes. Many of them earn their living performing on the road and are not very well known. "Headliners" are the featured acts and customarily perform for 45 minutes or longer. They are the comedians who most easily come to mind when one thinks of comedians, although many who qualify are relatively unknown and under the radar of most Americans. A second standard was that the comedian must discuss social and/or political issues. The definition of "social issues" includes reference to the way we live in the world together and the issues that impact us, such as race, gender, class, and religion. "Political issues" include matters of justice, legislation, policy, and commentary regarding government leaders. To meet this measure, the researcher selected potential participants based on a preliminary review of materials they have generated, including DVDs, television appearances, podcasts, and autobiographies, in combination with materials generated by others, such as press in newspapers and magazines, about the comedian. In addition to the researcher's preliminary review of materials, a panel of three independent judges helped determine which comedians fit these criteria. These judges are widely recognized in the comedy industry, and each has been a respected member of the comedy business for over a decade. The first panelist has booked comedians for Comedy Central and The Montreal Comedy Festival for years. The second panelist is a comedian himself and books comedians for a network late-night comedy program. The third panelist is also a comedian and has been booking comedians in one of Manhattan's most popular comedy clubs for several years. A third criterion was that the participants must perform in either the New York Tri-State region or the City of Los Angeles. This condition was established for two reasons: (1) because New York City and Los Angeles are typically the meccas of comedy

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in the United States. New York is historically known for its bevy of comedy clubs, such as the Comedy Cellar and the Comic Strip, and has been the breeding ground for many prominent stand-up comics. Los Angeles is traditionally known for its bounty of television productions and is home to nationally known comedians who are broadcast nightly and weekly into our living rooms; and (2) the researcher was based in New York and could conveniently access comedians who were established in the New York City Tri-State area in environments natural to them. The researcher could affordably and conveniently travel to Los Angeles, where she could meet with several Los Angelesbased comedians in milieus that were organic to them as well.

Overview of Information Needed This multi-case study included one-on-one interviews with a purposeful sample of 14 comedians, a focus group with a convenience sample of 8 comedians all whom were based in New York City and Los Angeles, and a documentation review of written, audio, and video material generated by and about each participant. Thirteen one-on-one interviews were conducted over the phone, and one was conducted in person. The focus group was conducted over the phone. Data helped establish how participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues, the elements they perceive are necessary to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, and how they learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and contemporary issues. The information sought was guided by the conceptual framework and falls into four categories: (a) contextual, (b) perceptual, (c) demographic, and (d) theoretical.

49 Contextual Because comedians typically work independently as free agents, deciding the days, times, locations, and fees for which they will work, this study was not a bounded one. While it is common for comedians to have a "home" club, the club that gave them their start and to which they are very loyal, they customarily perform at various clubs throughout the country. Those who have their own regular television program are contractually bound to that program and often are loyal to that network or family of networks (i.e., NBC, MSNBC, Bravo) but may still appear live or on interview shows or movies. (Jay Leno, for instance, performs live frequently in addition to appearing on his own television program.) In addition to comedy clubs, they may perform at concert halls, private functions, and universities, as well as other outlets. Comedians are accustomed to performing in a variety of venues; therefore, the environment does not usually have a dramatic impact them. An exception to this is that they may modify the material they decide to use based upon the composure of the audience and the nature of the event. An example of this might be that a performer may be less likely to speak about marriage to a college audience since that topic may not be relatable to that audience or may decide not to use any "blue" (offensive or off-color) material at a cancer fundraiser dinner in deference to the serious nature of the occasion. Working as independent contractors gives comedians a great deal of freedom when it comes to selecting the occasions they will work along with the content of their act. Perceptual Making people laugh is a challenging career choice; making people think at the same time is even harder. Not many comedians choose to do it, and those who do it well - Richard Pry or, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin - are more than entertainers; they are educators who have helped us examine what we know and how we know it, and they have shone a light on it so that we never see it the same way again.

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How they do this still seems shrouded in a mystery worthy of exploration. This study explored comedians' perceptions in regard to how they go about raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, what they perceive are the elements necessary to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues, and how they learn to do so. Demographic Each individual who was interviewed was asked to provide profile information regarding his or her age, gender, number of years performing, and highest level of education. To accomplish this, each participant was given the demographic inventory to complete. The inventory used can be found in Appendix C. The data obtained from this inventory can be found in Appendix C-l. Theoretical A literature review was ongoing to determine what is already known about the topics of humor and adult learning and, especially, the intersection of both. The following two topics were explored: (1) Humor, and (2) Adult learning theory. Under the topic of humor the following subcategories were examined: (a) the origin of humor, (b) the definition of humor, (c) the role of humor in democracy, and (d) ways in which humor may raise awareness and consciousness regarding social and political issues. Under the topic of adult learning theory, the following subcategories were examined: (a) formal learning, (b) informal learning, (c) learning through reflection, (d) learning through critical reflection, (e) learning through discourse, (f) experiential learning, and (g) reflection-in-action.

51 Research Design Overview Following is a summary of the steps taken to carry out this research and their sequence. 1. A review of the literature regarding humor and adult learning theory was conducted to assess the body of knowledge existing about the connection of these two topic areas. This review continued throughout the dissertation process. 2. A research problem was identified and a qualitative methodology to address the problem was decided. 3. An interview protocol was created and piloted on three separate occasions throughout the proposal process and refined accordingly (Appendix E). 4. A proposal defense hearing was held in December followed by approval from the IRB to ensure that the highest standard of ethics, including confidentiality and informed consent, were honored throughout the study. 5. The researcher compiled a list of 106 comedians based on a data review of comedians the researcher considered as performers who raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. 6. Based on the researcher's professional knowledge and experience in the entertainment business, she selected a panel of three "comedy experts" who would serve to evaluate the list of 106 comedians she had compiled. 7. The "comedy experts" rated each of the 106 potential participants on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 was low and 10 was high) as to their ability to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. Comedians who scored an average of 5 or higher were considered to be eligible to participate in the study. Therefore, there were 60 comedians, almost 50%, who were eligible. 8. The 60 comedians were contacted using various methods depending on the researcher's connection to and knowledge about them. All those who the researcher did

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not know personally or through mutual connections (49) were sent inquiries via mail or email to their managers, agents, publicists, publishers, production companies, or to the theaters where they were performing. Some were additionally contacted directly via email to their websites or via Facebook. Four were also personally handed an inquiry by the researcher before or after their appearances at comedy clubs in New York City. Of the participants contacted via these methods, seven responded positively and six of those were interviewed. One was not interviewed because she was not immediately available and did not respond to the researcher's follow-ups. In addition, eleven potential participants were either known by the researcher or known through connections shared with the researcher. In those cases, the researcher made her inquiry directly to them over the phone or via email. Eight of them expressed interest in being interviewed, so the researcher then emailed the consent form and participant rights (the description of which follows) to them. All eight were interviewed. 9. Thirty-two potential participants did not respond to inquiries, 13 turned down the request for an interview by either citing time constraints or not providing a reason, and 1 expressed interest but her schedule didn't allow time to be interviewed. Therefore, it can be seen that a much higher percentage of comedians who participated knew the researcher or shared a mutual connection with the researcher. It can also be seen that the majority of participants (11 of 14) reside in New York City. The researcher, as well as two of the experts, also resides in New York City (the third one used to reside in New York and recently moved to Los Angeles). 10. The researcher sent a letter of invitation (Appendix A), which included a consent form to be signed and returned to the researcher, a description of the participant's rights, which the participant could keep (Appendix B), and a demographic inventory to be completed and returned to the researcher (Appendix C), along with the researcher's biography (Appendix D).

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11. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews comprised of open-ended questions were conducted over the phone with 13 participants and in person with one participant. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. 12. The researcher began the process of collating documents for analysis and review (Appendix H). 13. A normative focus group of eight comedians who met the eligibility standards who the researcher perceived to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues and who had not participated in the one-on-one interviews was conducted. Two pre-determined questions were posed (Appendix G). The focus group was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. 14. In addition to one-on-one interviews, a normative focus group, and document review, the researcher also conducted three surveys with live audiences at a club in New York City featuring 2, 4, and 6 comedians. Unfortunately, the results of these surveys neither confirmed nor disconfirmed the data from the interviews. A sample of the predominant version of the survey can be found in Appendix K. 15. Data collected from interviews were analyzed individually as well as across cases and against collected demographic data. 16. Data yielded from the normative focus group were compared and contrasted to data garnered from the individual interviews.

Methods of Data Collection A review of select literature informed the data collection and was ongoing throughout the dissertation. However, the literature review itself was not an actual data collection method. The primary topics of humor and adult learning theory were examined along with the subtopics of humor, which included: (a) the origin of humor, (b) the definition of humor, (c) the role of humor in democracy, and (d) ways in which humor

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may educate regarding social and political issues and the subtopics of adult learning theory, which included: (i) formal learning, (ii) informal learning, (iii) learning through reflection, (iv) learning through critical reflection (v) learning through discourse, (vi) experiential learning, and (vii) reflection-in-action. Multiple methods were employed to strengthen the study. Yin (2003) notes the ability to address a broader range of historical, attitudinal, and behavioral issues as well as the development of "converging lines of inquiry" (p. 98) among the advantages of using multiple sources of evidence. Therefore, this study included three methods of investigation: one-on-one interviews, a focus group, and a review of written, audio, and video material generated by and about the participant. Interviews The primary method of research was semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with 14 professional comedians (13 were conducted over the phone, and 1 was done in person) who raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. The interviews were primarily comprised of open-ended questions designed to garner rich insights and nuanced descriptions about their learning methods that would still allow the interviewer the facility to direct the stream of questions (Creswell, 2003; Kahn & Cannell, 1957, p. 149, as cited in Marshall & Rossman, 2006, p. 101). The researcher developed an interview protocol comprised of 15 open-ended questions designed to help uncover the participants' views. As Marshall and Rossman (2006) recommend, the researcher designed the questions to simultaneously provide participants with structure and latitude with which to respond. The interview protocol can be found in Appendix E. One group of questions was designed to elicit information about how comedians go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. These questions explored what made the comedians decide to include

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social and political material in their acts, when they decided to do so, and what they hope to accomplish through the use of political and social humor. Another group of questions was meant to access the elements that comedians perceive are necessary to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues. These questions ask comedians to share what they believe makes them effective at using humor that raises awareness and consciousness and proffer advice to others who may want to do so. A final group of questions examine how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. These questions ask comedians how they got started, how they decide what they want to say, and how they treat humor that raises awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues differently from other types of humor they use. The researcher conducted three pilot interviews in order to refine the interview protocol. Additionally, the pilot interviews provided the researcher with opportunities to become comfortable with arranging a conducive environment, modifying her questioning approach and honing her skills at probing interviewees. Marshall and Rossman (2006) say that pilot interviews help one understand oneself better as a researcher (p. 57) and that this kind of reflexivity is essential to conducting successful interviews. The 14 comedians who participated agreed to a 20- to 75-minute interview, the majority of which were conducted over the phone. The duration of the interviews does not correlate to the quality of the data obtained. Some participants were articulate and precise, while others spent time going into their material. The researcher was most concerned that each interviewee respond to each of the research questions asked by way of the interview questions. The interviews were audio recorded on both a digital and analog recorder for backup and transcribed verbatim.

The Research Sample The researcher's goal was, as Creswell (2003) suggests, to obtain a purposive sample comprised of participants who were best qualified to help the researcher understand the problem and answer the research questions. The researcher's preliminary investigation through an ongoing review of materials generated by comedians and the press proposed there were at least 100 comedians who met the three aforementioned criteria and who were therefore eligible to participate in the study. Ultimately, a list of 106 potential participants was compiled and given to three independent judges for their review. The researcher selected these judges based on her knowledge of their experience in the field of comedy working as talent bookers on late-night talk shows, comedy specials and festivals, and comedy clubs. Each judge was asked to fill out a form rating each of the 106 comedians on a scale of 1 to 10 regarding the degree to which they believed each comedian raised awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and/or political issues. A score of 1 was low, and 10 was high. If an expert did not rate a comedian because he was not familiar with the comedian, that score was considered to be 0. The scores of the experts were averaged for each comedian. Comedians who received an average score of 5 or higher were considered eligible to participate in the study. Sixty comedians were therefore considered eligible to participate. Fourteen of those 60 comedians ultimately agreed to participate. Maxwell (2005), expanding on Light et al. (1990, p. 53), refers to the strategy of selecting individuals who can provide the information needed as purposeful selection. The goal of this strategy, he says, is to deliberately select people who can provide information that others cannot. Once the researcher compiled a list of potential participants, she determined the best means of contacting them, keeping in mind that these decisions are all part of the design, not simply to be based on practicality (Maxwell, 2005). Some were reached through personal connections, and others came from appeal by letter of invitation. A-list comedians were treated like elite participants and were

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contacted by letter to their managers, agents, publicists, or production companies. Each participant received an informed consent, a description of participant's rights, a demographic inventory, and the researcher's bio. Members of the focus group were selected based on the researcher's perceptions of comedians who met the criteria, had not already participated in the study as interviewees, and were available at a mutually convenient time. The focus group was comprised of eight comedians and was facilitated by the researcher. Two questions were pre-scripted and posed (Appendix G). This method assumes, as Marshall and Rossman (2006) observe, that an individual's attitudes and beliefs do not form in a vacuum: People often need to listen to others' opinions and understandings to form their own. Because creating comedy is an inherently interactive and social activity, many comedians seek communities of practice. This may take the form of a writing buddy, or a more glamorized format, such as that depicted on television shows such as the "writer's room" on The Dick Van Dyke Show, where collaboration generated great laughs. It may also occur more informally as comedians gather in green rooms before and after their performances to discuss their material and the industry-related matters. The focus group provided a social opportunity that is common to comedians. The focus group was conducted over the phone. The group was first asked to discuss the elements necessary to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. They spoke about that for 30 minutes. They were then asked how they learned to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. They spoke about that for 30 minutes (Appendix G). The entire process lasted 75 minutes. The discussion was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The review of documents was employed to establish that participants did indeed use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues and

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provide insight into how they accomplished this. Participants had varying amounts of material that they created and that was generated about them. Those materials were drawn from various media and included books, autobiographies, press material including reviews, television programs, DVDs in which they starred, and Youtube videos of their appearances. Most of the participants have websites where they post many of their materials. Many also have Facebook pages where they interact with fans and promote upcoming appearances. In addition, the researcher reviewed movies, documentaries, podcasts, and books with the following relevance: the art and business of stand-up comedy; interviews with stand-up comedians past and present; performances of comedians past and present; different types of comedy, such as African American, Muslim, gay, and women; and movies centered around stand-up comedy (Appendix H).

Methods of Data Analysis and Synthesis Following is a description of how the researcher managed, organized, and analyzed data and how she analyzed and synthesized the findings in Chapter V of the dissertation. The process of collecting and analyzing data began early on in the conceptualizing of the research problem. The conceptual framework guided the analysis and synthesis of data. As Marshall and Rossman (2006) state, this is an ongoing process that is not linear; it is iterative and requires a balance between efficiency and flexibility. The formal process of data analysis was put in place by the creation of a conceptual framework (Appendix I), which was originally created based on the literature review, the interviews, the pilot interviews, the focus group, the researcher's knowledge based on previous experience with comedians, and her assumptions, but was revised as it emerged inductively from the voices of the participants. The conceptual framework provided the basis for developing and assigning alphanumeric codes. A portion of a transcribed interview along with the coding legend was shared with two doctoral candidates,

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colleagues from the AEGIS program, to establish inter-rater reliability. Once agreed upon, these codes were repositories for information gathered through the analysis of the interviews. Large sheets of flip chart paper representing the various coded categories were taped and hung on the walls so that coded quotes from interviews could be cut and pasted onto various pages. This allowed the researcher to develop categories and themes to create the "story" of the data as they emerged from the voices of the participants. As Marshall and Rossman (2006) suggested, once the data were coded, they were read and reread to discover patterns, themes, and categories. Data were examined according to individual cases, across cases, and against demographic data. The codes were modified in this process such that as the data from the interviews emerged, new codes were revealed and other preliminary codes that did not emerge from the data were deleted. Then the researcher, as Marshall and Rossman further suggested, critically challenged those same patterns, themes, and categories. Bloomberg and Volpe (2008) observe, "The coding process fragments the interview into separate categories, forcing one to look at each detail, whereas the synthesis involves piecing these fragments together to reconstruct a holistic and integrated explanation" (p. 85). The researcher wrote memos and narratives reflecting her thoughts and insights throughout this process. The researcher expected that the data analysis and synthesis revealed insights into understanding how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. The interviews, focus group, and documentation review shed light on how comedians go about raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, the elements they perceive are necessary to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, and how they learn to do this. Based on these findings, the researcher provided recommendations about how up and coming comedians and adult educators can learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues and how managers of comedians can support and encourage this.

Literature on Methods A review of the literature revealed that qualitative methods are customarily used with research that is exploratory or descriptive in nature and that recognizes the relevance of context and setting (Marshall & Rossman, 2006). The researcher used case studies from among the five approaches to qualitative methods that Creswell (2003) identifies. Yin (2003) observes that one would employ case study strategies toward three different ends: exploration, description, or explanation. He also acknowledges that historically case study research has been considered the weak sibling to other social science research methods, such as experiments, surveys, histories, and analysis of archival information, and suggests some reasons why its criticisms are misdirected. As with any research methodology, qualitative research in general, and case study as a research strategy in particular, has innate strengths and weaknesses. Yin (2003) suggests that the strength of case studies lies in their ability to examine "how" or "why" questions. Yin notes that case study methodology is often selected when the researcher will be examining a process over which she has little control and one that happens within a real-life context. This methodology was also selected because the studies are bounded by time and activity (Creswell, 2003). Anyone applying case study strategies must be conscientious in reporting all the evidence fairly, be aware that results are not generalizable to populations or universes due to small sample sizes, and take steps to ensure that it doesn't result in a large quantity of unusable data (Yin, 2003). Each of the data collection methods decided upon for this case study strategy has advantages and disadvantages, which are presented below. Qualitative Methods Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviews. Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) remind us that the use of interviews in research is not new: Freud, Piaget, and Hawthorne based their findings and subsequent theories on interviews. Today, as they point out, interviews are prevalent in our society and can be found in journalism, legal

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interrogations, television talk shows, and market researchers. Kvale and Brinkmann define an interview as a conversation with a structure and a purpose and state that the act of interviewing results in the production of knowledge. Interviews were selected as the primary source of data collection because of their inherent and particular strengths. One such benefit is identified by Marshall and Rossman (2006), who state that in-depth interviews are designed to highlight the participant's view (emic perspective), not the interviewer's (etic perspective). According to Marshall and Rossman, another two advantages are that "an interview yields data in quantity quickly" and "immediate follow-up and clarification are possible" (p. 101). Yin (2003) states that well-informed respondents can provide important insights as well as shortcuts to the history of a situation. Ironically, many of the aforementioned qualities that make interviews a preferred methodology contribute to their disadvantages. Marshall and Rossman (2006) express that the quality of the interview depends on the level of comfort and openness of the interviewee as well as the listening and questioning skills of the interviewer. For example, Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) make clear that interviews are asymmetrical power relationships where the researcher initiates and defines the interview situation by determining the topic, posing the questions, and deciding the probes and follow-up questions. They say that since power inequities are natural to human conversations, the role of the researcher is not to eliminate power but to be aware and reflective of it. The researcher was aware that the interviewees, as people in the public eye, may want to be perceived in a certain way and may be guarded in their responses. The researcher made a concerted effort to assure participants regarding confidentiality. Advantages and Disadvantages of Review of Documentation. To determine comedians who might be eligible to participate in the study, the researcher conducted a preliminary review of documents such as books, newspaper, and magazine articles, live performances, podcasts, DVDs, and web content. The researcher also conducted a review

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of written, audio, and video documentation by and about those who participated in the study. In addition, the researcher reviewed movies, documentaries, podcasts, and books with the following relevance: the art and business of stand-up comedy; interviews with stand-up comedians past and present; performances of comedians past and present, different types of comedy, such as African American, Muslim, gay, and women; movies centered around stand-up comedy (Appendix H). Like a content analysis, the benefits of conducting such a review are that it is unobtrusive and non-reactive: "It can be conducted without disturbing the setting in any way. The researcher determines where the emphasis lies after the data have been gathered" (Marshall & Rossman, 2006, p. 108). Despite these advantages, a review is nonetheless a subjective process, relying primarily on the researcher's interpretations. Advantages and Disadvantages of Focus Groups. Focus groups, according to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), became widely used after the 1950s by market researchers interviewing consumers and entered academic social research in the 1980s. They describe focus group interviews as non-directive, with a goal of encouraging a variety of viewpoints. Marshall and Rossman (2006) state, "The advantages of focus-group interviews are that this method is socially oriented, studying participants in an atmosphere more natural than artificial experimental circumstances and more relaxed than a one-to-one interview" (p. 114). In addition, focus groups often elicit spontaneous expressive and emotional views more than individual interviews, which can be more cognitive (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). This extemporaneous nature of focus groups might lend itself nicely to a comedic environment, inviting participants to think on their feet as they might in a performance. Because humor is very interactive and is co-created by the comedian and the audience, this data collection method may provide a forum that is a comfortable and complimentary alternative to one-on-one interviews. When deciding to use a focus group, certain disadvantages had to be taken into consideration as well such as the one pointed out by Marshall and Rossman (2006):

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oftentimes there are power dynamics that may occur. This may be between members of the group and/or between the group members and the researcher. Managing the conversation to ensure the research questions are being answered and facilitating the group to avoid dead-end or irrelevant responses can be two challenges (Marshall & Rossman, 2006, p. 115). In addition, they posit that, while the cost of focus groups may be relatively low, there are more logistical details to coordinate in terms of assembling a group.

Ethical Considerations Ethical considerations must be taken into account throughout all stages of the research study. The researcher has attempted to anticipate ethical issues and has taken steps to operate at the highest standards of ethical practice. She did this by having participants read a written Subject Consent Form and by signing a written description of participants' rights (Appendix B). The researcher took steps to protect participants' anonymity throughout the process and beyond. She also took care not to deceive participants in any way regarding her intentions or the goals of the study. Data generated from the interviews and focus group were confidential and were preserved in a private and secured space designated for these materials in the researcher's home office. The data were published using pseudonyms for all the participants, providing as few details about them as necessary, so that their anonymity would be preserved. The data will be safeguarded for three years after the publishing of the dissertation, at which time they will be shredded and destroyed. This study was presented to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) committee at Teachers College for approval.

64 Issues of Trustworthiness in Study Design In this section, the criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of this research are discussed. These include matters of credibility, dependability, and transferability. Maxwell (2005) states, "The view that methods could guarantee validity was characteristic of early forms of positivism, which held that scientific knowledge could ultimately be reduced to a logical system that was securely grounded in irrefutable sense data" (p. 105). However, post positivist philosophies have abandoned this thought for the notion that research is value-laden, not value-neutral. This newer perspective posits that since subjectivities are embodied in research as well as the researcher, these predispositions must be revealed and acknowledged. This has resulted in the creation of criteria to determine whether an inquiry is methodologically and analytically sound and became known as "trustworthiness" (Guba, 1981, as cited in Lincoln, 1990, p. 71). These criteria have been termed credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability and parallel the rigors of quantitative research, including internal validity, external validity, reliability, and objectivity (Lincoln, 1990). Unlike quantitative research, there are no operational means by which to test these criteria in qualitative research; therefore, the researcher must have a heightened awareness of questions to ask and features to assess. Credibility Bloomberg and Volpe (2008) define credibility as whether the researcher has accurately represented what the participants think, feel, and do. According to Marshall and Rossman (2006), who draw upon the work of Lincoln and Guba (1985), the goal of credibility is to demonstrate that "the inquiry was conducted in such a manner as to ensure that the subject was appropriately identified and described" (p. 201). Bloomberg and Volpe (2008), summarizing Mason (1996), say that testing the validity of the

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conclusions reached, rather than verifying the conclusions, requires a concern with both methodological and interpretive validity. The researcher addressed the methodological validity of this study to ensure the logic of the interrelationship between the various research design components. These components, including the conceptual framework, research questions, and data collection methods, have been informed by a review of the literature, interviews, focus group, pilot interviews, and the researcher's experience and knowledge based on working in various aspects of the comedy business over the years. Bloomberg and Volpe (2008) indicate that triangulation of methods lends credibility: "Using multiple methods corroborates the evidence that you have obtained via different means" (p. 77). That is why this study employed three different research methods: one-on-one interviews, focus group interviews, and a document review. The researcher took measures to remain aware of her own subjective biases by keeping reflective journals and by asking peers for assistance in examining her assumptions (Bloomberg & Volpe, 2008). Similar steps were taken to be attentive to the way in which the researcher influenced the participants and their responses (Maxwell, 2005). Bloomberg and Volpe (2008) state that another component of credibility is interpretative validity, which "involves asking how valid the data analysis is and the interpretation on which it is based" (p. 86). Steps were taken to confirm the rigor of the data's analysis and interpretation. In addition to reviewing and discussing findings with her advisor and peers, the researcher ensured inter-rater reliability by enlisting two colleagues to read the resulting transcripts and code the data. Quotes were coded and placed on flip charts according to the conceptual framework. Findings were analyzed for themes, and cases were cross-analyzed against demographic data.

Dependability According to Marshall and Rossman (2006), qualitative research assumes that the participants' worlds are always being constructed and therefore cannot be duplicated. Bloomberg and Volpe (2008) say that it is not the researcher's responsibility to eliminate inconsistencies; however, it is incumbent upon her to understand when they occur. Therefore, they believe the researcher must be able to track the processes and procedures used in collecting and interpreting the data. To address issues of concern regarding dependability, the researcher kept a journal along with memos to document changes in her thinking as well as in procedures and design. In addition, two peers were asked to code portions of the transcripts of an interview to ensure inter-rater reliability. Confirmability Bloomberg and Volpe (2008) express confirmability as the implication that "the findings are the result of the research, rather than an outcome of the biases and subjectivity of the researcher" (p. 87). They reiterate that one way of accomplishing this is for the researcher to remain reflexive and they emphasize, as Lincoln and Guba (1985) did, the importance of keeping an audit trail. Toward this end, the researcher kept journals, notes, transcripts, and research memos throughout the research process. Transferability According to Greene (1990), transferability "shifts the inquirer's responsibility from one of demonstrating generalizability to one of providing sufficient description of the particular context studied so that others may adequately judge the applicability or fit of the inquiry findings to their own context" (p. 236). Greene offers Lincoln and Guba's (1985) suggestion to contend with this challenge: for the inquirer to provide thick descriptions of the context as well as the transactions and processes observed in that

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context. To facilitate transferability, this researcher provided rich, detailed descriptions of contexts that are relevant to the inquiry being explored.

Limitations of the Study As with any research, there were potential limitations, which will be discussed in this section. However, it must also be noted that although limitations do exist, steps have been taken to minimize their impact (Bloomberg &Volpe, 2008) and will be discussed in this section as well. 1. A primary limitation of the study was researcher bias. For example, as a fan of comedy and someone who has worked in the entertainment business in various capacities, it was inevitable that the researcher had both personal and professional opinions and assumptions about comedians and the art and craft of comedy. This may have been manifested in the selection of potential participants as well as the researcher's selection of the judges who reviewed the list of potential participants and her choice of focus group members, as well as her interpretation regarding documents reviewed. Maxwell (2005) observes that, historically, the researcher's background and experience were considered something to be eliminated from the research design. However, he notes that in recent years, theorists have come to see that not only is it difficult to separate one's research from the other parts of one's life, but that it also cuts the researcher off from the insights and hypotheses she can potentially contribute to the research. The researcher attempted to control for researcher bias by remaining aware of her personal opinions and attitudes in order to reduce the adverse effects on the participants in the study. She did this by keeping a journal and research memos throughout the study. To achieve inter-rater reliability, the researcher gave two AEGIS colleagues her coding legend and six pages each of an interview for them to code independently. Agreement was reached quickly on 95% of the coding. However, one of the inter-raters identified

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some minor discrepancies, and after two conversations, they were reconciled to a mutual understanding. A sample of the coding legend is attached in Appendix J. 2. A second limitation was the reactivity of participants. Because the participants are people who have public personas, their responses may be shaped by their desire to be seen in a certain light. Or perhaps their responses were attempts to be cooperative or helpful. The researcher took measures to ensure confidentiality and, to the extent possible, provide anonymity. The researcher took measures to address anonymity by removing participants' names from the data and coding in such a way that their identities would remain confidential. She also kept the data in a secured environment in her home office. Ironically, because participants are public figures who typically seek publicity, they may have preferred that their names not be kept anonymous. 3. Along a similar vein, because this study deals with self-reported data, it may contain biases or be unreliable. Furthermore, it required that the participants recall past experiences, memories that may be colored or reconstructed. 4. A further limitation is due to the study's sample size. The study's use of a small sample does not allow for generalizability to others. Marshall and Rossman (2006) remind us that a study is bounded and situated in a particular context. Although generalizability is not the goal of qualitative research, transferability is, and the researcher addressed this issue by providing rich, thick descriptions of the contexts and the study's participants. In this way, the reader can determine if the study can be transferred to other settings. While it is difficult to know with certainty why some comedians agreed to participate and others did not, it is worth noting that 8 of the 14 had either a personal or mutual connection to the researcher and therefore this may have been a reason for participation.

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5. A limitation of interviews, the primary data collection method used here, is that they rely on the subjective views of the respondents. As a result, they lack objectivity and can be shaped by the researcher's line of questioning and listening skills as well as the respondent's interpretation of those questions. Marshall and Rossman (2006) note, "All proposed research projects have limitations; none is perfectly designed" (p. 42). The researcher made an effort to curb the limitations of any one particular design by selecting a variety of research methods. Marshall and Rossman define triangulation as "the act of bringing more than one source of data to bear on a single point" (p. 202). In order to strengthen the study, triangulation was attempted by seeking three data sources: interviews, a focus group, and a review of written, audio, and video documentation generated by and about each participant. Triangulation was achieved by data collected through interviews, focus groups, and a review of documents. A list of documents reviewed can be found in Appendix H and includes autobiographies, books on various aspects of humor, program material, reviews, DVDs, documentaries, Youtube videos, comedy websites, and participants' websites.

Chapter Summary In conclusion, this chapter provided an account of this study's methodology. The purpose of this study was to explore with comedians their perceptions of how they learn to use humor to raise awareness about contemporary social and political issues. To accomplish this, a qualitative multi-case study approach was employed to explore how some comedians go about raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, what elements comedians perceive are necessary to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues, and how they learn to do this.

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The research sample was comprised of 14 purposefully selected comedians who agreed to a one-on-one interview, 8 comedians who comprised a convenience sample, which constituted a normative focus group, and a review of written, audio, and video documents generated by and about each participant. A review of the literature, as well as interviews, pilot interviews, the focus group, and the researcher's knowledge and experience of comedians provided the basis for a conceptual framework. Data yielded from the study were reviewed against the literature for themes and patterns. The researcher took precautions to address issues of credibility, dependability, confirmability, and transferability by triangulating research methods and various other strategies. This study may benefit adult educators by providing them with an additional means by which to engage students in important social and political concepts. Also, humor offers a vehicle that may help some learners think more critically and provides a non-threatening way to challenge existing assumptions.

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Chapter IV FINDINGS

Introduction The purpose of this study was to explore how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. To carry out this purpose, it was important to uncover more about how humor is learned because it holds the potential to create a more informed citizenry. Three research questions guided this study: 1. How do participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 2. What elements do participants perceive are necessary to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 3. How do participants learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? This chapter presents the key findings obtained from in-depth one-on-one interviews with a purposeful sample of 14 comedians and a convenience sample of 8 focus group members. Three major findings emerged from this study. 1. The majority of participants described that the way in which they raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives.

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2.

All participants described having an awareness of the political and social landscape and willingness to question prevailing points of view as critical elements in raising awareness and consciousness about social and political issues.

3.

All participants learned to use humor as a way in which to raise awareness and increase consciousness in informal ways, primarily by drawing on past experience.

In an effort to give the reader a flavor for the 14 participants and a context for their answers, following are brief profiles of each of them. They represent a cross-section of America. Comedy is said to be the domain of the "everyman," and the participants come from very different backgrounds: they are Northern, Southern, Black, White, gay, straight, male, female, urban, and suburban - a true slice of Americana. Commonalities among the participants worth noting are: none came from privileged backgrounds; all demonstrate a willingness to speak truth to power; almost all, 11 of 14, described feelings of being marginalized; and 9 completed college (or more), 3 had some college education, and 2 had no college education. Many of them just stumbled into stand-up comedy, but, regardless of how they discovered it, most of them started in their 20s and 30s.

Participant Profiles BL is 60 years old has and been performing stand-up for approximately 35 years. BL grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC, but insists, "I really have no interest in politics." BL's grandparents were from Russia, and he grappled with many of the mixed messages he received growing up during the Cold War. Raised a Jew, he describes his childhood as "a time of anxiousness, and religion never provided any solace." BL's mother was a teacher who studied biology and taught math. Describing her, BL wrote, "My mother is funny. I mean, seriously funny. Heart-stoppingly, belly-

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achingly funny.... My mother is cynical." His father was a mechanical engineer who worked for the War Department. After reading the Geneva Accord, he realized there was no basis for the Vietnam War and couldn't in good conscience participate in creating "offensive weapons in a war that had no real justification." So, at the age of 53, his father retired, leaving a lasting impression that shaped the way BL saw the world. Other events such as Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and Kennedy's assassination shaped BL's worldview, as did his discovery of the drama department in high school. BL discovered stand-up comedy shortly before he went on to study playwriting at Yale Drama School and has been performing it ever since. CK is a 62-year-old lesbian who has been performing "out" comedy for 29 years and has a master's degree from Colgate. She was born in Buffalo, raised in Syracuse, the middle child between two older brothers, a younger brother and a younger sister. Speaking of her childhood, she said, I was obviously White, middle class, a very conventional Catholic umm heterosexual.... "This is what you'll do - you will get married, you will have children," you know that kind of thinking.... I changed and doing what I do now makes me very optimistic that people can change. CK taught eight years of high-school English to mostly the eleventh and twelfth grade before becoming what she calls a "humor activist." Here's how I got into comedy: I had been talking about wanting to try standup, and my best friend booked me in a club and she said, "You're on in a month and I don't want to hear about it anymore," and that's how I started. Since then she has appeared on numerous news and talk shows from CNN to LOGO, written three books, recorded eight comedy collections, and hosted hundreds of fundraising dinners. DJ, originally from Asheville, North Carolina, is 56 years old, has a bachelor's degree, and has been performing for 24 years. His first love was theater. As he describes it,

74 Well, I was inI was in uh theater, and it wasn't happening. Um, my show business/acting career was sort of non-existent. It was like I just wasn't getting cast in things and, I was notI was teaching drama and directing plays and, I-uh still wanted to perform, but I didn't know quite what to do. DJ tried his hand at stand-up comedy and found he was pretty good at it. It took a while for him to mention his homosexual relationship on stage: "I got tired of being at comedy clubs andand going on after all these guys that talked about their lives and girlfriends. And I'm like, 'Well wait a minute. I've had a relationship longer than any of ya.'" And now, he says, "It-it's just another um, part of the act. It's like, to me it has the same significance as if I was talking about the president or ... you know, anything." Since then he has performed stand-up on many programs, including Comedy Central Presents and The Tonight Show, as well as several networks, including A&E, MTV, and Showtime. "The Mouth of the South," DJ recently combined his love of comedy with his love for acting in a one-man show that he called a "fictionalized autobiography." It appeared in the Fringe Festival and was very well received. DM is 42 and has been performing for 10 years. Born and raised in the Bronx, surrounded by real-life wise guys, DM started using heroin when he was 15. DM's website puts it this way: "I am a stand-up comic. Before that, I was a drug counselor. Before that, I was a drug addict. Before that, I was 12." That, he says, is his resume. Comedy came easily to DM: "I just, I said things exactly the way they were and then people would laugh at that." So he tried an open mic and liked it. Today, DM performs at recovery events worldwide and has Late Night with Conan O'Brien among his credits. DW is 56 and has been performing "political comedy for people who don't like politics" for 36 years. He said, In 1974 when I started out I mean everything was political, that was after uh Vietnam was just closing down ... you could tell a person's political leanings by what they wore ... everything was political back then. In high school they were teaching [politics] not just a social studies class but math classes you know. "Let's say the Vietcong had 47 prisoners and 3 escape and 4 died how many are left?"

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DW is a self-described "raging moderate." He remarked, "Sixty percent of us are in the middle; we outnumber the fringes, and yet you never hear of us. Now admittedly we don't have that provocative of methods that resonates on television you know, 'We believe this issue deserves more study.'" DW's wry commentary has earned him five Emmy nominations, and he has seven nominations for American Comedy Awards StandUp of the Year. "I think I'm a better writer than I am a comic," he said, which may explain why he hasn't won any of those awards. DW lives in San Francisco. ES is 55 and has been performing for 26 years. She grew up in the Bronx and Mount Vernon in a Jewish household. Although she wanted to be an actress who played the roles of Ethel Mertz and Sally Rogers from the time she was young, she wound up majoring in urban studies at SUNY Purchase. She started doing stand-up in 1984 in Greenwich Village, one of the few women to play the club circuit. "Stand-up is incredibly powerful," she said. "Very different than being a comedic actress, you know doing something like Lucille Ball or even Carol Burnett.... That's very different from stand-up. Stand-up is an extremely aggressive, male kind of art form." ES honed her craft in the New York clubs and remains a diehard New Yorker, although her role on a popular comedy series often takes her to LA. She recently traded in her hip, single "Sex and the City" lifestyle for a new husband, his four children, and a house in suburbia. FM is an African American woman in her 30s and has been performing for 12 years. She grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, which is a White neighborhood, and then moved to the South Side, which is a predominantly Black neighborhood. This dichotomy informs much of her stand-up. She minored in theatre at the University of Illinois and went on to Syracuse to get her MFA. She taught theatre for three years and then moved to New York City. She said one of her favorite compliments was from somebody who wrote to her and said, "You remind me of Lucille Ball" ... they were saying I was just funny.... You know they didn't say, "Oh you're a Black comedian and for a Black woman

76 you're very funny." It's just "You remind me of Lucille Ball." You know umm and you know there's a large portion of Black audiences out there who love Lucille Ball. Did they go, did they say, "Oh I'm not going to see Lucille Ball because she's not Black"? No, there's a lot to what they appreciate and so ... that's been the best of the compliments I've got you know there's, there's no color there, you're just funny. Based in New York, FM has appeared in comedy festivals around the world as well as The Jay Leno Show and Chappelle 's Show. GW is an African American woman who is 54 and has been performing since she was eight. Born and raised in New York City, GW grew up with her mother and her older brother: "Well the most influential person in my life has been my mom, and she's just a real common sense kind of woman." GW dropped out of school after 9th grade, and life has been her university ever since. "I believe that we all are open to the things that exist in our timeframe. So in my mind my education is I'm going because it's out in the world. I don't have the concentration to do it in a structured system." GW garnered her first accolades for playing various characters in her one-woman show on Broadway and over the years as become a familiar face in the movies and on national television. Her career and career choices are eclectic: "Whether it was the characters, or people try to figure out if I was a comic, a stand-up or what I was. I just let them put up all the labels they want and I just do what I do." In addition to her numerous awards, GW has received several honorary doctorates for her work as an entertainer. GN is 43, has been performing for 24 years. Born in Kansas, GN grew up with six brothers and sisters. He said, I had great parents and you know there's only so much time to go around and you know who knows, I'm sure there's something inside of me that just wanted more attention and wanted to be heard. I'm not sure exactly what that is or why that happened but it certainly is there. I think all performers and writers feel like they have something to say no matter how stupid, silly or insubstantial. He graduated from college with a bachelor of communications and started performing stand-up in Kansas City at the age of 19. In 1990, he moved to New York City and

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eventually relocated to Los Angeles, where he continued to perform and where he became a staff writer for a television variety show. GN's act is a lot about what goes on in his head, and he is able to find humor even in dark subjects like divorce and depression. There is a lot of pain, a lot of confusion ... disappointment, pretty typical comic stuff, guilt and shame. Some of them are big, but a lot of them are just minor emotions that we all go through on a daily basis - the embarrassment and these things.... I take medication for depression for years so to be able to write some funny jokes about it is fun I guess. KL is 44 and has been performing for almost 20 years. She was born and raised in a northern California suburb and swam competitively for UCLA. She gave up swimming for the stage in the early 90s. KL was motivated to perform by watching mediocre comics. I saw people do it, and I didn't think they were doing a good job, and I thought I could do a better job.... "Wow! ... you just had 20 minutes on stage and that's what you did?" I was disappointed. But I guess that's what made me want to get up on stage. KL believes her point of view as a strong woman and single mother of a 3-year-old son needs to be heard: "I just always wanted to do subtly feminist stuff by not doing certain types of jokes, by not doing self-deprecating jokes and uh by always being the person in the story that has some strength." KL has shared her point of view on television shows like Last Comic Standing and Jimmy Kimmel Live! KL has written for several late night shows. MK is 44 and has been performing for approximately 20 years. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, she grew up the middle child of seven children to Irish Catholic parents. MK's mom was a nurse, and her dad was a pipe fitter who became a lawyer and then a judge. My parents flew to DC like they were so against the war, and I was performing in DC and they're like, "We're coming cause there's an anti-war protest and we want to go to your show" ... and they were like in their, 62 at that time and ... I go, "Guys, you were supposed to protest in the 60s, not

78 when you are 60." ... So they came, we did it, we marched the whole thing, and I thought, "What, we're still going to go to war, George Bush doesn't care that I'm out here with a sign ... he couldn't give a s." MK's cynical outlook has been a trademark since she was a teenager: "I thought high school was ridiculous." After high school she studied journalism and graduated from Southern Illinois University but quickly realized she could make more money bartending. "I was like I can spend four hours with the lady in North St. Louis who has a stamp collection and write this giant story and I only get seventy dollars?" She went to an open mic as a joke and has been performing ever since. "At the end of the day my favorite thing is to sit around at a bar and talk. Well, that's all I'm doing; I'm just talking on stage for 45 minutes or and hour and half uninterrupted." MK has "talked on stage" several times on Letterman and The Tonight Show and has had two of her own HBO specials. MK lives in Los Angeles. MP is a 69-year-old African American who grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, "the deep, deep South," in the 1940s, and was raised by his maternal grandmother. At age 7, the family moved to Oakland, CA, where he realized that he was poor and Negro. At 14, while attending high school in Berkeley, MP had a "watershed 'nigger' moment,'" an experience he says that every Black person has when they are called the N word. "My anger boils just beneath the surface," he wrote. MP found ways to fight the injustice - he started his own guerilla newspaper, dated White girls, and while in the army integrated the base swimming pools. After accidentally catching Lenny Bruce's performance at a bar, MP became infected with the comedy bug. He moved to Hollywood and started performing improvisation, and it was there in the 1960s that he met Richard Pry or. MP went on to be Pryor's best friend, writer, and producer, while simultaneously performing his own stand-up. An icon in the comedy community, MP has been performing for approximately 40 years and is said to have paved the way for many of today's Black comics.

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RK is 35 years old and born of an Indonesian mother and Australian father and has been performing for 10 years, although she's only been performing stand-up for about 5 of them. RK is originally from Canada and Australia but calls New York home. She graduated with a degree in acting from the prestigious Juilliard and started a career that encompasses acting, writing/producing, music, and comedy. Her bicultural background informs her point of view. A lot of the art that comes out of protest is about equal rights you know and about being recognized as full human beings you know in a color blind and gender blind, religion blind, sexuality blind.... People who feel marginalized, people who feel like they are stripped of rights because of their biology basically or because of their ideology um protesting against that and wanting to share the same right to happiness and whatever the American dream is in America as other people ... when I got into the world of comedy I noticed first of all that comedians have the opportunity to say things that a lot of other people can't say. And RK says them. Whether through her hip-hop band, performing stand-up at comedy festivals, performing at the Kennedy Center, or appearing on talk and radio shows, she is determined to get "people to talk about the things they don't really want to talk about." WS is 49 has been performing stand-up comedy for 20 years. WS grew up in Amish country, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and went to a small Christian college, Clarion. Her parents divorced when she was two, and she describes the family as very, very poor at the time. WS has two older sisters - one is gay, and the other is a bora again Christian. WS did not set out to be a stand-up: "I was just an activist and ya know we were all members of ActUp. Ya know we were all members of Queer Nation. And I didn't think that I could get onstage and pretend to be straight." But she did have an agenda: "My whole goal in the beginning once I knew I could do it was that I was going to be on TV at least once and be openly gay and it was just gonna you know crack the door open." WS boldly performed as an out lesbian in front of straight audiences in clubs across the country. She has achieved her goal and earned her own HBO special, an appearance on Letterman, and Bravo and Logo TV specials.

Following is a discussion of the findings that resulted from this inquiry with these 14 participants and a normative focus group of a convenience sample of 8 comedians.

Finding #1 The majority of participants (12 of 14) indicated the way in which they go about raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives. Overview The researcher opened each interview by explaining that she gave a list of approximately 100 comedians to three "comedy experts" who rated each comedian on a scale of 1 to 10 and that the participant's name came up among the highest, thereby classifying him or her as an educator. The researcher then asked their reaction. Most of the participants were surprised by the descriptor and resistant to assuming the role of "educator." Their first identification was as a comedian, which by definition is someone who makes others laugh. Comments included MK's "I've never thought of myself that way" or DJ's "I mean I never thought I was educating anybody." However, when the researcher explained the definition of educate as it applies to this study, to "raise awareness, challenge assumptions and get people to talk about issues," the response was often similar to DJ'S comment, "Oh, well that's true," or ES's reflection, "If I stop and think about it, I always want to get people to laugh and think. I think that's pretty much the highest goal for a comedian is you know, it's always easy to get somebody to laugh.' George Carlin, who along with Richard Pryor was cited by participants most often as a role model, wrote in his autobiography, Last Words (2009), about humor as a teaching method: That gets away from the most formal definition of the word "teaching," but in a way that's what it is, laying it out for them in an amusing and entertaining way, taking them on an instructional tour. Because there's

81 something you want them to know that they didn't know, or didn't know they knew when they sat down in their seats, (p. 250) He also wrote that his purpose was not only to entertain: I was beginning to realize something: I had a powerful new tool for my tool kit, though I've only made sparing use of it since. Getting laughs all the time wasn 't my only responsibility. My responsibility was to engage the audience's mind for ninety minutes, (p. 246) Table 2 summarizes the findings to the first research question, "How do participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues?"

Table 2. An Outline of Finding #1 FINDING #1 The majority of participants (12 of 14) indicated that the primary way in which participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives. o Present Alternative Perspectives (12 of 14) o Challenging Assumptions o Acting Unconventionally o Highlighting Absurdities o Discussing Un-discussables Motivating Others (5 of 14) o Motivating Others to Discuss Issues o Motivating Others to Feel o Motivating Others to Act Synthesizing Information (2 of 14) Expressing Themselves (2 of 14)

o o

Present Alternative Perspectives The way in which the majority of participants (12 of 14) raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative

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perspectives. The following quotations are representative of participants' responses across the sample. One of the group whose hope is to help people who are on different sides of the political spectrum described the importance of getting others to see one another's point of view: Well I think the artist's responsibility is to breakthrough to some sort of new ground and uh you know, the true artist changes the way people think but I think you can plant seeds with humor. I think you can make the reddest of necks ah kind of understand the other side or even the other way the bluest of bloods ah can understand uh you know what it's like to actually work for a living. So maybe by me uh kind of explaining things and being able to talk to both sides uh I can let them see a little bit you know if their eyes are closed. (DW) DW recalled one successful occasion: "Uh I did have a you know the ultimate ... kind of compliment that you can get is when a guy will come out and say, 'I'm a staunch conservative, but I thought you were funny.'" Other participants avoid trying to tell people what to think but present their take on things. For example, GW said, "Well no it's just my opinion, you know.... Here's how I feel about that.... So I guess it's more like a another way to think about stuff." Challenging Assumptions. Some of the participants talked about challenging assumptions around being gay. WS provided an example of this when she said, I remember telling a joke and saying umm it was back when people were not acknowledging gay relationships this is so long ago this material too. And it was like "Um I went to a bridal shower and this woman got all this these gifts and I want that too. I've been with my partner six years. We don't have two lamps that match." ... Ya know and it was really great, it's one of those jokes that ya still have to tell because the straight people in the audience would just be like "Oh my God, that's right. It's like these gay people can have like 25 year relationships and not even own a home together ya know what I mean, and they don't get two or three parties where people get a money tree or televisions." Challenging assumptions is something many take very seriously. For example, DM said, "I want to accomplish, just you know helping people see things differently I guess.

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Changing people's minds about stuff. Or offering them a new way to look at things." He later added, "I think being a comedian is more important than being a doctor.... 'Cause you got the opportunity to really get across ideas to people, to shake things up and get people thinking about stuff." He provided an example: You know, the way I approach homophobia is by ... I make it a non-issue in my life. So a guy says "I'm gay" and I say "Is that all? Is that all you have?... that's not moving me at all... do you eat people after you have sex with them? That would be interesting. You know. 'I'm gay' is not enough for me to think anything different about you. I'm sorry." Acting Unconventionally. Some comedians present an alternative perspective by assuming a stage persona that is uncommon. FM is one of them. She assumes the persona of a Black woman growing up in a White suburb of a major city. Her persona, and material, is based upon her real life experiences. FM explained, Someone ... going to a Black comedy show is learning something they may not have known before and when they leave and they go home and you know they go "Oh ok." They may not have ever hung out with you know Black people before ... and they go "Oh my God you know I thought Black people were all like this. Oh, they're not, they're like this too." FM hopes her story will impact listeners by broadening their image of the African American experience and challenging current stereotypes. The further you get away from that idea of changing the world or "I want to say something to the world." The further you get away from that notion, the more you end up doing it without realizing it. You don't plan to change the world, you don't plan to say something that's going to make a difference, it's just who you are. Just rely on who you are and what you're doing as an artist. The notion of how being unconventional can challenge assumptions was also raised in the focus group when one member, an Iranian American, said, "Hey, I'm Muslim ... when you're talking about something that's ... a narrow interest subject, some of the time you're like, introducing something to people and they never heard of it, you know?"

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Highlighting Absurdities. Another way in which some comedians present alternative perspectives is by reflecting back the absurdity in what they see. MK said, "I just want to point out the absurd, something you maybe have thought of, but maybe not in a funny way." She provided an example: I mean it's absurd to me that more people vote for American Idol than for the United States presidential election. I mean that's completely absurd. Now the reason that I think they do is because for American Idol you don't have to get up. You sit right there in your couch and ... hit two for David Cook, and there you're finished. Now if we can do that for American Idol, why can't we do that for a presidential election? Why can't I vote on my computer? Why can't I vote on the iPod? Because somebody doesn't want it to be that way. I don't know who, I don't have the time to think it through but there is just so much that's completely absurd that everyone, we just accept. On this point, BL comments on the illogical by saying, "These idiots who are against the illegalization of pot... people smoke pot, they're going to smoke pot. I mean could we stop the charade already? You know, I'm too old for the nonsense." Discussing the Un-discussable. Another way in which participants present alternative perspectives is by discussing the un-discussable - topics that are frequently considered un-discussable. For instance, DJ likes "to make them [audiences] think a little bit," and one way he accomplishes this is by talking about his homosexual relationship in front of straight audiences. And a straight audience, unless they know who I am, they're not ready for it. And so that maythat may challenge their assumptions because they're not used to having a guy get up on the stage and talk about his, you know, relationship22 years. Like some other gay comedians, DJ is hopeful that by talking about his homosexual relationship, he gets audience members to be more open-minded. I would bet you that most of the people in the audience disagree with me; that they do not want gay people to get married. However, when they hear me talk about it, the way I tell the joke; it might put a little seed of doubt in their head.

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He has seen this happen as a result of another comedian talking about her lesbian relationship. He was pleasantly surprised by what happened: Like I remember one time I did a show at Town Hall, in New York, and uh this other comedian that I was working with was talking about her-her uh lesbian wedding ... and somebody said to me after the show, "You know what? I did not believe in marriage equality before, but I do now, after seeing that." ... So that was interesting. I mean, he was probably on the fence anyway but uh, that's what he said. You know? So that's one thing here I actually have seen uh-um an audience member change his mind about something. The topic of race may also be considered taboo. MP, an African American who was a writer for Richard Pryor and who has been performing stand-up for over 30 years, frequently talks about race in his act. Writing in his autobiography (2009) about performing in the '70s, MP said, I start to study White audiences. I see their reactions. I get my first walkouts.... When I imitate middle-class White speech, I see a flicker of unease cross the faces of the White people in the audience. Then, when I go into ghetto riff, the smiles return. They're fine as long as I am making fun of the same kind of people they make fun of, chinks and spies and niggers. But as soon as I start talking about them, I can clear a room. (p. 115) When interviewed for this study, he added, "Some people are shocked by what's coming out of my mouth. I'm shocked by what comes out of my mouth." Like some of her comic predecessors, Lenny Bruce and John Leguizamo, RK is determined to take the sting out of ethnic slurs. Born of Indonesian and Aussie parents, RK talks about the un-discussable word "chink." Regarding her use of the term in her show Chinkorama, she stated, I am of the school of thought that a language is more hurtful when it's hidden and it festers in the bigot's mind, and I am of the school of thought like people who use the word "faggot" in the gay, queer community, and people that use the word "nigger" in the Black community, although it's having a backlash right now, but I am of the school of you need to expose the word, exploit it and intelligently deconstruct it until it loses all meaning.

86 Motivating Others Another way in which some participants' (5 of 14) material is intended to raise awareness and consciousness is by motivating audience members. This may take the form of motivating them to discuss issues, by rousing their emotions, or by inspiring them to take action. Motivating Others to Discuss Issues. WS is an example of the kind of comedian who often sparks dialogue after the show. An out lesbian comedian, patrons often approach her immediately after an appearance to talk about homosexuality: So people would come up to me and be like "Oh ya know my uncle is gay or my friend is gay" ... I just did a run at a straight club in Denver and after a show one night we had six cattle ranchers from southern Ohio who didn't know I was an openly gay comic and ... were freaked out but they stood it ya know what I mean and they didn't even think they knew gay people. They were still back in that from 25 years ago ... and so then after the show, I stood with them and talked to them with like four other gay girls and we were there 'til like 3 in the morning still doing all the old stuff like "No. One of us isn't the man." One focus group member spoke about having to be willing to hear from an audience member who disagrees with you: "Whenever you bring up a political or social issue though with somebody with an opposing viewpoint that wants to uh scream out... you got to be willing uh and be able to engage in that kind of dialogue." In addition to sexual orientation, some comedians hope their material encourages others to speak up about race, such as RK, who straddles two cultures: I'm always asked by Asian audiences and White audiences, but I'm always asked by Asian audiences and particularly because they're afraid, "How do people react to what you're saying?" Or they'll say, "How do White people react to what you're saying?" But most, mostly they'll say, "How do people react?" I'll go to a college and I'll be at Hofstra or whatever and they'll be like it will be really fun and their minds are open and they always say, "How do people react?" And I'll go, "Don't worry about how other people react, how did you react to that?" "Well I wasn't offended, were other people offended?" "Well don't worry about it. Were you?" The question is always about were other people offended? They're afraid, especially Asian audiences because of underrepresentation, to take a stand. Or they don't

87 know how to place themselves within the deconstruction of let's say of racism against Asians. Motivating Others to Feel. Like some of her colleagues, one of ES's goals is to rouse emotion and move people: "If you're a good teacher in a classroom, I assume that what you want to do is you want to touch people in some way. And I think that's what performers do. You want to touch people." DM also likes the idea that he can use comedy to stimulate others to feel: Oh you cause, I'm taking pain and turning it into something that people are laughing at and you know to me art is creating something that wasn't there before but using stuff using a lot of elements that were there before and bringing them together in a new way. DM is equally excited when the emotion that his dark humor about addiction and his use of curse words evokes in audience members is rage. He said, You know, and the word "c" is really a big favorite of mine because of, cause of what it does to people, and if I can get people to laugh with that word involved in a joke, and I have, I've gotten women who even when I bring it up they get pissed off and by the end of the bit they're hysterical laughing. And that's a good thing to me because I've helped release them from something that usually would make them feel angry. And maybe the next time they hear the word they will laugh because they will think about me instead of getting enraged. Motivating Others to Act. Some comedians share a desire to inspire audience members to take action. Two participants expressed this desire. When speaking about modeling "a strong comfortable woman in the world with opinions," CK declared, I want to teach that it's something they can do too.... I want people to be, to like get angry, and laugh and blow off steam but I also want them to have enough when they leave to just add a little water and like go to and get involved politically. They can go to a march, they can you know volunteer for something that's happening in their community ... it's like I want them to have the experience and I do think it's cathartic but I want just a little left that they will be fired up to do something. RK believes that she although she didn't intend to be an "activist artist," her material can inspire others into action:

88 I got a letter saying, "F you RK. How dare you! Your (inaudible) show Chinkoramar And I was sad because the show Chinkorama is actually exposing all the stereotypes about Asian Americans, well not all but many, and it was a derivative of Spicorama and an homage to it ... my point is that she took it, she was just offended by it. And she goes, "I'm gonna go," this is a young woman, like 19 years old. She said, "I'm gonna go and become a famous comedian, I'm gonna prove you wrong." I'm thrilled. Thrilled, that that happened. That someone got so upset by my use of the word "chink" that they went on to become an Asian American comedian and someone else for people to look at. Other comedians, on the other hand, have no illusions about inspiring audience members to take action. MK is one such comedian: I don't think my joke about us being a fat ass lazy country is gonna inspire, it's not gonna make them vote. They're gonna laugh because they know it's true and if they don't vote, but it's not gonna, I don't think it's gonna change anything. Synthesizing Information In addition to presenting alternative perspectives and motivating others, a third way in which participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues is as a means of synthesizing information for others. Of the 14 participants, only 2 indicated that they go about raising awareness and consciousness by synthesizing ideas. For instance, DW started performing in 1974 and believes, "everything was political back then." He's been trying to make sense of politics, and help others makes sense of it, ever since, I'm just ah trying to translate all the b-s into words that normal people understand you know because it's ah a lot of times they use their own code for what's going on. I actually (clears throat) wrote a little bit earlier this year called "What They Say, What They Mean" so that's mostly what I try to do. CK realizes people don't have time to see patterns and themes: We are loaded with information. One of my jobs is to synthesize it.... People don't have a lot of time to do um to see patterns and I think ... they have pattern fatigue or their time to put things together and I think my job is to do that for them.

89 Expressing Themselves Rather than focusing on how to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues, 2 of the 14 focused on the need to express themselves rather than on presenting alternative perspectives. GN said, "I just try to get up there and let people know what's going on in my head or my gut or whatever so they know who I am." KL wants her point of view to be heard: Well I just want to tell jokes that are funny from my point of view that's all. I'm not trying to do anything beyond that but I like getting comments that my point of view needs to be heard so I try to tell jokes that are honest and true to my point of view that will make as many people as possible in the audience laugh.

Finding #2 All participants described having an awareness of the political and social landscape and willingness to question prevailing points of view as critical elements in raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. Overview Richard Zoglin (2008) wrote Comedy on the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America about comedians in the '70s and notes how they were markedly different from the comedians of previous eras. The old-style comics might talk about subjects we all recognized (the wife and kids, airline flights, TV commercials), but they got laughs with the artifice of gag lines - a pun, or a witticism, or a surprise reversal.... The old comics made jokes about real life. The new comics turned real life into a joke. (pp. 4-5) According to Nachman (2003), Joan Rivers made a similar observation in the 1970s, when she said, Audiences nowadays want to know their comedian. Can you please tell me one thing about Bob Hope? If you only listened to his material, would you know the man? His comedy is another America, an America that is not coming back. (p. 22)

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Table 3 provides a summary of Finding #2 and summarizes the findings of the second research question, "What do participants perceive are the elements needed to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues?" Table 3. An Outline of Finding #2 FINDING #2 All participants described having an awareness of the political and social landscape and willingness to question prevailing points of view as critical elements in raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. o Awareness of political and social landscape (14 of 14) o Know what you're talking about o Role of emotions Willingness to question prevailing points of view (14 of 14) o Question authority or the status quo o Point out the illogical or absurd o Be funny, not preachy Connecting with the audience (10 of 14) o Create relatable material o Establish trust o Have fun Take risks (6 of 14) o Be confident in your opinion

Awareness of Contemporary Social and Political Landscape Know What You're Talking About. Many comedians described knowing what they're talking about in terms of their own personal experience. For example, GN is divorced and battling depression, two conditions that are common in today's society. So those are the topics he talks about on stage: You want to write about stuff you feel confident about and stuff you think you understand. When you struggle with something for years whether it be your marriage or depression or whatever, your relationship with your parents or how to get along with people, you want to write about it and you feel like you know about it and you feel like it's something you've had a lot of experience with so those are definitely things that.... I mean when I sit down to write period, I sit down to write what's on my mind: things like "Why am

91 I so depressed?" Or "How do I get better? Am I just being a wuss? Why can't I have a relationship?" These are things that I walk around with. Even if I weren't a comic, they would be concerns. Regardless of what topic they're talking about, a common denominator is that it is something they naturally care about. A similar sentiment was conveyed in the focus group when one member said, "It has to be something that's important to you, important enough to try to make it funny which is you know it's not an easy trick." A focus group member also spoke about the role of compassion in comedy, "I think comedians, have a genuine love of people because why else would you get up in front of strangers, night after night... a desire to talk about these things ... a desire to create community, and create you know, discussion." For instance, GN's struggles are universal; they're part of the human condition. He said, "Definitely I think, when you get older and you realize and you talk to people, we're all struggling with the same stuff: 'What are we doing here? Why can't we all get along?'" Following are several examples of how various participants talk from their personal experience demonstrating how their personal struggles are universal. KL jokes about abortion, a hot topic in American culture, and something she's thought about as a single mom: That third abortion joke is basically that I didn't have one but I think about it every day and the reason I do is because I have a baby that drives me insane. It goes from being a kind of a callous abortion joke to just a dead tired mother ... who can't take it any more. I think it has a bit of a little bit of a story there. Then that's a good entry point into motherhood. I think every parent would understand that. Another example is provided by FM, who said that it took her a while before she began to include material about her upbringing as a Black girl growing up in a White Chicago suburb. When she did, she was pleasantly surprised. She said, "Just rely on who you are and what you're doing as an artist. And your own story. If you're honest with that, then it just comes about naturally instead of forcing that." Much of her act is based upon her experiences:

92 Well my comedy just became more based on my own experiences. I didn't plan it, I didn't go "OK I should talk about, because Obama's president, I need to definitely talk about, I need to make some political jokes." You know it was more about bringing it back to me.... You know it was more of like things that happen to me quite naturally that are funny became part of my routine umm and the way that I relate to what's going on in America. GW considers herself an "observationalist" and talks about "the world that I live in": There are certain things that because they have agitated me I will talk about you know something that I saw, something that I heard you know and I'll talk about that and my take on it so really people are getting the benefit of my experience with whatever it is. MP's material often has to do with race: "I'm responding to my environment. I didn't land here from Mars. You know what I'm saying? It's something to kick all this up. It's me. It's what I experience and there's no substitute for it." DJ used to include more material about his personal life and still talks about his partner of 22 years. However, now his act reflects more of his interest in politics, apart from being gay. When I got bored with talking about justmy mom and my family and my this and my that; just silly stuff. Then I said, "Well let me try something a little more." 'Cause I started-I started to kind of become more of a political junkie and reading the paper all the time. And once the Internet came, I was on all these sites and everything. CK is an out lesbian comic whose focus is on political and social issues more so than personal matters. I think when I started you know I had to do our culture, I had to do um you know news from the gay community, sports, who's dating whom, media, umm my girlfriend you know and what's happened over the years there's so many more people being lesbian and gay comedians that you know there's the woman who specializes in her girlfriend. I don't have to do that you know it's like it allowed me to do more flat out political humor.... And then um and then just the world changed you know I think that my because of so many people coming out, so many people doing activism that I was allowed or than I claimed to be able to speak about a wider world and that wider world was you know gay and lesbian people are part of healthcare, we're a part of ah school, education.

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BL provides an example of ways in which he talks about political and larger social issues, and how that relates to individuals: I don't care about George Bush and I don't care about Obama and I don't care about the people. I mean Rick Santorum was not the problem. The problem was the thoughts and the ideas that ended up being promulgated about gay people or Huckabee recently, and what intrigues me is not these people but what they say and how what they say affects individual lives and the community. That's what intrigues me. Similarly, MK is interested in matters involving government and other formal institutions: The things that interest me are the things on the news and what's going on. I do not care about pop culture. I do not care where Brad and Angelina are today; I don't care how many babies that they want to adopt from Africa. I don't care. I do care about politics, I do care about sports, events that are happening versus I've never read US Magazine in my life, have no interest in any of that. As a result, her humor involves topics of political and larger social concerns. I think most of the things that I like to point out is the absurd and a lot of the things with our government that are completely absurd. My religion the Catholic Church I mean it, on some levels it is completely absurd so I do like to point that out. The Role of Emotions. Many comedians talk about that which is both personal and emotional. RK advises comics who are starting out and who want to talk about social and political issues in their act to create material that is both personal and emotionally driven, I would say to write about the stuff that affects them personally, like actually their demographic, it doesn't matter, stuff that makes them feel anything. Happy, sad, angry whatever, write from an emotional place. That would be my, that would be my advice. Not to write from a brain place, an intellectual place but actually write from an emotional place. DM's material has a lot to do with his personal experiences with HIV and drugs. He said, "I try to just do the material that's important to me." HIV and heroin are not topics that are natural fodder for comedy but are subjects he has strong feelings about:

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"My material is all comes from emotions. I don't do a lot of stuff from my head." He elaborated, I hated life. It was pain, torture. I wanted to die everyday, but I didn't so. Now that I'm through it all, I'm here with, it was harder to find meaning in life after that because everything that they told me was meaningful, a certain position in society, you know uhh how much money you have all that stuff. That stuff got ripped away from me. The material in ES's act also focuses on personal and emotional matters: Sometimes I feel a compulsion to talk about something and it's not funny at all. It could be something I'm really angry about, you know politically or something like that. Um but usually it has to be something meaningful to me. Like for example now I find I talk a lot about having teenagers ... because they're insane and it's just the way their brain works. It's really funny and interesting to me and it's part of how I deal with it. For some comedians, like RK, talking about material that is both personal and emotionally driven may mean talking about political and social issues. The personal, political, and social sometimes overlap. She said, I started work that happened to be from a cultural perspective I have the privilege of having an insight into, which is bicultural. I'm mixed race and Asian stuff and people who shared that identity would sort of approach me after shows and ask for more. And kind of organically the body of it grew because of that, not because I particularly wanted to carry some kind of picket sign for Asian Americans or women of color any of that. It just happens to be when you're underrepresented and you see an artist who's sort of hitting home people get really passionate and they feel compelled a lot to approach you and you know I get thanked a lot for my work which is interesting. Umm because I think that it sucks that I get thanked for my work. Similarly, for WS, making an intentional decision to perform out lesbian comedy to straight audiences back in the early '90s meant speaking about issues that were of personal, political, and social concern. She was an activist before she became a stand-up: My whole goal was to make them feel that what they perceived to be gay was wrong. You know what I mean, that their negative experience around gay was not the way it was. That we were a lot like them but that our experiences were very different. Like we also went to bridal showers but we hated them.

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WS is unapologetic about her opinions. "As far as the humor goes,... the political side of my humor is: I'm the political. My being open. My being unapologetic. My saying unpopular and politically incorrect things." Willingness to Question Prevailing Points of View In addition to speaking about issues that are personal or political or dealing with larger social concerns, all participants mentioned that a key component to using humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues has to do with having a certain type of "point of view." "Point of view" can be described as the lens through which they see the world or their worldview. ES provides one way of thinking about "point of view": I think we see things through a prism or a lens or whatever you want to call it that's skewed. That's a little twisted. That normal ... I don't want to say normal people but that the average person or the layperson out there isn't seeing it through the same twist. Once we point it out to them they're like "Oh yes of course now I see it that way." MP describes it this way: "Well, that's the way I see it, it's the way I feel about it. That's my reaction to it. You know we all see things differently." Other comedians refer to it as their "voice." DM described it this way: You have to know what you believe first. A lot of these comics that go out there they don't really know who they are, what their voice is. And that's what you have to find first, what your voice is. And that's always going to be something inside of you. Not that you're Asian, you're gay you know whatever, it's more than that you know. One focus member explained that there are "only two ways to handle an audience, either you are confirming what they believe or challenging what they believe." Participants spoke largely about challenging what audiences believe. But first, as one focus member stated, you have to know what the audience believes: The audience comes in with ... their preconceived notions, you have to understand what they're starting with when they're in those seats looking up at you ... you're taking them on a journey to your point of view, if you just

start in an arbitrary point, you re sunk, but if you go "Okay, these people know this, they think this, here's a place I can start from,..." you can actually move them. Knowing an audience's political point of view can inform how a comedian approaches that audience. For instance, a focus group member observed that today's audiences are much more polarized than when he first started performing: We've got the most polarized Black or White views ... there is no more middle ... audiences ... (are) essentially drawing sides, there's liberal audiences and conservative audiences and never the 'tween shall meet... right now the audiences are pre-disposed to liking or not liking a subject bit just based on knee jerk, overly, you know defined points of view. However, another focus group member is less concerned with the audiences' positions and concentrates on his own: "It's up to us to talk abut whatever the f we want to talk about... and not wait for the right crowd ... we don't have to you know, figure out a crowd, we have to figure out ourselves." Question Authority or the Status Quo. One of the ways in which the participants articulated their points of view was to question authority or the status quo: And I was always analyzing everything from every which way and is this correct, and always questioning and constantly and never really being sure of the answer.... I think one of our jobs as comics is to question. Is to question the status quo, but we don't necessarily have to provide the answers. (ES) One focus member described this as something that begins in childhood: "You don't accept things for rote as a child ... sometimes you start noticing that other things you are being told by rote aren't necessarily true." WS's performing out gay comedy for straight audiences provides an example of this. Her point of view is that being gay is as good as, or even better than, being straight. For many audience members, this is a 180-degree turn from the prescribed way of thinking. WS provides an unexpected twist that may challenge their assumptions about sexual orientation as well as social standards and mores. In her act she says, "And I was talking to this woman and of course I saw that she was gay. I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt" ... but by saying, "I like to

97 ' give everybody the benefit of the doubt," it's a twist to basically say, "You know what, straight people, here's something you probably never thought of, a whole bunch of gay people would prefer to just be around gay people. We don't honestly kind of sometimes like you." Questioning the status quo can be risky. CK shared her thoughts about humor she describes as "dangerous": Anything that um questions the status quo, is not happy with the status quo, that questions um the war, advocates for peace.... I just felt like I had to really question the war and um that was dangerous ... people did get up and leave. RK's focus was on giving people a jolt: Of course your job is to make people laugh but it's also to make people not take themselves too seriously and also to make people question what is funny, what is not funny and it's also to make people question who they are and people go and see comedians to be provoked and to be jolted out of a sort of mainstream or you know mass media and mass cultural thought and they and they want to be challenged. However, sometimes that backfires. One focus group member had an experience where an audience member misconstrued the comedian's attempt to make fun of a blind White supremacist: "If you have an IQ over a hundred you're gonna see the point of that... but if you're not you're gonna go, 'I love when he broke up that n like Whoa." FM intentionally confronts audiences' assumptions of an African American woman by not acting like a stereotype. By not acting like a stereotype, she calls the stereotype into question. There's this assumption that when we [African Americans] go home all we watch is BET and Def Jam and old Black people on television. That has never been our experience. Our experience has always been that we watch and we listen to a wide variety of things. And we experience a wide variety of things because we are Black in America and obviously those things aren't always represented so umm you know a Black audience member's capacity to like things is wider than what I think umm the industry has you know reflected. I think they just think there's just a very narrow, stereotypical, thing that Black people want to watch. lover,' and that's just

Sometimes the power of appearing on a public stage is enough to provoke an audience to thought. One focus group member is an Iranian American. She commented, "[If] you [the audience] never think about the Middle East and I'm suddenly saying ... nuanced things about it... you [the comedian] end up weirdly like and accidentally educating people ... you end up informing what their opinions are." Point out the Illogical or Absurd. In addition to questioning authority or the status quo, participants expressed their outlook as cynical or skeptical. Writing about the comedians interviewed for the book Satiristas! Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs and Vulgarians, Provenza stated, "They see the absurdity in everything, everywhere, all the time. They can't help it; it's a curse. And when you see enough of that, you start to get pretty skeptical about things" (Provenza & Dion, 2010, p. xiii). MK describes her point of view as cynical. Well most of the time when I do this there is cynicism behind it but it's a healthy cynicism that you're looking at it from the outside and you can laugh about it and go "You know what, this is what it is, this how we live. These are the rules." and you know you can be cynical and still be in a good mood. One way this manifests in her comedy is in the way she draws attention to the disconnect between what we are told and what we experience. She explained, I feel like I'm watching a reality show when I'm watching politics and I've been on a reality show so I know what's going on when the cameras are on and what they're all doing behind the scenes, it's not real, just like politics. It's not what we see anyway. I shouldn't say it's not real, but what we're being shown isn't really what's happening. BL also likes to talk about that which seems ridiculous to him. For example, he

Not since I did LSD could I be prepared for what I read in the papers everyday. It's like the Catholic Church saying that... sexual abuse has nothing to do with celibacy. That's as pretty much as funny as it gets. If something appears illogical to him, it provides fodder for material.

99 I really just focus on it and figure out the logic behind what this person is thinking and then I just start talking about it on stage and half of it comes out as me just yelling and screaming about something and then eventually I began to get it. I start to tone it down into what the humor of it is. So I basically start with something that I find frustrating and then from the frustration I know I'll find the humor. I'm funny when I'm frustrated and that's where it grows from if that makes sense. A focus group member provided an example of pointing out something that seemed illogical and how it caused an outburst in the audience: I talked about how, since 9/11 at every baseball game during the seventh inning stretch they sing uh not only "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," but now they sing "God Bless America." ... and I just found it interesting that connection how a terrorist attack led to basically like, praying for America ... and it set off the biggest firestorm in the room, like I never experienced anything like it on stage. Like this guy just started going, "No! No! Enough, enough." MP describes what he does as "telling the truth." I love talking about the truth. Because it defends itself. It has nothing to do with me. I could drop dead on the stage. The truth is still there. It's always there and it will linger. Provenza describes this point of view as speaking "truth to power" writing, "They expose and fight against a lack of compassion toward those without the power." (Provenza & Dion, 2010, p. xix). He classifies this work as satire, "the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues" (p. xx). Whether speaking about questioning the status quo or calling attention to absurdities, one focus group member called attention to a common factor: "I'm taking the side of the underdog, like I think that's the thing that all comedians have in common." The comedian's job is to pick on those in power, not the powerless. Be Funny Not Preachy. One of the challenges of having a point of view that is questioning or skeptical, according to 7 out of 14 of the participants, is being sure that your outlook doesn't overshadow your humor. These participants mentioned that being able to make others laugh was a prerequisite to raising awareness and consciousness of

contemporary social and/or political issues. GW stated, "If it's a preachy thing, then people don't want to hear that, they think that you're preaching." MK cautioned about getting preachy: You know I don't like comedians who get all preachy and there's not a punch line. At the end of the day it's still comedy ... 'cause if you're going to talk about politics and you're not going to have a punch line, well now you're just an expert on politics and believe me, the comedians I know, none of us are, nor am I. WS was aware of this phenomenon early on: I knew that humor is a very sneaky way to get a message across. It's like if you're standing ya know if there's a group of you who are arguing on CNN or you're outside of an abortion clinic or that and you're screaming at each other or whatever. I'm all for that stuff but it doesn't really work because everyone's really heightened and angry at each other and they're just shouting and they're not open to letting in any information. Whereas comedy is very sneaky, so many comics do it, my goodness, um you get on stage and you're doing stand-up but you have a point of view and often it's really strong. And you want your point of view to be what these people believe. You want to change their opinion you want to make them - and often in comedy it it's a little more liberal. ES added that comedians could get away with more because they use humor: I've learned in my life that when you're making people laugh you can just, you really can get away with murder. You really can, and I just know that ah there are things that I can say on stage that I could never get away with in just regular conversation. Because I'm making people laugh, you slip things in there, and it's just it's fun, it's just fun. One focus group member advised against taking yourself too seriously. "If you start talking like you are on a soap box then you have to immediately acknowledge that and make fun of yourself." George Carlin (2009) acknowledged this phenomenon in his autobiography: When people are laughing their defenses are typically lowered and they are more receptive to new ideas. But when you're in front of an audience and you make them laugh at a new idea, you're guiding their whole being for the moment. No one is ever more herself or himself than when they really laugh. Their defenses are down. It's very Zen-like, that moment. They are completely open, completely themselves when that message hits the brain

101 and the laugh begins. That's when new ideas can be implanted. If a new idea slips in at that moment, it has a chance to grow. So for that moment, that tiny moment, I own them. That's one of the things-maybe the most important - I seek by following this path: to have that power. To be able to say: stop in your tracks and consider this! (p. 250) For some comedians, learning to make something funny is the prerequisite step to learning to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues. DW described the need to know how to be funny before presenting one's view: For me I had to learn the language of stand-up first before I mean wasn't all political by any means in the early days from '74 to about '82 then in '82 in the middle of the Reagan years ah that's when I really started focusing on political stuff. But, I think I learned the language of stand-up, how to tell jokes ah just you know to find the rhythm. DJ agreed that there's more to comedy than just bashing people: If you just bash somebody, talk about, "Hey, Sarah Palin is stupid," or this, that and the other thing. It'sI mean first of all there's no art to it, and secondly, you're going to turn off the people who disagree with you. But if you have a good joke, that the whole audience laughs at, even if though they might not agree with you. KL developed a circumspect approach to her material. Like other female comedians, she feels that as a woman she has had to learn to tread lightly about certain topics: "When a woman is very direct, men get threatened. They [women] have to be kind of indirect... so I always went around ... an issue, stalking it." Several comedians can recall occasions or people they perceived to overstep their bounds into preaching, crossing this invisible line. ES spoke about the delicate balance of treading that line: I think Bill Maher does it brilliantly. You know he can get really preachy and righteous but he's really funny so he makes his point and it works. But you better be really funny if you're going to do that. Connecting with the Audience A third element that 10 of 14 participants perceived is necessary to using humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues is having a

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connection with the audience. A connection with the audience can feel like life or death for a comedian, which is perhaps why comics refer to "killing an audience" when they've done very well or "dying" or "bombing" or "eating it" when they've done poorly. One reason that connecting with the audience is a key is because, as a focus group member said, you have to know what the audience is thinking in order to surprise them, "to find the joke angle you can't give them something they already know ... they're not going to laugh." Comedians need to understand their audiences not only to move them to laughter, but also to move them to see the comedians' point of view: You have to understand what they're starting with ... in order to figure out how to take them ... on a journey to your point of view, if you just start in an arbitrary point, you're sunk, but if you go, okay, these people know this, they think this, here's a place I can start from ... you can actually move them. (Focus group member) Also, comedians rely on the audience to tell them what's funny. For example, if after a few attempts of telling a joke the audience doesn't laugh, the comic inevitably concedes and eliminates the joke. George Carlin (2009) wrote about a joke he ultimately dropped because it didn't get laughs: "But it shows how the audience shapes the material. They are part of the process. I write, they edit" (p. 249). Referring to this interplay between the comedian and the audience, WS said, Yeah they're in charge of everything. I mean I'm up there by myself and I'm in control of the room for that 90 minutes.... And I'm in control of what I say and all those things but if they if they don't laugh, then I'm not doing it. I'm losing and I have to switch gears. Related to creating a connection with the audience is the notion of trying to unify the individual audience members. As MP said, "I bring them along. And then they become one. No matter what color, what sex. They become one." Remarking about the phenomenon of creating a room full of laughter, which is no easy feat in a pluralistic society, CK said, "Yet at that moment everybody laughed at the same moment. They've all got different experiences in that moment, but there is a multiplicity and a unity at the

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same time. I just find that mind blowing." Carlin (2009) referred to it as "a genuine, momentary communion. Which they [the audience] wouldn't have experienced without me. And I wouldn't have experienced without them" (p. 250). Create Relatable Material. One of the principal ways in which several participants described connecting with audiences is by creating content, or material, that is relatable or relevant to the audience. DJ explained the very fundamental importance of this: "If they don't know what I'm talkin' about, you know, you're - you're done for ... if you have to take time to explain something to them ... um, it's not gonna work." In a subsequent conversation, DJ spoke about joking that Haliburton was the offspring of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, but the joke failed because the audience didn't know what Haliburton was. MP concurred, reiterating the importance of having relatable material: "I like talking about stuff that involves everyone" and "you have to relate to things that they all can relate to." Talking about content that is relatable may be a challenge for a gay comic like WS who is speaking to straight audiences. However, she accomplishes this by trying to get the audience to recognize themselves in her and to identify with the universality of her topics. She entices audience members into believing, "Oh my God, that's me. I totally have done that. Oh my God, she's right." Although ES is not gay, a similar approach works for her: And somebody's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah that happened to me, that's exactly how I feel." But... the audience people never puts it in those words. So, there's a recognition factor when you say something, when I talk about my mother, let's say, and I've had so many women and men come over to me and say, "That's my mother." GN, a straight White male, found that audiences really related to his divorce material: The divorce material I wrote really early on, I remember it really working and you could tell people really connected with it. I remember thinking, "Now I'm on to something. I'm talking about stuff that's completely specific

104 to me and it's really chilling and it really has resonance with people." I could write jokes all day. FM is an example of a comedian who developed a persona that is very approachable and relatable so that she can connect with the audience: "I'm not the type of comic where you're like 'I don't know if I can go up to her ... I mean I like her but she doesn't seem that friendly.'" Part of the reason she's so accessible is because her material is so relatable: I just always talk about where I grew up and how I grew up.... So my past experience would be growing up in Chicago the suburbs, which is a White neighborhood and then moving to umm the South Side, which is mostly a Black neighborhood. But the culture shock of that umm and how fun that was and I just explored that. I think on some level. Just by you know talking about that. That ended up being somewhat connected to other people. People seem to relate to that. But I didn't plan it. Establish Trust. In addition to developing material that is relatable, another way that many participants spoke about creating a connection with the audience is to establish their trust. CK spoke about creating a sense that "we're all in this together": I find that it's really important to establish that trust between me and the audience and I have taken time to find out... about them and you know that we're in this together like there's that initial establishment of a trust and then news about their town and even if you just know you know a little bit about where you're playing, in the hall, or who the mayor is, or who the you know what the current hoopla is in town to establish that kind of that "We're in this together," I think that allows them to hear things that they might not ordinarily hear. One way in which comedians may violate the audience's trust is by using an offensive word, or by picking on the less fortunate. DW identified how a taboo word can do this: Ah well there's some comics that have just become very popular these days. So you may find ah, to use "retarded" as a punch line, and I don't think it's fair, or right, or true, or just.... Now I think it is our job not to pick on the people who are less fortunate than us, but it is our job to pick on the more fortunate.

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DJ cautioned about this by saying, "You have to know how far you can go. You have to know umm, what level of tastewhat level of taste you wanna go to." ES pointed out that another way of breaching the trust of the audience is to talk down to them. Don't ever disrespect your audience. Um it's all about the relationship with the audience, and the respect you have with the audience, and the communication with the audience. And audiences are so ah sensitive they can smell condescension, and they can smell um when your, the fear, they could pick up on it immediately, or defensiveness. A focus group member also warned about talking down to your audience: "Knowing your audience and being able to talk to them in a way, that without being condescending and being able to talk to them in a way that... [is] relatable." Another way in which comedians may breach the audience's trust is by talking about a sensitive topic too soon. MP made the point that "timing is EVERYTHING." When it is off, humor can backfire. An example of this is how comedy stopped in New York City, and on late night talk shows, immediately after 9/11 because audiences weren't yet ready to laugh. DW is very aware that this can happen again: Uh huh you know I'm a barnacle on the side of the ship of states, and I can be scraped off at anytime you know. A dirty bomb goes up in a big city in America, and nobody's going to want to hear political comedy again. A final way in which one participant (1 of 10) spoke about creating a connection was by having fun: You know you can't be dull or boring or then you are just a reporter so you have to have some skill and communicating and you have to you know. Some people use razzle dazzle, some people use faces, some people use you know songs but you have to keep an eye and engage first and foremost. (GW) Take Risks Six of 14 participants perceived being willing to take risks, be wrong, and even make the audience uncomfortable as a third element that is necessary to raise awareness

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and consciousness of social and political issues. Provenza wrote about the notion of taking risks: They don't always care about being polite; politeness is sometimes only obfuscation and manipulation.... They don't care about offending you. They'd prefer it didn't go down that way, but maybe the fact that it offended you is part of the point they're trying to make. (Provenza & Dion, 2010, p. xvii) One way in which comedians take risks is by being willing to fail. ES spoke about this: To be willing to be wrong, to be willing to take chances on something. I mean that's a big thing for a comic. You have to be willing to be bad, and I might go up and start talking about something, and it just doesn't pay off. I have to be willing to do that. Some comedians take risks by talking about subjects that are not traditionally the domain of comedy clubs. DM provides an example: "We have this idea 'Oh, cancer, you can't talk about cancer.' Wrong. You're wrong. You can talk about it.... You can talk about anything if you're willing to pay the price and work at it." He also uses words that many consider offensive, but doing so, he believes, stimulates thinking. He realizes this is risky, and that occasionally he rubs audience members the wrong way. "I've had people jump up in shows and yell at me and because they just didn't like one of my jokes." However, he also realizes that this is part of the process and believes, "when you want to deal with these kind of words and these kinds of ideas you're gonna have to take your lumps for awhile until you get it right. That's what makes it fun for me." One focus member believes the range of topics that can be joked about is widening: "There's been a general like increasing acceptance of really taboo subjects. There was a time where you couldn't talk about AIDS and race on stage." One focus group member disagreed and said he believed there are still topics that can't be talked about: "The news can't be too bad that you are bringing people.... I just know from ... trying jokes out um like in front of Black and White audiences." He went on to describe a

comedy sketch that dealt with death threats against Black people that was banned from a popular television show. DJ believes that inevitably someone will get offended watching comedy that raises awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. I actually do a joke about that and I say, "Whenever you see a comedian, you really have to keep your 'I'm going to get offended head' out in the car. Because if comedians were limited to not offending anybody then all we could talk about would be the socks and the laundry, and even that would offend the Chinese people." A focus group member also spoke about the fear of challenging audience members too much: "With the average comedy club, people just come to 'see something funny" ... they're not expecting to be challenged ... they're going for escapism." GN deliberately tries not to offend. He said, "I think I want to be liked too much to go out that far on a limb. That's not how I work I guess." Even ES, who emphasized the importance of being willing to take risks, expressed the desire not to distance audience members: "I mean you don't want to alienate. You try to be inclusive, but it doesn't always work." Sometimes comedians walk a fine line between offending and not offending. This line became very blurry shortly after 9/11, when comedians were uncertain about if and how to address the tragedy. One focus group member described the tension this way: The audiences were not only hungry for comedy but they wanted the comics to talk about these issues.... I think it's also you know part of what is the mastery level of the person that's having the conversation with the audience ... if you don't approach them the right way ... it just kind of bumps people up. Be Confident in Your Opinion. Having confidence in one's opinion is important to most comedians. GW provided an example of being confident: "So if I go and talk about something and I find that I'm full of s while I'm talking about I can say, 'Well, I'm full of s on this one.'" The fact that others might not agree with her doesn't deter

her. "I am aware that not everybody is going to dig what I do and I m OK with it. I'm comfortable enough in my own skin to do what I do the way I want to do it." WS also used to be more concerned with acceptance: Oh my God, I used to care about acceptance. And ya know straight people understanding who we were and I was working so much for that, but now a lot of times when people come up to me after the show they say things like "What you do is against God's nature and it's immoral and it's bad" and just like "Oh suck my d!" ... And the message is: "I don't care about your opinion. I'm not working for you to like me. I don't need it. I'm an actualized person without your approval." Over time, as CK has gotten more confident, she has become more direct with audiences: "I have less tolerance for um homophobia. I have, I'm just tired um of you know mealy mouthing, I'm much more direct, I think." She provided an example of a recent performance in which she spoke about race: I started talking about race in a way that I never really had never done so frontally. You know it was like full frontal onslaught and I said the words "We're in the middle of a summer seminar on race. That people seem to think that the election of President Obama was reparations enough ... and the White guys are really nervous, you could feel ... the color threat levels rising." And ... the audience was getting nervous. CK did not back down, but she did experiment with the placement of that material within her act: You know there were um people got uncomfortable but um and I find that the more I do a piece the more it's just you know it's like lesson plans the more you teach something you feel more you know comfortable and you kind of know the terrain and I felt that the more comfortable I got and strong and confident with the material you know they got, they felt easier in their discomfort.

Finding #3 All participants indicated they learned to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness exclusively through informal means, primarily by drawing on their past experiences. Overview Learning to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness is an informal process. Although classes in stand-up comedy do exist, most are given at comedy clubs; none of the participants mentioned attending them. While the primary method of learning is through informal means, it may be difficult to further distinguish how much of participants' learning is intentional and how much is incidental. Performances are certainly opportunities for intentional learning by trial-and-error; for example, BL works off of the audience's laughter. An intentional activity such as a performance requires planning and forethought and, as Marsick and Watkins (1990) say, "involves some conscious attention, reflection, and direction" (p. 6). Other methods of learning, including drawing on experience and observation, are not as clear and are therefore more incidental. For instance, DM provided an example of an incident he happened to observe that sparked his interest and became fodder for material: "Angry gay men are just so interesting ... you'll see them walking down the street... like they're fighting a war that's not even there really.... I see that stuff and I find it interesting and I want to talk about it." Table 4 summarizes the findings to the third research question, which asked, "How do participants learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues?"

110 Table 4. An Outline of Finding #3 FINDING #3 All participants indicated they learned to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness exclusively through informal means, primarily by drawing on their past experiences, o Drawing on past experience (14 of 14) o Drawing on previous jobs o Influence of family o Observation (13 of 14) o Observe other comedians o Observe the news and the world around you o Observe audiences' reactions Learning by doing (12 of 14) Role models (12 of 14) o Comedians as role models o Family members as role models Reflection (11 of 14) o Reflection-in-action o Reflection-on-action Dialogue with others (8 of 14) Partly innate (3 of 14)

o o

o o

Drawing on Past Experience All 14 participants spoke about drawing upon past experience as a principal method of learning to use humor as a way in which to raise awareness or consciousness of social and political issues. Relying upon past experience informs them in various ways: the content of their material, their point of view, as well as their delivery. Drawing on Previous Jobs. Applying lessons they learned in previous workplaces was one way in which comedians draw on past experience. For example, as a former high school English teacher, CK developed her ability to gauge the reactions of her students. This came in handy when assessing her stand-up audiences. Especially when I started and there was not a reaction to things, you know the people didn't laugh I . . . I just knew that something could be happening and it didn't necessarily express itself in a guffaw. And that allowed me not

Ill [to] you know just run from the stage in a blind unrehearsed panic. So it was good training for me to know that things were happening even though it wasn't the absolute reaction that I quite frankly demanded. Working as an educator can provide experience that is similar to talking to an audience. DM's previous work as a health educator informed his work as a professional comic: I was a health educator in Florida. And um that's why I realized that laughter, well I didn't realize it I'm just was always I'm funny naturally. That's just my style was to be funny to you know, well not even funny. I just, I said things exactly the way they were and then people would laugh at that.... Instead of being like a health educator that was boring. I just talked like I talk in regular life and people laughed at that because it was out of con- place as an educator. You're supposed to sound right. I would curse and everything in my educational programs. People just found that hysterical for some reason. WS's work as a bartender provided a similar forum: And I was able through sarcasm and humor to control the whole bar. To control my whole uh bar full of people and get them laughing and ya know what I mean I used it sort of as my ... little lasso to keep everybody calm and chilled out and ... people could come into the bar and say something very bigoted and I would say something very funny and sort of bitey back to them and they would laugh and then you can you could physically see the facial expression change. DW held many different jobs before he was a comedian: I've had 108 jobs, you go to my website, and there's actually a list of 108 jobs.... And all 108 jobs were kind of focused on ah for me getting to this point that I could earn my living at stand-up, and I am and it was worth it all. Other comedians draw on their past experience in the arts. RK spoke about her training at Juilliard and past performance experience. I was a playwright before I was a comedian and I did some solo shows.... And I did character comedy starting in around 2000.... You could see me doing Leguizamo type or Lily Tomlin, or Tracy Ullman and so they were short like jokes, the stuff was all comedic but it wasn't all stand and deliver. Influence of Family. Others have drawn from past experience with their families during their growing up years to inform their stand-up. For example, MK came from a

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family where they had to watch and discuss the news every night. Speaking of her father, she said, My dad is a giant; he's a character with a giant personality like anything you ask me right now I could tell you exactly how my dad would respond. He's a commodore, strong and thought out, never afraid to tell you. He's just a giant personality.... I'm him but edited. MP can remember joking with his family from the time he was very young. I would use it [humor] as a weapon and I knew it and I knew how to push buttons and I remember when my little brother was born, and they were all looking at him, the baby, and I just went over there and said, my mother had a best friend, his name was Charles,... And I said, "This baby looks exactly like Charles!" They wanted to kill me! Experiences that comedians had in school can also affect their comedic points of view. BL described one such event: When I was a kid they showed us all these movies with nuclear bombs going off and all the bomb test and then we would have a (?) where we get under a desk.... And that was the beginning of the disconnect for me from what I was being told. I knew that if the adults were telling me that then they were clueless. The ability to think critically is instrumental to comedians' work. For instance, the critical thinking skills ES's dad passed on to her when she was in school still inform ES's questioning point of view: I remember having fights with him [dad] when I would ask him to help me with my homework, and he would always be trying to get me to think. You know I want the answer, because he was really smart. And was like, "Just give me the answer." And he was always trying to get me to think, he was always like impressing that on me of how to analyze something, how to ... and he was a doctor so he was all about diagnostician. Being a diagnostician and thinking through something and um, and so I guess that he kind of taught me that, I guess it's Talmudic. That way of thinking of analyzing, and not just accepting the written word, but analyzing it, and he also taught me to never accept authority. Experiences with sickness and death can also greatly influence a comedian's point of view. As a recovered drug addict, DM had such experience:

113 When I was, I was diagnosed with HIV when I was 21 or so 22 maybe, 21, and then my wife died when I was 28 so I, those years were spent with living at the end of my life. Like that's how it ends for everyone, sickness and death. So I spent a lot of time living in that and then when I didn't die, obviously I'm still alive I just have all that knowledge of that. So that changed me. Some for good, some for bad cause ... I'm bored. I get bored with everybody ... I realized how it ends so I try to live differently now. Feeling like an outsider can also inform a comedian's sense of humor. FM's comedy draws upon her outsider status growing up. I also talk about the differences between Black and White and how really for me, through my eyes, growing up culturally in a White neighborhood how difficult it was to transform into a Black neighborhood. Drawing on Their Life Experiences. Many comedians draw heavily on their life experiences to inform the content of their material. After all, that is the basis for the expression "comedy equals tragedy plus time." This may make it difficult for audience members to distinguish between a comedian's stage persona and the real person. Everything that I am has informed my comedy. Being a woman, being Jewish, living in New York, ah now being a parent, being a wife whatever it is, being single informed. Whatever my life experience is deeply informs my comedy. (ES) Any experience in their lives can become part of their acts. GW spoke about an occasion when she drew on her personal experience with the "N" word: We were just coming off the burial of what they call the "N" word in which no one should use anyways why are young Black kids using it? Because it has no meaning, it doesn't have the same meaning to them.... Here's the word so are you a bad person cause you used it or cause I used it and you're laughing? Give it some thought, you know give it some thought. So that was specific because people kept saying you shouldn't be using the word like OK but you have to explain to me why. Kids use it in the songs, but it has nothing to do with what you're talking about. For them they don't have the same experiences, you know they didn't grow up in a segregated world.... I was trying to get people to see as time go so do we. And I'm only that smart because I have grand kids who are teenagers and young adults who have a different relationship to it. Their love lives are also often fodder for material. FM talks about her past romances on stage:

114 One of my boyfriends was Haitian and the cultural differences of that and you know what that was like and what I experienced going through that. You know some of it was you know painful being that I didn't speak Creole and his family spoke Creole and I'm just the only English person there and I hung out with the kids, I talked about that on stage. Being with him for how ever amount of years and wondering why I'm still in a relationship with someone you know and obviously I made that into a joke. Umm now the fact that people could relate to it you know was good. Similarly, KL's life as a single woman informs her material: I just try to find a personal connection to it and in my case it would be like I had a boyfriend who cheated on me so I kind of understood how he [Tiger Woods] felt getting hit with golf clubs so that's how I kind of got interested in the story in the first place. One focus group member spoke about the importance of having friends of different backgrounds to provide different perspectives: "I also think it's important to have friends ... of other races ... cause you kinda see things from ... people's point of view ... the biggest lesson I learned from spending time with Black people was ... just don't remind them that they're Black all the time." Therefore, it's important for comedians to have many experiences to draw from. GN believes your material is always reflecting your experiences. You go through more stuff, you get older, your hair goes gray, you go through bitter breakups and you know if your friends die you get depressed and you have to take vacation and your life just gets harder and more complicated and your stand-up ends up becoming a reflection of all that. In order to keep your material fresh, as one focus group member said, you must keep refreshing your life experiences. "There's a parallel growth of your personal growth with your uh, comedic professional growth ... all the things that make you a ... broader person, a fuller person, that you can bring to the stage." Observation A majority of participants (13 out of 14) said that observation was a means by which they learn. Some of the ways in which comedians said they employed observation

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were by observing other comedians, observing the news or reading newspapers, observing their environments, and observing the audience. Observe Other Comedians. Watching other comedians is a common way in which comedians learn. GN provides an example of how he watched comedians on television growing up and how it informed him about the type of comedy he wanted to perform. Stephen Wright, Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Lewis, they all were very good writers too, they seemed to be very concise with their writing and there was a punch line. I write jokes for the most part and I'm really impressed by people who kind of just talk and tell stories and are a little less punchy than I am. Those are the guys I ended up watching on these shows and I was always impressed how they could go out there and do 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 jokes on the same subject and really be "rat a tat tat." I really liked that kind of comedy. I don't know why I liked it more than others. You watch the monologue on Letterman or Carson for 20 years and you start to understand the rhythm and I think your act probably subconsciously starts to be like it and mimic it or whatever. And later, after he moved to New York, he watched other comics live, in clubs: I saw all these comics who just seemed to be more interested in trying to talk about more personal stuff. Sometimes it'd work and sometimes it wouldn't but I remember when it worked it just seemed like magic. DJ provides another example: "I just sort of did it, you know? I watched other comedians, and I just sort of did it." Watching other comedians helped FM with a model for herself: Well I watched a couple of people and I like um and when I first started.... I just thought they were really unique like they had something to say on stage. And so that made me think well you know that's kind of the direction I want to go in. One focus group member spoke about the importance of watching the comedians who are specifically performing humor that raises awareness and consciousness of social and political issues "by watching guys who were very adept at doing it. Whether it was Chappelle or Greg Giraldo or uh Louis C.K., you know, just, you learn by watching people that are good at that."

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KL said that it was by watching bad comedians that she was motivated to perform. Cause I saw people do it and I didn't think they were doing a good job and I thought I could do a better job. Versus I don't see bad paintings and think I can do a better job painting. Or anything like that but I definitely felt like that with stand-up. "Wow! You just performed - you just had 20 minutes on stage and that's what you did?" I was disappointed. But I guess that's what made me want to get up on stage. Observe the News and World Around You. Observing the news and the world around them is another way some comedians learn. DW observes by listening: "I listen to a lot of news talk, so I'm trying to always find the medium and rhythm of people's language and also ah what their focus is and what their, what their fantasies are." This helps to develop his content as well as his style. He also reads several newspapers: "So that's why I don't know if I'm a political comedian because I read newspapers or if I read newspapers because I'm a political comedian." In addition to watching the news, comedians observe how people react to the news. MP described how he uses observation to inform the content of his material so that it addresses what is going on in the world. For instance, when creating material about Martha Stewart, he said, I watch and listen to Martha.... And how they react to it... the establishment. The White establishment, I watch how they react. That's why I watch the news and read what they say and how they react on her show and I watch them very closely. That's how I get my material.... I'm well I go out, I ride the bus and the train. I walk and I go out and I want to be with people. RK also illustrates how she creates material from what she observes in the news: I might read like one or two things, I have some stuff about Obama being in town.... Sol sort of do that, I sort of look at the newspaper.... Really like there's this thing I read in the newspaper that like 75% of the bombs, the fake bombs in an airport... so I wrote a big thing about LAX and their crappy security. The way the news programs are structured can act as a model for how comedians structure their acts. CK crafts her act in a similar format:

117 I think of a show now as much like a newspaper and you know there's up front there's the daily news there's what's happening I mean when I go to a town it's like I do what happened that day, I do local news um I always try to know something about where I am. The Internet is also a source of information for comedians. MK often reads it while she's traveling. I mean every morning I read the Daily Beast, I read the Direct Report to see what's that saying, I read the Washington Post, and it's all on my Blackberry, and it's all read in an airport when I'm flying some ungodly hour ya you know.... I only end up writing about the things that I really think are interesting or absurd.... Sarah Palin - the entire thing is absurd.... Really we've gone from George Washington and that gang to Sarah Palin? Some comedians prefer to people watch. Observing human nature and other people's actions and reactions can inform comedians' material. One focus group member provides an example: I'm going to look at everything too and anyone that has a big problem with something.... I'm going to fing look at it.... The amount you flip over something is the reason I should open the box and look inside ... then ask yourself why they flipped out? ... human nature tells you ... it's a library. GW foremost considers herself to be an "observationalist," an observer of human behavior. She said, "Yeah I just want to talk about what's going on in the world and I'm observing and hopefully you know it will be fun." Even observations about corporations and business can evolve into comedic bits. BL's observation of too many Starbucks resulted in one of his signature bits: I left a comedy club in Houston, Texas ... we we're going to get dinner, I had a 2nd show. And as we we're driving I noticed on one side of the street there was a Starbucks and there was another on the other side of the street... and I couldn't believe it. Observe Audiences' Reactions. Observations of audiences' responses can inform comedians. WS observes the reaction of audience members and the impact of her material as she forces them to confront their assumptions about gay people and can see the impact her material is having.

118 It was fun to watch the straight people kinda go as it was turned back on them "Hey! Do you think there are some people that are happy they're gay and that they're better than us?" And it was just funny because it was like that's how they've been thinking their whole lives and they never questioned it. They had been thinking "Oh I'm glad I'm straight." ... It's fun to turn everything around on them and watch them change.... For me I was either literally watching their faces if I was close enough to them or [talking to them] after the show. Learning by Doing In addition to drawing upon experience, 12 of 14 of the participants spoke about learning through experiential methods. This means they performed in front of an audience or "got stage time." Describing her early days starting out, MK said, "I just went on open mic night as a goof off thing and then I, somebody paid me ah because I kept going up." (An open mic is a place, usually a comedy club, bar, bookstore, or coffee shop, where any one can perform.) This is how most comedians get their start, including DM. I just do it and you, you're so in love, you love it so much that you're just paying attention to it all the time and you'll just go ... "I'm going to try saying it this way." If that works, then you just try and remember it works and you never go back to the old way again.... And the only way to get better at it is by doing it over and over and over and over. Participants treasure time in front of an audience. Judy Carter (2001), author of The Comedy Bible: From Stand-up to Sitcom: The Comedy Writer's Ultimate How-to-Guide, wrote, "If you want to be successful as a comic, get onstage, on any stage, as much as you can" (p. 284). It is a means by which comedians hone their material, presence, timing, and delivery. Many comedians stress the importance of getting on stage. ES described developing skills as a performer in terms of muscle memory: Ah you know stage time, that's how you find everything in stand-up. You just get up and you do it and you just, it all, it all just becomes muscle memory. You just do it and you start to know what works, what doesn't work and you go towards that.... I've been doing this for 26 years so I mean in the beginning, there were times where I was too strong, and too hostile,

and I was too aggressive. Ah times when I wasn't enough, when I didn't take charge enough, and you know it's just trial and error. You just do it do it and little by little you start to, it becomes ingrained what works and what doesn't work. When asked what advice she'd give someone just starting out, WS's suggestion was very clear: So I always tell people "just do it." Just do it. There's no, there's no preparing you don't need to worry about.... I mean you can do all that you can prepare, you can go to classes and all that other nonsense and you might learn how to use the microphone a little better or ... get better organized with your thoughts. But if you have it, you're gonna get up and you're gonna do it. And 90% of comedians standing on stage ... I'm gonna say more than that have never been to a comedy class. The more often they perform, the better they can become. GN performs several times a week. For 90% of comics including myself, it takes a really long time to be a good comic and you just need to allow yourself to suck for a while and that to me is a huge thing. The only way you're ever going to be able to get better at stand-up is to get onstage as much as you possibly can. It's going to take a while for you to figure out what exactly it is you want to talk about. The sooner you just get up there and start writing jokes and find out how to find your feet on stage the better because essentially you will find out. You just have to give yourself the opportunity to be bad. That's what it's all about. Stand-up is about mistakes and sucking. FM talked about the function of practicing: I feel that for me the process of working on stage, trying out material. It was a painful one. It is a painful journey; it takes a while for a joke to click. And uhh so, my first, especially early on when I did that joke I was a new comic so I didn't know exactly how to do it. I would just go on stage and say what was on my mind. I would say I'm with this guy and I would just talk. And I would bomb. A focus member confirmed the importance of practice: There's really no one way to learn how to do any of this, the only way that you can say is that, you just have to do it, you just have to get on stage and continuously get on stage until you feel like you're doing something [material] you want to do.

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By performing, they can figure out what they did right and what they did wrong. One focus group member described the process of learning by doing as "reverse engineering," especially when things don't work out. He said, "Kinda look back and you do some forensics about what about it turned people off." Failure, or in a comedian's case "bombing," is often a great teacher. A focus group member described learning from bombing: A joke just dropping on deaf ears 'cause you didn't catch it right, is the biggest teacher of all time, 'cause your passion for the joke hasn't died, you still want it to work, but you're going "Okay, they couldn't hear it this way, how do I make them hear it?" And that, to me is the biggest teacher. One of the things that performing in front of an audience allows them to practice is developing confidence in current and new material. When asked how he learned to make people laugh, MP responded, "It's just something you feel. It's something that you experience.... And even if they don't laugh they know when you're secure on that stage. They can feel it." It is how KL develops new material: "I'll do new jokes the same way, I surround them with jokes that work really well and um and I try to work them. You also learn how to engage an audience that way." Live performance helps comedians learn to adjust to different audiences. A couple of focus group members spoke about the challenges of navigating audiences in a culture that has access to so much, and so varied information: "There [are] multitudinous demographics and ... it's hard to figure out the language that's going to like universally speak to people." At the same time, he went on to say, people seem very divided. "We've got the most polarized Black or White views that that I've ever seen, there is no more middle, ... there's liberal audiences and conservative audiences and never the tween shall meet." RK provides an example of how she alters her material based on her audience: I kind of racially profile my audiences before I go out, I know, from experience I guess ... what people can tolerate. If I'm with an all-Asian umm

121 group I can actually do softer comedy. And when I say softer I mean it's not as punch line laden.... If I'm in an all-White audience which has low tolerance both for a woman comedian and it's actually more of a challenge than being an Asian comedian, I think, I have to pack load the act with fast jokes, ease them into anything political at all, and you know put that towards the end and um it's a different way of working. Like and this is what I've learned from being on stage, you know but it's difficult, I'm still learning. As someone who never liked classrooms and left school after 9th grade, GW is a big proponent of experiential learning in all aspects of her life: I don't have the concentration to do it in a structured system. A lot of kids they strive and they learn so much, I'm one of the kids who I need to see, I need taste, I need to touch, I need to talk. At the other end of the educational spectrum, BL, who was formally educated through college and who studied playwriting at Yale Drama School, also relies on trial and error for his stand-up. The thing is I don't write anything down. So I just do it on stage. So I do it and I work off of the audience laugh and I start to figure out, the writing process is done with feelings,... where the funny is. I have an idea but they really are the ones who that's where I find. In short, DJ summarized, "It's total trial and error. 'Cause most of us don't know what the hell we're doing up there ... we're just trying, just grabbing straws like hoping maybe this will work." Role Models In addition to observation, having role models is another means by which participants learned. Twelve of 14 participants spoke about having role models. In fact, many of the participants mentioned having some of the same role models. The two comedians cited by participants as role models most often were George Carlin and Richard Pryor. In addition, some of the participants who were interviewed were mentioned to be role models for other participants. In addition to having other performers as role models, some participants mentioned having family members as role models.

Comedians as Role Models. There are many different ways that past comedians inspired current comedians. Some participants found that seeing comedians who were similar to them provided inspiration. For instance, for CK, watching funny women provided an impetus for her to pursue comedy. Carol Burnett, uh Lucille Ball, uh was it was really influential you know and there would be I think it was Mimi Hines that would be on The Ed Sullivan Show. Ugh I don't remember but um but to see women was wonderful. To see women make people laugh was just go, just you know like a metaphor. I just loved it. While CK's role models were straight funny women, WS was seeking other lesbian comedians as role models and came up short: I don't think there were any role models. The only one that would even be close would be CK. I didn't know about lesbians that were in gay comedy. I think there were two or three and she was with maybe one other girl. The only other person doing it in New York at the time really. So I didn't know of the other. So she's the only person that I saw that I knew of... that was just ya know just an extraordinary thing at the time. I think I found her the first time in like '84. Which was crazy. I was going to women's music concerts and then one day she shows up and she did her thing. I mean that was still back in '84 and '85 we were still completely freaked out that the female singer was using female pronouns. Other comedians found inspiration in watching performers who modeled the type of performance they enjoyed. For example, RK admired and emulated those who portrayed characters who made social commentary: Very influenced by artists like John Leguizamo and George Wolfe and Lily Tomlin and I appreciate the way they can talk about social issues through the mouth of a, of a character. GN admired comedians who wrote the type of material he likes to write: Then, I remember watching other people like Richard Lewis who looked like he was in a lot of pain and was going through a lot of stuff and somehow had written a lot of material about it and I certainly found that very interesting and anyone who's watched Richard Pryor can see a guy who's had a million problems and who's gone through a million different things and a hundred different hardships and had this great material that spoke directly about all of it and it just seemed amazing.... I think you're drawn to the stuff that you want to be like so while I was watching people like Richard Lewis, Richard

123 Pryor, people like this, it was basically something you aspired to, I mean those are two of the best who've ever done it. That certainly was what my goal was to write stuff about myself regardless of what was going on. Comedians like George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Jack Benny, and Fred Allen engaged in great wordplay and provided stimulation for DW. He said, "Their verbal linguistics is what I appreciated and uh the economy of getting the message out. Because I think a lot of comedy is ah built on economy language." Comedians who have a unique voice can be models to other comedians. For example, watching Roseanne Barr model a big personality helped DJ to find his voice on stage: It was her first Tonight Show set that she ever did. And she was so funny, and so real, and just talking about her husband and her kids just like only she could, that she was like herself to the tenth power.... And I went, "Oh, so you know I can be DJ up there." ... I uhit sort of clicked with me.... I said, "Oh I can beI can be me." Having a certain attitude or outlook can be a model for others. In this way, BL was impacted by Pryor and Carlin as well as by Paul Krassner. In his autobiography, BL (2006) wrote about his discovery of Paul Krassner's magazine, The Realist, which he describes as "a pathologically dark humor magazine." "It affected and shaped my young impressionable mind in ways unimaginable" (p. 61). Many comedians admire the honesty of Richard Pryor: Pryor was everything that a stand-up comic should be. Um he was ... so accessible and warm, and you know vulnerable.... He had no condescension whatsoever.... He was just able to expose the darkest side of himself, which I think was incredibly freeing for people to watch. (ES) Authenticity is also an admirable quality in a comedian. FM admired Dick Gregory's authenticity: When I first watched him,... but when I saw him live he had something that sort of ... no not sort of, it spoke to me, which was he was authentically being himself. Being that he is, he is somewhat political. He talks about things that he really cares about. Umm and he's hysterical. He's very funny. But you know so you walk away and you got something from it.

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Carlin and Pry or are admired for several reasons. DM admired them for the topics they chose: "They weren't they weren't bs topics. You know they were talking about race and religion, pain and death, and all that stuff. That's what I liked about them." GW admired them for the feelings they elicited: Absolutely I mean who was funnier then Richard Pryor? Nobody. George Carlin talked about "Hey I have my stuff over here next to other people's stuff and you know you're off on this great ride. You listen to Totie Fields talking and she was amazing, but first and foremost they were fun and you never felt like an idiot when you listened to them. One focus group member described the desire and challenge of getting to know comedians who are further along their careers: "When I was in New York, I always felt like it was kind of hard to become friends with comedians that were more experienced ... like I've met Rick [a more seasoned comedian] once and he told me something that I never forgot." Having a veteran share a trade secret or insight is invaluable. Family Members as Role Models. Aside from comedians, family members or neighbors sometimes acted as role models for participants as well. KL said, "My mom's really funny. She's also got funny timing. And uh her dad, my grandpa's very funny also." MK's dad was a role model for her: Well my dad would tell stories it's funny but it's about 6 minutes too long. I can tell you the same story in 2 minutes and it's just as funny.... He does have good timing I just think he needs to get to point. He likes a good story, he likes to go on and ramble on but he is funny he's a very, his logic is funny and I think he has always been had a very healthy dose of cynicism. He used to have hope, I think he's dropped off the hope bandwagon too um but it always well thought out and smart but funny. GW's mom was her biggest role model and influenced her by providing life lessons that she still applies today. Well the most influential person in my life has been my mom, and she's just a real common sense kind of woman.... Basically what she was saying was "You may not always have your friends or have friends around if you insist on being an individual. If you can live with that you should be fine." Those are the things she said that influenced my life 'cause she had very common sense.

Reflection An additional means by which participants learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues is through reflection. Eleven out of 14 participants spoke about the role of reflecting. Some of the ways participants use reflection is by self-reflection, reflecting-onaction, and reflecting-in-action. Having self-reflection is crucial. DM, GN, and ES provide examples of ways in which comedians self-reflect: Like every single moment of every day I just I look at what I'm saying, doing and I ask "Is this right? Is this right? Am I doing the wrong thing, you know?" You know, I should I slow down I ask myself "Is this going to be helpful to me and to other people?" You know that kind of stuff. (DM) GN describes a similar process: I do, I spend a lot of time thinking. It's probably not the healthiest thing to do but, the job itself.... You're in these towns where you don't know anyone and you're in a hotel room and you can't help but spend sometime wondering if you're OK. So of course, I think all comics naturally think too much. That's probably why they're comics, they're looking for answers. Having a curious nature provides reason for self-reflection. For instance, ES has a lot of unanswered questions that she reflects upon: "I have a lot of questions and I think most of them are transcendent, and not answerable ... and I'm comfortable with that ambiguity. I'm comfortable with that." Other comedians utilize critical reflection by examining social and political forces that exist in society. For example, because RK's humor is intended to debunk racial stereotypes, and in doing so includes racially charged words, she has to be very vigilant about how and what she says. I'm aware when I'm dropping bombs though, like when I'm saying something provocative or you know or new or I'm aware of the difference between a joke about you know someone confiscating your lip-gloss at LAX versus a joke about how uh Asian American parents have a problem with their kids dating Black people. I understand the difference and the impact of these two jokes, but I don't treat them any different when writing them.

CK's critical reflection about how society's reaction to homosexuality has changed has impacted the breadth of her material. And then um and then just the world changed you know I think that my because of so many people coming out, so many people doing activism that I was allowed or than I claimed to be able to speak about a wider world and that wider world was you know gay and lesbian people are part of healthcare, we're a part of ah school, education you know so the world changed I changed and uh it just got bigger which is what I had suspected as a feminist that it wasn't a narrow concept that actually it's a wide you know it can take in a lot of factors. WS's reflection about social stereotypes impacts her act: "Those people are still ya know they're like going 'I always did think lesbians were lesbians because they hated men' and you're like 'Wow, are people still thinking that?' ... But absolutely they are." GW's critical reflection about language is evident in her act: So I guess it's more like another way to think about stuff. And if you want me to stop saying "f" then you stop saying the word "stupid." ... Can you smile and say "stupid"? And can you smile and say "f"? I'd rather say "f" so I can smile and say it. Having a cynical nature provokes critical reflection. MK's cynical outlook about society provides a perch as an outsider from which to reflect and comment: "I'm off the hope train but that doesn't mean I'm not happy." She gave an example: I mean the fact that you have seismologists, I mean it's absurd to me. I don't care how many seismologists want to email me with criticism of my criticism of them what do they do. I mean you can't predict anything. A third way in which participants commented on reflection was with regard to how the content in their act is shaped and developed. FM provides this description: "OK, I have that what is immediately funny. How do I flesh this out a little bit more?" So it becomes more and more of an actual joke something I can say on stage that has an actual beginning, a middle and an end.... So that's kind what I mean by going in my head, you know, toying with it in my head, rolling it over in my head. And then you know after actually sitting down with that and writing it out.

Similarly, BL offers an illustration of how reflection plays a role in his process of generating material while he's onstage. So all during dinner I thought about this and then I came back and all I did really initially was yell about the fact that how could you have a Star Bucks across from a Star Bucks. For others, reflection plays a role their rewriting process. DJ provides an example: I mean I'll think about it. You know, I'll certainly think about it. But uh-it's not like, um ... you know it's not like I, oh let's sit down at the computer and-orlet's sit down and rewrite that. But I'll think about a different way to say it. Like okay it's almost there, it's almost there.

Reflection-in-Action. Another means by which the participants learn is by reflection-in-action. Nine of 14 of participants spoke about utilizing this method. ES captured it best: Part of the talent of being a stand-up comic is being able to adjust because it's always a different room, always a different audience, the lighting is different, the mic's different, the where you are in the country is different, the politics are different, the audience is different. So, being able to make those kinds of unconscious adjustments really, really quickly is one of the hallmarks of a really good comedian. And I knew a lot of people that would be, for example, we'd work for some club down in the village, and they'd be killing and great. But then they'd go uptown where there were maybe more tourists, and they couldn't do it, they couldn't make the adjustment. If something isn't working, comedians must adjust course in the middle of their performance. WS spoke about the interplay that happens between comedians and their audiences this way: They're in charge of everything. Mean I'm up there by myself and I'm in control of the room for that 90 minutes.... And I'm in control of what I say and all those things but if they if they don't laugh, then I'm not doing it. I'm losing and I have to switch gears. For many there is a frequent and ongoing assessment that comedians make during performance this way, GW described her process:

128 What you can learn to do is pay attention to an audience ... you can learn when stuff is not is making them uncomfortable and make those decisions as you go. Do you stop talking or do you continue talking? Some comedians create much of their material in the moment on stage. Speaking about creating material on stage, BL said, "I work off of the audience laugh.... I have an idea but they really are the ones who [know]." However, even comedians who don't improvise much must think on their feet during a show. CK, who considers herself very prepared and can usually scroll through her routine in her head, is also thinking on her feet in the middle of a show: There's also this interplay and discourse in a show where you think they [the audience] have told you that's not funny by not laughing ... and then it's my job to go "Is it because I didn't deliver it well? Is it truly not funny or are they really uncomfortable and they don't want to hear it?" Comedians have to read the audiences. MK reads the audience and determines what types of jokes to tell them depending on if they appear to be "on [her] thought train." She does this by having jokes of varying levels of difficulty: Like there's jokes in my acts where I judge them [the audience] ... how quick you can make a connection ... or like I have hard jokes, medium hard joke and super easy jokes. But it takes, it goes A to B, I have jokes that go A to D but I don't give you B and C to see if you can make the leap ... and if it's a smart crowd they'll make the leap quicker or at least make it, or I've had some crowds where they don't even make it, they can't make it. RK has a challenge changing her material if the audience doesn't like it. Any good practitioner will wait for laughs like that but if they're [audience members] not laughing you kind of just go with your material and trust your material.... I think if you're bombing like a motherfer, you just hold on for dear life and keep going and understand that it's part of your craft. However, she does move bits around according to the audience: "We recycle so much, we comedians ... someone says 'commercials' then I have something and I go, or someone says ... 'Asian geisha' and I would have something on that already." Reflection-in-action is one of the ways in which comedians try out new material. FM utilizes this method: "The audience was having a good time and I'm sensing it so I

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throw a couple things in there to experiment with a couple things, just talk to them. And that's when I'd say I probably would add some new things into my act." Both she and MP allude to this ability to read an audience as a tacit ability, a "sense" or "instinct." DJ thinks up material in the moment: "Cause sometimes you'll say something sometimes you'll just pull something outta your ass, an' it's hilarious. And it's like 'Where did that come from?'" This ability to think on your feet can create special moments. DM described a phenomenon he experienced: "When you're in the zone it's not thinking on your feet. You're beyond thinking.... You're not even thinking about what you're saying. It's just coming out, and flowing." Reflection-on-Action. Six of 14 participants utilized reflection-on-action. Some accomplish this by thinking about their performances afterwards, while others do it by audio recording or video taping their performances and reviewing them. GN described his method: I tape every night and I'm not sure if this is true but someone told me George Carlin said that, "I write the jokes and the audience edits them." I think that's what I do; I take a lot of material and I take it on stage and I cut out what seemingly doesn't work with the audience and I re-write it and see what sticks but if it doesn't work I'll rewrite it and try it again or if I just think the audience sucked that night I'll maybe try it 3 or 4 more times but if it's not hitting on a 90% rate or something like that I just stop using it, I've got to get rid of it. Sometimes it's hard because you can't believe it's not as funny as you think it is but I trust that the audience knows what is funny most of the time. FM also tapes herself: I always look at the material. I write, I look at it. I watch videos of myself. Uh and I go "Hmm what could go there? What angle am I not really going in? Maybe I haven't considered this angle that angle? Well maybe I should explore this a little bit more. Where can I exaggerate this a little bit more so it's funny."

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Reflection-on-action helps comedians determine how to adjust their performance and material. DJ provides an example of how his reflection-on-action caused him to rewrite material: Anyway I wrote all these thing that I thought "Well, this is going to be hilarious," and I did it on stage and it just died! Nobody laughed! It just wasn't funny. So, back to the drawing board on that one. And you justsee you don't ever know, and I'm sure other comedians have told you this. You have no idea what's gonna work until the audience tells you whether it works or not. You know? The audience lets you know. DM uses reflection-on-action to help him make modifications of his act: I noticed one thing is that with Buddhism, your intentions are what matters, nothing else, your intention.... So sometimes, the language that I use in my act, you know I'm sure it wouldn't look like a Buddhist but my intention is, I try to keep my intention pure and you know I'm not trying to hurt anyone. Or sometimes you know you make mistakes and you just do it the right way and then you just try it again. Dialogue with Others Eight out of 14 participants mentioned dialogue with others as part of their learning processes. The ways in which participants spoke about employing discourse were by talking to audience members after shows, arriving at material through conversations with other comedians, and having a confidante or someone they trusted, like a partner, to tell them when something wasn't working. Interactions that occur offstage can inform comedians' work. RK provided an example: I'm mixed race and Asian stuff and people who shared that identity would sort of approach me after shows and ask for more. And kind of organically the body of it grew because of that, not because I particularly wanted to carry some kind of picket sign for Asian Americans or women of color any of that. It just happens to be when you're underrepresented and you see an artist whose sort of hitting home people get really passionate and they feel compelled a lot to approach you an you know I get thanked a lot for my work which is interesting.

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WS has also spoken numerous times with patrons after her performances that wanted to speak to her about being gay; she is often answering their questions about it. I don't think I've ever done a show where I walked away afterward and no one said anything to me. I mean especially in the beginning like that it was just impossible ... people would clamor. They would clamor to talk to me and I tell ya, it wasn't always good. Sometimes it was well intended like ... "Oh you're so funny, you don't have to tell people you're gay." You know and I'd be like "Oh I think you may have missed the point." Not all interactions are positive. MK can attest to this: I had a Mormon chase me around the parking lot in Phoenix yelling at me.... I was pointing out that I think it's absurd, you know in a way, that your leader's name is Joe Smith, in every other religion some awesome name it's Jesus Christ, it's Moses, it's Abraham, it's Buddha, it's Confucius, and then Joe? It's kinda of absurd to me in a funny way. And mind me that if I wasn't out West where there's more Mormons nobody has ever gotten mad about it, but one person just went of the rail. That's the dangerous thing, that's what happens if you go after the show and talk to people you might get an earful about something. But sometimes the interaction leads the comedian to change. For example, MK is currently taking into consideration some other criticism she's received - this for using the word "retarded." I guess I really gotta stop using the word "retarded" ... it's like we used to say "Oh you're being so queer." We didn't mean "You're having sex with someone of the same sex," we meant that you were being ridiculous. So I've gotten a lot of criticism here, there and everywhere on "retarded" and they're right. I should just stop saying it. Other times, it is conversations with fellow comedians that impact someone's act. FM gave an example of material that developed from a conversation with another comedian: So I was at the Comic Strip and I said to a comedian about my current boyfriend who is White, "He's not dealing with my hair" and he started laughing hysterically, goin' "Oh my God that's really funny that's funny," and I said "You know he still continues with the nonsense, he doesn't touch it." He goes, "Oh that's funny." Now. And I took those two lines I just said what was funny and I thought "How could I make it into a longer bit?" so I thought about it let's say I'm just thinking you know, so I jot down those

132 two ideas and go those two things are funny. Just saying it people laugh. You know the image alone of a White guy standing there looking at my fro going "I don't know what to do with this." That image alone is very funny. Conversations with loved ones are also important. CK described a way in which discourse with her partner provides a thoughtful sounding board for her. Another reason was my darling girlfriend of 22 years is a political activist who wakes up that way and she always would go to a show and say "Oh that was a that show was too long and you have to do more political." I'd be like "OK." Partly Innate Only 3 of 14 participants noted that there are qualities or instances when the ability to use humor appears partly innate. For instance, WS believes there is an unnamable quality that one must have that cannot be taught. You have it in you or you don't. And you really can't learn it. Like you can learn to play the piano. You may never be brilliant at it but you could learn to physically play the piano. You can't learn to do stand-up comedy. You can be taught it and taught it and taught it but if you don't have that um ... what's that cliche ... oh that sort of like fire in the belly thing to do it ... you will not be able to do it. You will not be able to succeed in making people laugh while you stand in front of them. And they figured on it... it's sort of not something that can be ... like it's an un-namable quality. When asked what made him want to be a comic, MP declared, "I wouldn't have been a comic I was born one. It was like the good ones are. You know. It's like strippers and prostitutes. They just are. I'm sorry. They just are. It's innate, it's just them." GW stated, "There are aspects that you can learn but it has to be half way in you to do." Whether it is raw talent or unbridled determination, there is something that sustains comedians through years of trial and error on stage, often bombing, with little financial reward. In terms of learning, the researcher made an effort to distinguish how learning to be funny differs from learning to be funny in a way that raises awareness and consciousness. Some of the participants spoke about the importance of learning to be funny before they

could learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness. Raising awareness and consciousness may have developed later as their interests or intentions became more social/political. Or perhaps it is as a focus group member said, "I mean, it takes a long time before you can get around to that, because at first when you're starting just like 'I wanna laugh by any means.'" Others were raising awareness and consciousness right from the start, like CK, who said, "I think just saying that you are a lesbian comedian right from the beginning is fairly political." However, there may be some distinctions that can be made in terms of how learning to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness is different from learning to be funny. First, comedians who use humor to raise awareness and consciousness have to be more knowledgeable about the social and political landscape. They have to be informed about the issues in order to anticipate what their audiences will think about the issues and in order to present alternative ways of thinking. Second, they have to develop a point of view that challenges society's prevailing points of view. This is not necessary for comedians who engage in other types of humor. Third, they are likely more intentional about what they want to convey, and so they are more purposive in the creation of their material.

Summary of Findings Fourteen participants comprising a purposeful sample shared their stories and experiences through one-on-one interviews along with eight focus group members comprising a convenience sample. A document review of written, audio, and video material generated by and about each participant was conducted. This included autobiographies, books, program material, DVDs, Youtube videos, and participants' websites. In addition, the researcher reviewed movies, documentaries, podcasts, and books with the following relevance: the art and business of stand-up comedy; interviews

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with stand-up comedians past and present; performances of comedians past and present; different types of comedy, such as African American, Muslim, gay, and women; and movies centered around stand-up comedy (Appendix H). This chapter presented three major findings that were uncovered in response to the research questions. Quotations from participants and documents were used to provide examples and support of the findings. The first finding of this study is that, according to the majority of participants, the way they go about raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives. Participants spoke about wanting to get audience members to think and to think differently. Some of the ways in which they reported doing so was by challenging assumptions, acting unconventionally, highlighting absurdities, and discussing un-discussable issues. A second finding is that all participants described having an awareness of the political and social landscape and a willingness to question prevailing points of view as critical elements in raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. The elements they described as key to accomplishing this are: knowing what you're talking about, having emotional investment in the material, and being willing to question prevailing points of view. A third finding of this study is that all participants learned to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues exclusively in informal ways. The primary way they went about learning informally was by drawing on their past experience. Other key ways of learning include observation and learning by doing. These findings provide the basis for analysis, synthesis, and interpretation, which follow in the next chapter.

Chapter V ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, AND INTERPRETATION OF FINDINGS

The purpose of this study was to explore how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. To carry out this purpose, it is important to uncover more about how humor is learned because it holds the potential to create a more informed citizenry. In this chapter the researcher analyzes, synthesizes, and interprets the findings obtained from in-depth oneon-one interviews with a purposeful sample of 14 comedians, a normative focus group comprised of a convenience sample of 8 comedians, and a review of written, audio, and video documents generated by and about each participant. The participants who were interviewed in this study are all professional stand-up comedians between the ages of 30 and 70 who have been performing for at least ten years. Eight participants are female, and six are male. While they all live in major cities now, primarily New York and Los Angeles, they originally are from all over the country. Nine completed college (or more), three had some college education, and two had no college education. The participant pool is racially mixed and diverse with respect to sexual orientation. There are three African Americans and one comedian who self-identifies as bi-cultural or mixed race. In terms of sexual orientation, there is one gay male and three gay females.

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The following three research questions guided this study: 1. How do participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 2. What elements do participants perceive are necessary to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 3. How do participants learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? Data were collected through one-on-one phone interviews with 13 participants and in person with 1 participant as well as through a normative focus group conducted over the phone with 8 participants. Each interview, as well as the focus group, was recorded and transcribed verbatim. A review of video and written documents generated by and about each participant was conducted. There were three major findings emanating from this study. The first major finding revealed that the primary way in which participants raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives. The ways in which participants reported doing this were by challenging assumptions, acting unconventionally, highlighting absurdities, and discussing un-discussable topics (topics that are not politically correct to discuss). The second finding uncovered the key elements required to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues. Those elements are: having knowledge of the social and political landscape along with having a willingness to question prevailing points of view. Participants indicated that to do so one must know what he/she is talking about with respect to a particular topic and must have an emotional investment in his/her material. One must also be willing to question authority or the status quo, point out the illogical or the absurd, and foremost be funny, not preachy. A third finding resulting from this study is that all of the participants learned to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political

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issues exclusively in informal ways, primarily by drawing upon their past experience. Other means by which they learned this is through observation and learning by doing. These findings were presented in detail in Chapter IV and formed the basis for the following discussion about (1) presenting alternative perspectives to potentially motivate others, (2) the need to challenge prevailing assumptions, and (3) learning in informal ways. The researcher first presents an analysis and synthesis followed by interpretation. This part of the chapter will culminate in a summary of analysis, synthesis, and interpretation. Following analysis, synthesis, and interpretation, the researcher will revisit assumptions presented in Chapter I and describe contributions to the literature resulting from the research. The chapter will close with the researcher's reflections.

Analysis and Synthesis The researcher provides an analysis based on the three aforementioned findings as well as a synthesis. Presenting Alternative Perspectives to Potentially Motivate Others An analysis of the first finding revealed that the primary way the majority of participants raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues is by presenting alternative perspectives. Although a goal of the majority of participants is to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues, most of them don't think of themselves as educators. Historically, funny people have not been shown in the most erudite light. Mintz (1985) says comedians have been referred to as "the grotesque, the buffoon, the fool, the simpleton, the scoundrel, the drunkard, the liar, the coward, the effete, the tightwad, the boor, the egoist, the cuckold, the shrew, the weakling, the neurotic, and other such reifications of socially unacceptable traits" (p. 75).

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These roles, he suggests, made them targets to be laughed at, or what he calls "negative exemplars" (p. 75). However, over several centuries comedians' roles have evolved: no longer negative exemplars to be laughed at, Mintz says contemporary comedians are "comic spokespersons", or "articulator(s) of our culture" who are to be laughed with (p. 75). In the '60s and '70s, comedians made the leap from "journeyman performers" who were "one-liner salesmen, guffaw-dealers, joke-brokers" (Nachman, 2003, p. 22), such as Milton Berle and Buddy Hackett, to social critics, such as Lenny Bruce and George Carlin, whose comedy was an extension of their worldview. Writing in 1984, Kozinski made the argument that stand-up comedians were more than entertainers; they were anthropologists or "intentional culture critics" because both stand-up comedians and anthropologists "document areas of tacit knowledge ... bringing them to the conscious awareness of their particular audiences" (p. 57). Today's comedians play varied roles. They are often thrust in the role of pundits and can be seen on shows like Countdown with Keith Olbermann and on 24-hour news channels like MSNBC. And in the past decade, comedians such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have blurred the lines between comedians and journalists with their satiric television programs, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, respectively, and by blending the comical and political by hosting a rally in Washington, DC appealing for rational political discourse. Recently, the media likened Stewart to Edward R. Murrow for the role he played fostering the passage of a bill to provide federal funding for the health care of 9/11 responders. This study takes the position that some comedians are educators because they not only document areas of tacit knowledge, as Kozinski said, but because they also call that tacit knowledge, as well as society's governing rules, into question and in doing so raise our awareness and consciousness. Mezirow (2000) said tacit assumptions form the basis of our habits of mind, which he described as "broad, generalized, orienting predispositions that act as a filter for interpreting the meaning of experience" (p. 17). Cranton (2006), summarizing Mezirow

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(1991), said that habits of mind are established by labeling persons or things, which then become uncritically assimilated, by employing selective perception, by internalizing values of those in power, and/or by having "constrained visions of humanity" (p. 32) and believing that "no amount of reason, effort or action will make a difference" (p. 32). Jokes bring tacit social beliefs and structures to our attention and then call them into question with a surprise. Paul Provenza, a comedian who studies comedians wrote, "A joke works because it's a surprise. You have to know what they [the audience] expect and what they don't expect before you can surprise them with the unexpected. You've got to know what the perceived truth is before you can subvert it" (Provenza & Dion, 2010, p. xiv). Comedian Jimmy Carr defines a joke as two stories: "The set up leads you to make an assumption that you find out is erroneous in the punchline" {History of the Joke with Lewis Black DVD, 2008). In this way jokes are disorienting dilemmas. Gabe Pacheco, a former schoolteacher and current comedian, believes, "We make people smarter by giving them new connections, taking them down paths of logic they wouldn't have otherwise taken. Whether we're correct or not, we expand their consciousness" (Interview, 2010). By helping members of the audience reflect upon and possibly question the ways in which they see the world, the participants are educators. Therefore, the concept of comedians as educators provides a new framework for comedians to consider their work. While 12 of the 14 participants acknowledged that they try to present alternative perspectives to audiences, and in doing so raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues, only 4 of them readily embraced being called "educators." The three lesbian participants easily assumed the descriptor. Two of them speak largely about issues pertaining to homosexuality, and one speaks largely about issues pertaining to Asians. DM, the recovered heroin addict and former health educator, also quickly identified as an educator.

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For the past 50 years, stand-up comedy has provided an outlet for the oppressed and an opportunity to dispel stereotypes and reclaim lost power. Immigrants, most especially Jews in the 1950s, then Blacks in the '60s and '70s, and women in the '70s, have used the stage to hold a mirror to society, both reflecting and retracting social norms. This is one way in which gay comedy and racial comedy are similar to the comedy of other marginalized populations. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000), Freire poses the question, "Who are better prepared than the oppressed to understand the terrible significance of an oppressive society?" and then "Who can better understand the necessity of liberation?" (p. 45). Humor provides an opportunity for praxis, reflection, and action, and a vehicle for the oppressed to experience liberation. Leon Rappaport (2005), in Punchlines: The Case for Racial, Ethnic, & Gender Humor, wrote, "Stand-up comedians have also changed the way many people perceive racial ethnic humor by shifting the focus from prejudice to amused irony, or often, in the case of minorities, to pride" (p. 154). He calls this the Charlie Chaplin Effect: The stand-up comedian who acknowledges all the stereotypes disparaging his or her minority group, holds them up to ridicule, and then turns the tables by puncturing the pretensions of better off groups is doing much the same thing as Chaplin, that is, asserting pride in the face of prejudice, and in the process imposing a critical perspective on the mainstream audience, (p. 154) All three of these performers spoke pridefully, even self-righteously, about their minority status. CK and WS have hosted many gay pride events. In addition to appearing as a stand-up and performer, RK holds cultural activist workshops and sits on panels regarding multiculturalism at universities and conferences. It is worth noting that the one gay male participant recognized that he educated by talking about his 22-year homosexual relationship but did not embrace the term "educator" as fervently as the lesbian participants. For him, his homosexual relationship is not at the core of his material as it is for the others.

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These performers are determined to promote positive examples of homosexuality and increase tolerance. However, the jury is out as to the impact that humor about marginalized groups has on audience members. Some studies have shown that humor about minorities increases stereotypes. It is not surprising then that these three, CK, WS, and RK, were among 10 participants who believe that performance can impact someone's worldview and potentially lead to change. In fact, 9 of the 10 participants who believe that humor can impact someone's worldview and potentially lead to change belong to either a racial, gender, ethnic, and/or sexual orientation minority. Participants used humor in various ways to accomplish this. All three of the lesbian participants referred to themselves as activists, and MP, the Black male participant, described his role as a "crusader." At various points, they spoke about wanting to get their points across and have others see their perspectives. In addition to wanting outsiders (out-groups) to see their perspectives, it was also important to WS, CK, and MP to educate their communities (in-groups) as well. As to the remaining six participants who believe that performance can impact someone's worldview, DM and FM consider themselves to be artists and believe they touch people through their art, as does MP. ES uses humor to spark a new live experience with each performance and connect with people. Several, including WS, GW, and ES, also mentioned using stories as a means of communicating their humor (as did BL). Whether they consider themselves activists or artists, it seems these participants believe in humor's ability to confirm and reflect audiences' feelings as well as provoke and persuade them. DW is straight, White, and has several years of college education and believes he can get both sides of the political spectrum to see one another's point of view. However, two other straight, White, and college-educated participants, BL and MK, think that although they might get someone to think anew, that will not impact change.

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Interestingly, much of their content focuses on social and political incongruities and absurdities. MK describes herself as cynical and "off the hope train" and described feeling like she has no control. "But I think I'm more about let's just sit back and laugh about it, because I don't really know that there's much we can do." BL can best be described as exasperated. He is a product of the '60s, and his sense of humor was formed as the world around him began to crumble. Writing in his autobiography, he said, "Humor is how we find comfort in the totally illogical, for it is the bridge back to the logical" (2005, p. 58). Two other participants (GN and KL) are also straight, White, and either graduated or attended college and described their use of humor as a means of self-expression. For them, the topic of impacting another's worldview was not discussed. Following is an evidence table (Table 5) summarizing the primary ways participants go about raising awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues. Table 5. How Participants Go about Raising Awareness and Consciousness about Contemporary Social and Political Issues
Name BL Finding Highlight absurdities Evidence .. .my humor comes out of my anger and frustration and so if it really gets to me I really just focus on it and figure out the logic behind what this person is thinking and then I just start talking about it on stage... I don't really think about it as a message except for the fact that you're smarter than your being treated. That's really the message. (9:30) They don't believe in your shit what are you doing it for, so it's nothing to be paranoid about because they're that big. But I really think you're being treated as if you're stupid and you're not stupid. I want people to be, to like get angry, and laugh and blow off steam but I also want them to have enough when they leave to just add a little water and like go out and get involved politically. They can go to a march they can you know volunteer for something that's happening in their community. They can work for a political candidate they believe in or work to save the environment...I want them to have the experience and I do think it's cathartic but I want just a little left that they will be fired up...

CK

Motivate others to act

143 5 (continued)
Name DJ Finding Present alternative perspectives Present alternative perspectives Evidence [regarding being gay] You know, it's my life. And so it's justit was just a my desire to be honest with me, and with the audience... .And so I want those people that might not agree with me at all to laugh at the joke. I want to accomplish, just you know helping people see things differently I guess. Changing people's minds about stuff. Or offering them a new way to look at things.. ..the only thing that matters is if you help someone feel better or look at or help someone look at things differently rather than make them just feel good for the moment... I think you can make the reddest of necks ah kind of understand the other side or...the bluest of bloods ah can understand uh you know what it's like to actually work for a living. So maybe by me uh kind of explaining things and being able to talk to both sides uh I can let them see a little bit you know if their eyes are closed... .Ah maybe we can realize that we have more in common than we do are dissimilar. I just try to bring everybody together. And I think that's what performers do you want to touch people. I mean actors want to evoke emotion; comedians want to evoke laughter, which is another kind of emotion. And I think when you're touching, when you're moving people, when you're having feelings because of what you're doing whether it's laughter, or crying, or sadness or joy that you are affecting change. You are changing them. ... but what people forget is stories that people tell is what informs them, you know someone once going to a Black comedy show is learning something they may not have known before and when they leave and they go home and you know they go "Oh Ok." They may not have ever hung out you know Black people before and all of a sudden they hear these stories and they get some idea when they see other Black performers doing something and they get a different idea and then they go "Oh my God you know I thought Black people where all like this oh they're not, they're like this too." ...just letting them know what kind of person I am. That's really the goal of what I guess I'm trying to do.. .besides make 'em laugh So I guess I try to just go up there and tell as much truth about myself as possible while also trying to get as many laughs as possible but I just try to get up there and let people know what's going on in my head or my gut or whatever so they know who I am.

DM

DW

Present alternative perspectives

ES

Motivate others to feel

FM

Act unconventionally

GN

Express themselves

144 Table 5 (continued) Name GW Finding Present alternative perspectives Evidence So you basically I think are basically putting information in people's hand for them to make a decision on how they feel about any given thing. Some people will not feel anything about it will just be one of your comedy routines or somebody will say 'Wow that's an interesting way of looking at it. I thought about this and I never thought about that before' or will say "Wow I'm going out there to change the world," but it isn't your call as the performer to say this is your job you know you're just saying what you say and how you feel about it. You know when I was going to comedy clubs I thought, "Well people aren't talking to me." That's why I started performing. Like I wanted to hear somebody like me on stage or somebody like me, for me in the audience. I am here so we can all laugh at the absurdity of what's going on but that's also a very Irish thing. Being Irish and you know the disaster of the potato famine the whole thing. You have to sit around and just laugh at it or life is just gonna suck. ...but the message is I want them to know that I'm talking about how we're all the same I want Black people to know who they are. I want to teach them. I want to reeducate them... .1 just want them to know their history and where they come from and be proud of who they are. And be proud of their blackness. ...of course your job is to make people laugh but it's also to make people not take themselves too seriously and also to make people question what is funny, what is not funny and it's also to make people question who they are and people go and see comedians to be provoked and to be jolted out of a sort of mainstream or you know mass media and mass cultural thought and they and they want to be challenged.... what I'd like to accomplish is get people talking about things that they never talked about before....

KL

Express themselves

MK

Highlight absurdities

MP

Motivate others to feel

RK

Question the status quo and discuss undiscussables

The Need to Challenge Prevailing Assumptions The study's second finding revealed that all the participants agree they must know and understand the social and political landscape in order to raise awareness about social and political issues. It would be difficult to raise awareness and consciousness about an issue unless one attended to it and had an understanding of it himself/herself. Although

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the specific topics that participants speak about in their acts vary, a common denominator among them was that they talk about topics they care about. It is worth noting that all the participants speak about matters that concern the ways in which we live in the world together, or social issues in their acts. This usually includes, but is not limited to, matters of race, religion, sexual orientation, and social mores. Some participants also talk about politics or political issues, which pertain to laws and legislations, legal institutions, and governmental leaders, in their acts. Some participants share about their personal experiences such as their intimate relationships, which provide a doorway into issues of larger social and political concern, such as GN, who talks about his struggles with depression, or KL, who is an exhausted single mother of a toddler and wishes she had considered abortion. Whether they are saying, "This is what happened to ME today," or, "This is what happened in the WORLD today," they are talking about topics that are meaningful to them. MK had this to say about the subject: "I would never stand up and talk about something that doesn't interest me unless I'm getting paid on purpose to go up." In Stand-up Comedy: The Book, a seminal book on performing stand-up, Judy Carter (1989) writes, "The way to put together an act is to discover what you feel strongly about" (p. 24). By talking about what they genuinely care about, comedians appear more authentic, which lends to their believability. Provenza underscores the importance of sincerity: "It's a frightening truth that half of this country will accept a lie that sends their loved ones to war quicker than they'll take insincerity from a comedian" (Provenza & Dion, 2010, p. xvi). Habermas referred to this "everyday world we share with others" as the lifeworld (Finlayson, 2005, p. 51). "These unregulated spheres of sociality provide a repository of shared meanings and understandings, and a social horizon for everyday encounters with other people" (Finlayson, 2005, pp. 51-52). The lifeworld harbors the unwritten rules that govern our social behavior and is where our "stock of shared assumptions and

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background knowledge" (p. 52) is communicated. While knowledge of the lifeworld is prerequisite to using humor to educate, not all comedians who demonstrate knowledge of this lifeworld are educators. There are those comedians who "joke about pop culture" or "obsess over everyday exigencies like trying to remember where you've parked your car, or what happens to socks that get lost in the laundry" (Bushman, 1996, p. 48). Although those comedians such as Jerry Seinfeld point out the quirks of day-to-day living, they do not typically question prevailing points of view. Mintz (1985) argues that any comedy, even that which is "characterized by an irrelevant quest for laughs," provides social and cultural analysis (p. 77). Twelve of 14 participants spoke about challenging the existing rules, rituals, social norms, and institutions that regulate our social behavior as a key to raising awareness and consciousness about social and political issues. Having a point of view that challenges or even criticizes social and political institutions is an American right and virtue. Allowing voices of dissension is a hallmark of democracy and is one of the core principles of our founding fathers. Benjamin Franklin, Jonathan Swift, and Mark Twain were satirical humorists. One definition of satire is M. D. Fletcher's verbal aggression in which some aspect of historical reality is exposed to ridicule. It is a mode of aesthetic expression that relates to historical reality, involves at least implied norms against which a target can be exposed as ridiculous, and demands the pre-existence or creation of shared comprehension and evaluation between satirist and audience. (Gray, Jones, & Thompson, 2009, p. 12) There are three ways participants satirize: by pointing out hypocrisy, by highlighting that which they consider ridiculous or absurd, and by questioning authority or the status quo. Of course, there are no clear-cut delineations between these three, but participants usually spoke about one or two overarching ways in which they employ humor. The majority of participants, 9 of 12, articulated having a point of view that questions authority or the status quo; 3 of 12 highlight the ridiculous or absurd, and 2 expose hypocrisy.

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The most noteworthy commonality between 10 of the 12 participants who say they have a questioning point of view is that they belong to a minority - they're either gay, Black, bi-cultural, Jewish, female or some combination. A fundamental rule of comedy is to attack those in power, not those that are powerless. Typically, minorities are not in positions of power, and it is conceivable that as members of one or more minorities, these participants identify with, or as, powerless. Freire (2000) calls this process of becoming critically aware of hegemonic forces conscientization. He writes, "A pedagogy ... must be forged with, not for, the oppressed ... in the incessant struggle to regain their humanity" (p. 48). These participants, as members of minorities, are engaged in that struggle. Nine of the 12 participants spoke about questioning authority or the status quo. Some do this very directly, such as RK, who says about her use of the word "Chink, "I am of the school of you need to expose the word, exploit it and intelligently deconstruct it until it loses all meaning. It only has meaning when I feel like hushed and behind a closed door." Sometimes the mere presence of a comedian who is a member of a minority on a public stage, commanding a position of dominance can shed light and cast doubt upon the status quo. In addition to the nine minority participants who spoke about questioning authority or the status quo, there is also a straight White male with several years of a college education who doesn't appear to be a member of a minority. One of the straight White male members of the focus group shed some light on this anomaly: he attributes having a challenging point of view to something that happened as a child that led him to develop an outsider's perspective despite his "normal" appearance. He said, "Something happened as a kid ... that you don't accept things for rote ... an accidental interesting thing can happen sometimes ... you start noticing that other things you are being told by rote aren't necessarily true." Another White male in the focus group described how he identifies with the underdog:

148 I'll notice racial stereotypes but I'm sympathetic to the ... the object of the stereotype.... I can take a macro view of the culture, and just go "It's so absurd that I'm in the White ruling class" and ... I'm taking the side of the underdog, like I think that's the thing that all comedians have in common and comedy has in ... the, the point of comedy is like, siding with the underdog for the most part.... I actually, consider myself the underdog for thinking these racial thoughts,.. . I ' m like a victim of my own humanity ... like my own human tendency. Therefore, having the perspective of an outsider is not necessarily defined by one's outward appearance or group identification. Jon Stewart provided a similar insight: My comedy is all about anything that, when I was growing up, made me feel different or disenfranchised in any way.... Height, looks and religion became the cornerstones of what I talk about.... I felt different even if no one else noticed or cared ... if you're looking for what informs my thought process, it was those feelings of inadequacy that were placed there by me, for me. They were grounded in reality, but one with far less importance than I gave it... in my head I was a weirdo. (Rensin, 2000, in Randall, 2008, p. 239) It's this outsider status that informs their critical point of view. In an interview in 2008, CK said, "I still want to protect my outsider position because I think that that's the source of irony, satire, and great humor" (Player, p. 45). The three participants who spoke about exposing hypocrisy were BL, GW, and DM. Their outward characteristics are very dissimilar: one is a Jewish White male who is highly educated, another is a White male with a high school degree and some college schooling who was a drug addict, and another is a Black female who dropped out of school at 9th grade. Sensitivity to hypocrisy appears available to anyone regardless of his or her demographics. BL and DM were also among the three that highlight the ridiculous or absurd, along with MK. G.K. Chesterton (cited in Gray et al., 2009) said, "The essence of satire is that it perceives some absurdity inherent in the logic of some position, and ...draws the absurdity out and isolates it, so that all can see it" (p. 12). MK spoke about being cynical and having a sense of helplessness and hopelessness about controlling or changing that which she sees as absurd. She said, "I'm flabbergasted, alarmed and shocked when something does get done." This is different, she said, from BL, with whom

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she is a good friend. She observed, "He is a kid of the '60s, he remembers when change was actually occurring and when politicians were really smart and educated.... He has a different foundation." DM cared for his wife while she was dying of AIDS and is HIV positive. Seeing death firsthand informs his perspective that everything else is absurd. Trying to make sense of the absurd can spark creativity. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) wrote, The creative process starts with a sense that there is a puzzle somewhere, or a task to be accomplished. Perhaps something is not right, somewhere there is a conflict, a tension, a need to be satisfied. The problematic issue can be triggered by a personal experience, by a lack of fit in the symbolic system, by the stimulation of colleagues, or by public needs. In any case, without such a felt tension that attracts the psychic energy of the person, there is no need for a new response, (p. 95) Learning in Informal Ways Stand-up comedy is nothing if not creative. It is an art and craft that typically takes years to master. Some participants mentioned it was important that they learned the basic rules about being funny before they could learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness. DW was one of them: I had to learn the language of stand-up first before, I mean wasn't all political by any means in the early days from '74 to about '82 then in '82 in the middle of the Reagan years ah that's when I really started focusing on political stuff. But, I think I learned the language of stand-up; how to tell jokes ah just you know to find the rhythm. The two core components in stand-up comedy are the material and its delivery. Most comedians, when asked how they learned to do stand-up, will instinctively say by "just doing it" and in that response are emphasizing the performance aspect (the part that we, the audience, can see). In fact, 12 of 14 participants mentioned the importance of "stage time." Laughter is a social phenomenon, and one can't determine how a joke plays out in front of a mirror. The audiences' laughter, or lack thereof, closes the feedback loop that informs comedians' learning.

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However, the less obvious, less observable, method by which participants learned was by drawing upon experiences and/or making observations. These methods inform not just their performances but largely determine their material. Experience and observations are fodder for their content. Carter (1989) writes, You don't have to look in the newspaper to find material. All the material you'll ever need is inside of you. It's just a matter of discovering it, punching it up, and delivering it. Even if you've never been onstage before, I'm sure you have done an act. Remember that party where you started trashing your ex-spouse, got on a roll and had your friends rolling in the aisles? (p. 17) WS talks about life with her girlfriend, GN shares about his battle with depression, and DM conveys, "Heroin's like having oral sex and, at the same time, a puppy's licking your face." MP said, "I'm responding to my environment. I didn't land here from Mars.... It's what I experience and there's no substitute for it." Comedians' lives are a foundational part of their material, so they have to continuously engage and challenge themselves. This is one way in which creativity is a reiterative process. In addition to drawing upon experience for material, it's worth noting that at least six participants had previous careers in the arts (or futile attempts) before trying stand-up comedy, and have likely drawn upon those experiences as well. This includes all four participants of color as well as two of the four homosexual participants. In addition, three participants mentioned having had jobs that are not traditionally considered artistic, including English teacher, health educator, bartender, but which nonetheless require an element of performance. Those three participants spoke about learning how to hold a group's attention; the power of laughter to simultaneously diffuse and engage people; and learning they were funny through their experiences. One participant held 108 various jobs, which he said contributed to his stand-up, but he was not specific about how. Thirteen of 14 participants mentioned learning through observation. For nine participants, this meant observing what's happening in the news or newspapers. For others, it meant observing what's happening in their immediate environments. In Only

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Joking: What's So Funny About Making People Laugh, authors Carr and Greeves (2006) write, "Jerry Seinfeld describes the comedian as a person with a 'third eye,' constantly watching proceedings with a certain ironic detachment" (p. 120). MP says that one of the ways in which he employs observation is by watching the White establishment: "I watch how they react... and read what they say ... and I watch them very closely. That's how I get my material." GW, who is also Black, spoke about the importance of observation as she considers herself an observationalist: "Yeah I just want to talk about what's going on in the world and I'm observing and hopefully you know it will be fun." George Carlin (2009) wrote about the importance of observation in his autobiography: As long as you have observations to make, as long as you can see things and let them register against your template, as long as you're able to take impressions and compare them with the old ones, you will always have material.... The truth is, I can't run out of ideas - not as long as I keep getting new information and I can keep processing it. (p. 161) Of course, what one observes is intimately connected to one's point of view. Comedians are constructivists whose realities are filtered through their "value windows" (Guba, 1990, p. 25). ES spoke about her lens: I think we see things through a prism or a lens or whatever you want to call it that's skewed. That's a little twisted. That normal ... I don't want to say normal people but that the average person or the lay person out there isn't seeing it through the same twist. Once we point it out to them they're like "Oh yes of course now I see it that way." Observing other comics is also a key to learning. In the focus group, a participant learned by watching the comics who are doing the type of comedy he wants to be doing: "Uh, the first way is by watching guys who were very adept at doing it." Although participants typically mentioned observing those they admired, KL said that it was the bad comics who inspired her, because by watching them she realized that she could do better. She also noticed that her point of view was not being voiced, which further motivated her to try it.

Csikszentmihalyi (1996) emphasizes the need to attend to that which we want to learn: If we want to learn anything, we must pay attention to the information to be learned. And attention is a limited resource: There is just so much information we can process at any given time.... To achieve creativity in an existing domain, there must be surplus attention available, (p. 8) Summary of Analysis and Synthesis The findings of this study suggest that some comedians intend to use humor as a means by which to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues by presenting alternative perspectives about the ways in which we live in the world today and the institutions that govern us. They do this by canvassing the contemporary social and political landscape and talking about topics they care about in ways that question prevailing points of view. They learn to do this primarily by drawing on experience, observation, and by learning by doing through performance. An evidence table illustrating the focus group's contribution to this understanding can be found in Appendix O.

Interpretation In this section, the researcher interprets the rich insights provided by the 14 participants and 8 focus group members. The researcher attempts to better understand the analysis provided and offers opinions, hypotheses, and possible explanations for each finding. These explanations are supported by literature and researcher experience. Humor is an art and a craft, a creative endeavor that is hard to capture in academic terms. As a craft, it has a composite of linguistic and performance skills that can be taught, often by comics themselves. There are techniques, structures, and methods. But at its core it is an art. Comedians, like artists, create something from nothing except their

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own thoughts and imaginations; words are their paints and audiences are their palettes. DM said, I'm taking pain and turning it into something that people are laughing at and you know to me art is creating something that wasn't there before but using stuff using a lot of elements that were there before and bringing them together in a new way. Whether its words or art or paint or whatever, I guess I look at comedy as an art. As art it creates human connection, inspires, and provokes. There is ongoing debate in the literature as to whether humor is learned or innate. This researcher takes the position that both are true - as some of the participants said, it's partly innate. However, there is no debate that humor is a complex set of linguistic, cultural, and social references and reactions that are unique to a time and place and are ultimately very subjective. Estimates from professionals are that it takes 7 years to find one's comedic voice and 10 years to be proficient. Why would anyone even try to tame such an unwieldy beast? There's no one reason that comedians come to the profession of comedy. For some, it's a means of self-expression, a way to be heard. For others, it is the way they digest information. They process their lives on stage, and humor is the way in which they try and make sense of the world. Humor is both a means of defense and attack. Humor can provide a sense of control to those who feel helpless or powerless. It is also a safe outlet for anger and skepticism. The cliche is that those who are emotionally needy get approval through humor. The most cynical reason, but no less true, is that humor can offer a way to achieve fame and fortune. Let's not forget that at the end of the day, comedians are entertainers. Many of those reasons are not altruistic; they may even be considered selfindulgent. It is tempting to say the people who do comedy that raises awareness and consciousness have noble motives - to get people to see a new perspective, to elevate the national dialogue, to seek the truth, to create connection, to bring attention to the schism

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between what we're told and what we experience, to call out injustices and set them right, to say "as a society we can do better than this." Most of the people interviewed expressed such sentiment. But that doesn't negate any of the other reasons they come to comedy. Nor is it intended to give them more credit than they deserve. Some of them honestly believe they're just talking about what they're interested in, or as GW said, "talking about what I see," and it just so happens that we, the audience, are assigning meaning to it. Even Jon Stewart, who was voted America's Most Trusted Newscaster, post-Cronkite in an online poll conducted by Time Magazine, expressed these thoughts. Referring to himself and his television staff at The Daily Show Stewart said, "We're a group of people that really feel that they want to write jokes about the absurdity that we see in government and the world and all that, and that's it" (Moyers interview, 4/27/2007). Like Stewart, many participants prefer not to think of themselves as educators it's not sexy or fun. And it is weighty with responsibility for others. Also, by maintaining that they are "just comedians," they have a failsafe fallback position if necessary - they can say "only joking" or "it's just comedy." That may be true, but the fact that they see absurdity and irony in issues such as national health care, gay marriage, separation of church and state, constitutional rights, legalization of marijuana, war and peace, religious freedom, etc. speaks to their ability to think critically about complex issues. That they inevitably side with the underdog speaks to their morality. That they speak as America's "everyman" but maintain their individual and idiosyncratic voices is a testament to their artistry. The stereotype that comedians are neurotic or depressed or misfits needs to be revisited: they are just as likely to be thinkers, artists, and humanists. Few would argue, no matter their philosophy of education, that a good educator is passionate about their topics, motivating, and an effective communicator, innovative and respectful of their listeners. In these ways, at the very least, these comedians are educators.

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It is probably no coincidence that the three lesbian participants readily assumed the mantle of educators. Educating a community is often the duty of its women, and teaching has historically been women's work. But let us not overlook the fact that there is greater acceptance of gay women in comedy (Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O'Donnell, and Wanda Sykes are out lesbians) and society in general, so lesbians have had permission to speak out and be heard when their male brethren haven't. If lesbians didn't do it, it couldn't get done. The fact that 10 of 14 participants thought humor can impact another's worldview indicates they would like to make a difference. That 9 of those 10 are members of a minority is not a surprise, since minorities are most aware of the need for change. Freire (2000) wrote, The dehumanization resulting from an unjust order is not a cause for despair but for hope, leading to the incessant pursuit of the humanity denied by injustice. Hope, however, does not consist of crossing one's arms and waiting. As long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope, then I can wait. As the encounter of women and men seeking to be more fully human, dialogue cannot be carried on in a climate of hopelessness. If the dialoguers expect nothing to come of their efforts, their encounter will be empty and sterile, bureaucratic and tedious, (pp. 91-92) In his autobiography, Richard Pryor (2006) wrote, "My job, as I saw it, was to throw light where there had been only darkness. I was John Wayne, taking up the fight for freedom and justice" (p. 152). Most of the participants believe they can make a difference. CK is one: "I mean that certainly has been a function of comedians and err of clowns jokers in the community of sort of pushing people along.... I feel part of that tradition as well." Freire (2000) thought this is essential to effecting change. "In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation, which they can transform" (p. 49). Although participants may disagree

as to their impact in relation to social change, the researcher believes that by critically

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reflecting the audience back at themselves, participants are at the very least catalyzing that process. Learning how to do this requires an unwavering commitment of time and attention. Csikszentmihalyi (1996) says that creativity demands that "the person must learn the rules and the content of the domain, as well as the criteria of selection, the preferences of the field." In addition to learning this realm, their whole life is the province of material to be mined. They are encouraged to carry a notebook and write down their feelings, thoughts, observations, and experiences. Carlin (2009) explained his process: Every day I take a lot of notes. And the notes go into files in various categories. They can be a sentence, a word, an idea, two things that connect or contrast, an afterthought, a neat phrase. Something I can add to something in a given file; maybe these go together, maybe it could start like this ... or something that starts an entirely new file. It's an incessant process, (p. 234) By the time they are professional comedians, their ability to observe themselves and others, and to draw on their experiences, is second nature. Monitoring their internal landscape is as important as knowing what's going on in the world around them. Some comedians refer to this capacity to be self-reflexive (to watch themselves watching everything else) as having a "third eye." This is how they make meaning. Yes, they are constructing their point of view, but it is interdependent with the world they are experiencing. Heron and Reason (1997) would say they are relativists: Mind and the given cosmos are engaged in a cocreative dance, so that what emerges as reality is the fruit of an interaction of the given cosmos and the way mind engages with it. Mind actively participates in the given cosmos and it is through this active participation that we meet what is Other: "Worlds and people are what we meet but the meeting is shaped by our own terms of reference." (Heron, 1996, p. 11) This interdependency is not lost on them. Success as a comedian requires connecting with the audience (and each audience is different), by being funny, relatable, not condescending and, as one focus group member put it, "almost Machiavellian" to get your point across. Heron and Reason (1997) believe, "The participatory worldview

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allows us as human persons to know that we are part of the whole rather than separated as mind over and against matter, or placed here in the relatively separate creation of a transcendent god" (p. 275). This collaborative inquiry is tested at every performance. The feedback participants receive is immediate and demands their reflection, sometimes in the moment (reflection-in-action) and other times in between appearances (reflection-onaction). Part of how they make meaning is by questioning prevailing points of view. This appears to come naturally to them - like heat seeking missiles they are, as one focus group member put it, "problem finders." He said, "The [internal] device that finds conflict doesn't shut off." There is no conflict, he said, in the old "two men walk into a bar" jokes. But, he added, our ideologies, our media, and our morality are wrought with conflict. "That's where the funny is." In Habermasian terms, the "platform of agreement that the lifeworld provides is the condition of the possibility of critical reflection and possible disagreement" (Finlayson, 2005, p. 53). Comedians are opportunists who thrive on this disagreement. They probably learned to do this informally somewhere, some time long ago. It is likely there was, as Marsick and Watkins (2001) suggest, some kind of trigger, "an internal or external stimulus that signals dissatisfaction with current ways of thinking or being" (p. 29). Being gay, for instance, influences how one learns to frame one's experience, but all examples are not so obvious. One participant appeared to have learned it talking about the news every night with her father and family over dinner; another saw a disconnect between what he knew to be true and what adults were telling him. Marsick and Volpe (1999) observe that "informal learning takes place as people go about their daily activities at work in or in other spheres of life. It is driven by people's choices, preferences, and intentions" (p. 4). Writing about comedians who satirize, Provenza observes, "They see absurdity in everything, everywhere, all the time. They can't help it; it's a curse" (Provenza & Dion, 2010, p. xiii).

The ability to see absurdity requires the ability to think critically. Brookfield's (in Mezirow, 2000) definition of critical thinking states that the persons concerned must engage in some sort of power analysis of the situation or context in which the learning is happening. They must also try to identify assumptions they hold dear that are actually destroying their sense of well-being and serving the interest of others: that is, hegemonic assumptions, (p. 126) Although seeing absurdity in everything may be a curse for them, their ability to encourage others to do the same is a blessing for those of us who enjoy having our thinking challenged. However, as a focus group member conveyed, that group is often the minority: Either you are confirming what they [the audiences] believe or challenging what they believe. Obviously the ones who wanna be confirmed are bigger, it's a bigger audience, but uh the ones who wanna be challenged, um if they, if they like what you do they come back. At the end of the day, we can't lose sight of the fact that in addition to being an art, stand-up comedy is also a business. As such, comedians are often forced to strike a balance between several masters: the audience, the bookers, and club owners who hire them, and their own personal ideology. One focus member spoke about this tension: "With the average comedy club, people are just coming to 'see something funny' ... they're not expecting to be challenged ... they're going for escapism a lot of the time." These comedians are conductors taking us on rides, careening a course between laughing and thinking. Carlin (2009) described it as taking the audience on a journey with me through my mind. Along the way there are plenty of signposts and reminders of their own perceptions and things that they've assumed, heard, believed and questioned, reinforcing those things for them and reassuring them that I'm not leading them into a cul-de-sac, that the journey is to somewhere new. By showing us alternative ways of thinking and being, harnessing and deflecting our collective emotions, highlighting inequities, and illuminating how we're lowering our

standards, all while making us laugh, participants use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues. Summary of Interpretation Learning to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues is an informal process that is driven by a comedian's interest in social and political matters and their personal perspectives about such matters. These perspectives can be categorized as questioning prevailing points of view and are often due to the comedians' identification as outsiders. As creative artists, comedians draw upon their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes to make sense of their experiences and observations. This provides the content of their acts. By expressing themselves humorously, and performing over and over with live audiences, they further their material and delivery so they move us to laughter and new ways of thinking.

Summary of Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation Analysis of the findings revealed that a goal of the majority of participants is to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues by presenting alternative perspectives. They do so by calling attention to, and questioning, our "lifeworld," which consists of our unspoken social norms and dominant institutions. Many of these participants are members of minorities, or perhaps perceive themselves to be outside the majority, and see the need for change. Despite this, most of them don't think of themselves as educators. They care about matters of social and political concern and are knowledgeable about both domains. It is their point of view about such matters that greatly informs their material. Their point of view can best be described as the way they see the world. Often they would describe it as "absurd" or "hypocritical." They are sensitive to injustices and

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wrongs against those who are powerless. Freire (2000) calls this process of becoming aware of the oppressive forces in one's life "conscientization." Their material and its delivery is developed by drawing on their past experiences, making observations, and the trial and error that comes with performing in front of live audiences. In summary, learning to use humor to raise awareness about social and political issues requires employing various informal learning strategies.

Revisit Assumptions The researcher has been a fan of comedy since she was a teenager and has worked with comedians in various capacities. As a result, she approached this study with several operating assumptions. A key assumption was that one could learn to use humor to raise awareness about social and political issues. Although some, including the researcher, believe this ability is partly innate, participants spoke about several informal learning strategies they employ to accomplish this, thereby demonstrating that it can be learned. A second assumption the researcher held is that certain comedians are purposive in their intent to educate. This assumption turned out to be partially true. Comedians' first goal will always be to make people laugh - that's what they get paid to do, and it is also their identity. There are some comedians who are expressly focused on making jokes and believe that audience members are assigning unintended meaning to those jokes. However, some comedians would also like to get people to think. They want to present unconventional perspectives and challenge audience members' assumptions. That being said, comedians do not typically consider themselves educators. Because they don't perceive themselves that way, a more accurate way to refer to them would be as entertainers who inform. The researcher held a third assumption that comedians believe this type of humor can be learned and would be able to make their processes conscious and articulate them.

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She also assumed they would be willing to share them. This assumption proved to be true. Although it sometimes seemed to the researcher that because participants have been doing this for so long, or perhaps because their point of view as performers is often so close to who they really are as people, it was hard for them to hold it as object to talk about how they learned it. A fourth assumption is that while there will be commonalities among participants, each individual has his/her own methodology and way of achieving the goal of educating audiences. This assumption proved to be true. Some participants took a more "activist" or "crusader" approach like CK, WS, and MP, and others, like DJ, believed "you have to sneak satire through the back door." A fifth assumption is that comedians can make a contribution to American society by raising awareness and consciousness. This assumption is hard to prove and remains a matter of opinion. Since beginning this dissertation, Jon Stewart has been attributed with facilitating the passage of the 9/11 First Responder's Health Care Bill. He and Stephen Colbert hosted a rally in Washington, DC for 250,000 Americans appealing for more rational discourse. However, some people, even comedians themselves, believe like Jay Leno, "You don't change anyone's mind with this stuff.... You just reinforce what they already believe" (Peterson, 2008, p. 60). Others, like Peterson (2008), believe that some comedians are fostering an anti-democratic dialogue: "They declare the entire system from voting to legislating to governing - an irredeemable sham" (p. 14).

Contributions to the Literature The researcher embarked on this study knowing of no academic literature about how comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness about social and political issues. In addition, the researcher found little academic literature that addressed how adults learn

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artistic or creative expression in general. Therefore, by performing this research, she has opened a door to a new area of academic study. While there are several books that teach readers how to learn stand-up comedy, they contain little, if any, insight into how to perform political humor or satire. Other books explore the form and function of satire but, again, not how it is learned. Since beginning this dissertation, Paul Provenza and Dan Dion (2010) wrote a book called Satiristas! Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs and Vulgarians, which is a compilation of interviews with comedians who perform satire. This book provides insights into the role of satire in the United States and how it is learned. This study confirmed the information articulated in the book's introduction.

Chapter VI CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The researcher has drawn three conclusions based on the findings of this study.

Conclusion 1 The researcher concludes that the primary way in which some comedians raise awareness and consciousness is by providing alternative perspectives. They would like for others to consider perspectives that they themselves believe and that are different from those that are dominant. Often these comedians can be identified as members of minorities or may self-identify as being outside the social or political norms of mainstream society. As such, they may align themselves with the underdogs and powerless of society.

Conclusion 2 The researcher concludes that in order for some comedians to be successful in raising awareness and consciousness about social and political issues, they must be familiar with the contemporary social and political landscape. They must also know prevailing points of view about social and political issues and be willing and able to question those points of view in a way that is, foremost, funny. After all, it is the use of humor that sets comedians apart from lecturers, experts, and preachers. Connecting with

their audiences is also key to successfully using humor to raise awareness and consciousness. To do so, comedians, and their material, must be relatable (not condescending or preachy), although it also sometimes requires taking risks and even making audience members uncomfortable.

Conclusion 3 The researcher concludes that the process by which some comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues is an informal one. While there are classes that teach techniques, none of the participants mentioned attending them. Instead they employed several informal learning strategies to create material and become proficient in performing it. Because their humor is so personal and conveys their unique perceptions, comedians must have the ability to observe their external environments as well as draw upon their past experiences. It is their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes about these observations and experiences that inform the content of their act. The best way, they believe, to perfect their act is to perform it in front of a live audience - again and again. "Stage time" or "a spot" is a precious commodity. The laughs are immediate. Any additional feedback is taken back to the comedy lab (the comedian's mind) and then performed anew at the next live appearance. This cycle of developing material and then trying it out, or developing material while trying it out, is how comedians continue to create content that is fresh and topical and funny.

165 Recommendations The researcher offers recommendations for up and coming comedians and the managers who represent them. In addition, the researcher offers recommendations for adult educators and proffers four recommendations for further research. Recommendations for Up and Coming Comedians Up and coming comedians who are interested in using humor to raise awareness of contemporary social and political issues must be very committed to a learning process that is informal and, in many ways, unstructured. 1. They must be attentive to matters of social and political import and also to the establishment's points of view about those matters. 2. Of no less importance, however, is their ability to attend to, and define, their own perspectives. Those perspectives that question authority or identify social or political behavior and rules that seem absurd or hypocritical will be most conducive to raising awareness and consciousness of social and political issues. 3. As they develop material, up and coming comedians should perform it in front of live audiences as much as possible and make adjustments according to the audiences' reactions. Recommendations for Managers of Up and Coming Comedians 1. One way that managers can help their comedic clients is by encouraging them to draw on their past experiences and observations to develop their material. 2. Also, they can facilitate opportunities for experiential learning by providing occasions for clients to perform as much as possible. 3. Additionally, managers should encourage up and coming comedians to observe more experienced comedians who perform humor that raises

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awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues since this provides valuable learning opportunities. Recommendations for Adult Educators Adult educators can learn to use humor in the classroom as a primary way to engage students in the learning. Humor is often the result of two incongruous thoughts, so it is important for educators to know what students' assumptions might be about social and political issues they are familiar with and care about. Knowing these will provide a basis for educators to present alternative perspectives that may challenge those assumptions. By questioning prevailing points of view, students may be encouraged to critically reflect upon the hegemonic forces that shape our social norms and political ideologies as well as reflect on their core beliefs. Hopefully, this will result in discourse between students, and between students and teachers, and will result in an increase in understanding and possibly tolerance. Recommendations for Future Research Further studies should be done with other comedians. This would allow researchers to replicate the findings presented in this study or, alternatively, they may provide an opportunity for a comparative analysis with the findings from this study. Further research can also be done by conducting a longitudinal study that follows comedians who are just beginning their careers and tracks their learning over time. Additionally, research that probes into the psychological dimensions of why someone adopts ways to use humor to get their message across and other don't could provide valuable insights.

167 Researcher's Reflections The researcher is so glad to have picked a topic and population that she (still!) finds infinitely interesting. When the researcher first started the doctoral program, her area of interest was how comedians use humor to overcome adversity. Their capacity to do so provided her with inspiration. This research demonstrated to her that comedians are not only agents of hope but also catalysts of change. This research has furthered her appreciation of comedians and her respect for their art. The researcher had several insights into comedy and comedians, as well as her own learning process, along the way. Although comedians typically work alone and spend a significant portion of their time on the road, there is indeed a comedy community. One participant estimated that there might only be 2,000 comedians in the country. This is an elite club, and most comedians know one another. Also, most bookers and club owners know most comedians. This was helpful when it came time for the researcher to get references to other comedians or their contact information. (Social media was also a very helpful tool, and it was surprising to see that many comedians personally use Facebook and email to connect with their fans and promote themselves.) It also seemed to the researcher that there is a need for a sense of community, as comedians desire collegial exchange of information and observations. In particular, they appear to want opportunities to "network up" and speak with those who are more successful than they. Their need for community and networking is just one way in which comedy is like other professional trades. As someone who has worked with up and coming comedians and at a comedy club, the researcher is on the fringe of the comedy community. Knowing a handful of people in the industry and having knowledge about the way the comedy business operates helped to make this research possible.

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Being a researcher, and not a comedian, felt like a mixed blessing. It was easy to imagine that comedians agreed to participate in this research study because it contributed to the credibility of their craft. However, at times it seemed like participants were giving stock answers or may have only been comfortable saying what was for public consumption (despite that their names would not be used in the dissertation) or were more comfortable sharing their act than their answers. (Replications of what they said in our interviews can sometimes be found in their books or other interviews.) Lastly, it sometimes felt difficult for participants to articulate their processes. Perhaps this is because participants have been performing stand-up for so long that it is second nature to them, but more likely it is because their work is based on their values and emotions, which are so deeply embedded in them. Koziski Olson's (1988) quote feels true: "The researcher must recognize covert themes and values so pervasive, basic, and internalized that people have difficulty describing them" (p. 129). On a personal note, the process of doing this dissertation was an act of discipline and faith. It is a testament to what the researcher can accomplish by setting a goal and breaking it down into manageable chunks. However, just as important is keeping an eye on the big picture, which sometimes proved difficult. The researcher felt lucky to have an advisor who could help her see the larger landscape and also carve a clear path to follow. Doing this research opened the door to some new areas of interest. The researcher would like to explore the role of intelligence and humor, to expand her understanding of the role of humor in social change, and to look into ways to integrate creativity and critical thinking. The researcher seeks ways to help people develop art-based careers. Although this research showed her that learning how to use humor happens primarily through informal means, she did not mean to suggest that formal learning does not have a place in learning an art. As a coach and trainer, the researcher knows that these methods contribute to learning as well.

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179 Appendix A Letter of Invitation

Introduction Letter Dear ,

The purpose of this letter is to introduce myself and to request your participation in a learning research study I'm conducting. I am a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. I am interested in your participation in this study because you are a comedian who uses humor to educate audiences regarding social and political issues. I will be interviewing comedians in the United States who use humor to educate audiences regarding social and political issues in New York and Los Angeles. Participation in this study will involve: (1) completing a consent form and agreeing to the terms and conditions of the study, which will include the audio recording of the interview, and (2) participating in a face-to-face interview with me on a day and time to be determined that will last approximately one hour. For your participation, you will be provided with a copy of the research findings. If you are interested and would be willing to participate in this study, please contact Nancy Goldman as soon as possible to schedule your one hour interview.

Nancy Goldman

Appendix B Subject Consent Form and Participant's Rights Informed Consent (page 1 of 2) DESCRIPTION OF THE RESEARCH: You are invited to participate in a research study that is intended to explore how comedians use humor to educate audiences regarding social and political issues. You will be asked to participate in either an interview or focus group. The research will be conducted by Nancy Goldman, a Doctoral Candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University. The interview and focus group will take place at a mutually agreeable time and place, either in person or by phone, in a location that provides privacy. The interview and focus group will be audio recorded with your permission. The audio recording is a means of analyzing the data on behalf of the study. The audio recordings will not be used for anything other than this purpose and will be maintained in a secure location along with the other data gathered for this study. The audio recording will be destroyed after the study is finalized. RISKS AND BENEFITS: The harm or discomfort anticipated in the research is not greater than what would normally be encountered in an information-gathering interview. You will not be required to reveal information such as specific project names, technologies, or proprietary information that would be inappropriate to share with external parties. Your participation is strictly voluntary and you may discontinue participation at any time with no penalty or fear of recourse. For your participation, you will receive feedback about this study in the form of a brief summary of the dissertation's findings. PAYMENT: There will be no payment of any sort for your participation. DATA STORAGE TO PROTECT CONFIDENTIALITY: Your confidentiality as a participant is of the utmost importance and will be a priority in the research process. All participants will be given an identification code and names will not be made known at anytime to anyone other than the researcher. All data gathered from interviews or other sources will remain confidential and used for professional purposes only. Data will be maintained in a locked file at the researcher's office.

181 Informed Consent (page 2 of 2) TIME INVOLVEMENT: Your participation will take approximately 60 minutes. HOW WILL RESULTS BE USED: The results of this study will be used in partial completion of a dissertation, which is being undertaken by the researcher in the discipline of Adult Education and Organizational Leadership. At a future point, data may also be published in journals, articles, or used for other educational purposes.

Participant's Rights (Page 1 of 2) Principal Investigator: Nancy Goldman Research Title: How Some Comedians in the U.S. Use Humor to Educate Audiences on Social and Political Issues I have read and discussed the Research Description with the researcher. I have had the opportunity to ask questions about the purposes and procedures regarding this study. My participation in research is voluntary, I may refuse to participate or withdraw from participation at any time with no penalty or fear of recourse. The researcher may withdraw me from the research at his/her professional discretion. If, during the course of the study, significant new information that has been developed becomes available which may relate to my willingness to continue to participate, the investigator will provide this information to me. Any information derived from the research project that personally identifies me will not be voluntarily released or disclosed without my separate consent, except as specifically required by law. If at any time I have questions regarding the research or my participation, I can contact the investigator, who will answer my questions. The investigator's phone number is . If at any time I have comments, or concerns regarding the conduct of the research or questions about my rights as a research subject, I should contact Teachers College, Columbia University Institutional Review Board / IRB. The phone number for the IRB is (212) 678-4105. Or, I can write to the IRB at Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 W. 120th Street, New York, NY, 10027, Box 151. I should receive a copy of the Research Description and this Participant's Rights document. Audio taping is part of this research, I [ ] consent to be audio taped. I [ ] do NOT consent to being audio taped. The written, and/or audio taped materials will be viewed only by the principal investigator and members of the research team.

Participant's Rights (Page 2 of 2) Written, and/or audio taped materials [ ] may be viewed in an educational setting outside the research [ ] may NOT be viewed in an educational setting outside the research. My signature means that I agree to participate in this study. Date: / /

Participant's signature: Participant's name:

184 Appendix C Participant Data Inventory: Demographic Inventory

Participant Data Inventory: Demographic Profile The information collected from this inventory is completely confidential and will only be used for the purposes of this research study. 1. My gender is: 2. My age is: 30-44 years 45-54 years 55-64 years 65-74 years 3. The highest level of education which I have achieved is: High school (or equivalent) Diploma/University/Bachelor's (or equivalent) Masters degree (or equivalent) Candidate/Post graduate (or equivalent) 4. The amount of time I have been performing is: 0 to 5 years 6 years to 10 years 11 years to 15 years 16 years to 20 years Longer than 20 years Thank you! Female Male

185 Appendix CI Participant Demographics

COMEDIAN DEMOGRAPHICS YEARS COMEDIANS AGE PERFORMING BL CK DJ DM DW ES FM GN GW KL KM MP RK WS 60 62 56 42 56 55 30s 43 54 44 44 69 35 49 35 29 24 10 36 26 12 24 46 20 20 40 10 20 HIGHEST LEVEL of EDUCATION Masters Degree Masters Degree Bachelors Degree completed high school and some college completed high school and some college Bachelors Degree Masters Degree Bachelors Degree 9th grade completed high school and some college Bachelors Degree high school Bachelors Degree plus Juilliard certificate Bachelors Degree

Appendix D Researcher's Biography NANCY GOLDMAN BIO Nancy is a professionally trained life coach specializing in the entertainment industry and loves working with people on all sides of the business. Nancy began her career on Wall Street where she was a sales assistant for six years. In pursuit of her life-long dream to work in entertainment, Nancy scored a television job for Emmy Award-winning talk show host Montel Williams. Working her way up in Montel's production company, Nancy went from being a Production Coordinator to the Head of East Coast Development. In her eight years working with Montel, she produced several live pay-per-view specials featuring world renowned psychic Sylvia Browne and associate produced "Little Pieces," an independent film that marked Montel's directorial debut. When Montel was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, Nancy was instrumental in starting The Montel Williams MS Foundation and ultimately served as Executive Director of the organization. Additionally, during her time with Montel, she launched Letnom Management, a boutique talent management firm specializing in comedy which she developed with the use of her experience as producer of live comedy shows in the tri-state area, most notably Broadway's Town Hall theater's Outrageous Comedy night featuring comedian Sandra Bernhard. In 2003, Nancy was the first elected Chair of the Gotham-based Producers Guild of America East (PGAe), tripling its membership during her tenure, and initiating its career education seminars and workshops as well as its first job forum. Nancy was on the National Board of Directors based in Los Angeles. She is currently Co-Chair of the east coast's Employment Committee. Nancy holds a Master's degree in Communications and a Master's in Organizational Psychology from Teachers College Columbia University. Currently, Nancy is a doctoral candidate there studying Adult Learning and Leadership. Her Bachelor's degree is in Psychology at New York University. Nancy loves comedy and managed The Broadway Comedy Club on Sunday nights in New York City. Her dissertation examines how comedians learn to use humor to educate audiences on social and political issues. Not surprisingly, she also enjoys writing and has a career column in the Producers Guild of America's membership magazine. She has also blogged on Oxygen's website

Oomph.net encouraging people to develop their talents. Nancy is proud to currently be coaching and training enthusiastic New Yorkers to become production assistants at the "Made in New York" Production Assistant Training Program where over 200 graduates have worked on more than 1,000 productions and earned over 4 million dollars.

Appendix E Interview Protocol RQl: How do participants go about using humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 1. When did you first begin to include social and political material in your act? 2. What made you decide to include social and political material in your act? 3. What do you hope will be the result of including social and political material in your act? 4. Tell me about some of the key people in your life who have influenced you. (What did they do?/How did they influence you?) 5. What do you hope to accomplish in your lifetime? 6. How would you react to this quote: "I think it's a comedian's job to be controversial and explode - to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted." (Roseanne Barr) RQ2: What elements do comedians perceive are necessary to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 7. How do you decide what social and political issues to include in your act? 8. How would you describe a job description for what you do? 9. Describe a time when you were successful using social and political humor. What made it so effective? 10. What advice would you give someone who performs humor that is social/political in nature who is just starting out? 11. What I know now about being a social/political comedian that I wish I knew when I first started is . RQ3: How do comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of contemporary social and political issues? 12. How did you get started? 13. How do you treat social and political humor differently from other types of humor you perform? 14. How do you collect information to create comedy around social and political issues? 15. Who are some comedians you admire and how did they impact you?

189 Appendix F Sample Interview Transcribed and Coded RESEARCHER: Right. So, at some point you stopped doing the characters and you started doing more... ES: I started to try to figure out who I was on stage, and that was the big journey for me that's still going on. Is finding out who I am on stage because who you are on stage is different than who you are in real life. I mean it's not as though I'm doing a character on stage, I'm not. It's me, but it's me on stage. So, it's a heightened person, and it's a deeply communicative person. It's somebody who's trying to communicate every second that I'm on the stage, and I think the communication part is the educator I suppose. RESEARCHER: Tell me more about that? ES: Well, what I try to do on stage is, I you know, I try to connect with an audience and that doesn't mean literally connect. Although, I frequently do, I frequently talk to the audience, but it's just really talking to them and telling them something that I want to tell them. That's more important to CWAI - connect with the me then me making them laugh. I don't really think about trying audience to make them laugh just in the same way I don't think about educating I think about communicating. I think about connecting to them and telling them what I want to tell them now because it's coming out of my brain, it's funny because that's how I think. You know I think funny person brain. Um and because I try to make it, I always try to make it true to who I am and maybe that's the educator parti That it's, it's original to me. So maybe, I think that's what comedians do is they see something through a little bit of a twisted lens. For example, Picasso sees a woman and you know she's got an eye here, and a thigh there, and a mouth there, and you know a breast over in a corner somewhere. RESEARCHER: Uh huh ES: I think comedians do the same thing. I think we see things through a prism or a lens or whatever you want to call it that's skewed. That's a little twisted. That normal.. .1 don't want to say normal people but that the average person or the lay person out there isn't seeing it through the same twist. Once we point it out to them they're like 'oh yes of course now I see it that way.' RESEARCHER: But how do you decide...I think you are answering it but like how do you decide what you want to talk about? ES: Ah whatever I, whatever strikes me funny. Or whatever I feel a compulsion. Sometimes I feel a compulsion to talk about ASFLib - emotional something and it's not funny at all. It could be something I'm investment really angry about, you know politically or something like that. Um but usually it has to be something meaningful to me. Like for example now I find I talk a lot about having teenagers. RESEARCHER: Hmm...right... ES: .. .because they're insane and it's just the way their brain works. It's really funny and interesting to me and it's part of how I feel with it. It's talking about it on stage and being my age that I am now there's so many people in the audience who have
CWAI a - create relatable material

190 either been there, or are going through it, or get it. So, I mean it's all about accessibility, and I also think that...I heard George Carlin talking about this once, when somebody's laughing they're open. When somebody's laughing they're emotionally open. So, it's really easy to slip in new ideas. RESEARCHER: Oh ES: It's really easy to put things out there that they might not accept at other times, but because they are laughing they're in a receptive mood. So, I think a lot of people say oh you get away with murder. The things I'll talk about on stage. Well yeah it's because I'm making people laugh. So, they're going to accept things from me that they might not accept if I was angry and screaming and yelling. RESEARCHER: Hmmm that's really interesting. ES: Politicians do it all the time. How they use jokes and humor, they're just not very good at it. RESEARCHER: Now, and I know you have an interest in politics because you were studying like political science? ES: Yeah, you know what's another thing Nancy, is that you know, I know OPPVJr certain comedians that get too preachy. It's always a balance and a fine . funnv line, and when you...when you're dealing with people/comics that get , Dreacnv really preachy and stop being funny the audience tunes out. RESEARCHER: Hmmhm ES: So if you want to get a point across, and you want to make a point nppvi don't forget that you're a comedian first. You're not a preacher. , r J r be tunny RESEARCHER: So...go ahead.... { y , not pfCQ-chy ES: Some people do it brilliantly. I think Bill Maher does it brilliantly. You know he can get really preachy and righteous but he's really funny so he makes his point and it works. But you better be really funny if you're going to do that. RESEARCHER: The fine line... ES: Yeah, you know if you're going to go out there and start screaming about you know whatever it is, right, left, center, God, you know Jews, Christians, Muslims, whatever it is, and you're trying to make a political point or a emotional point whatever it is. It's got to be funny first. Otherwise it just becomes you know... and you certainly don't want it to be mauvelie or treacly when you're on stage either. RESEARCHER: Treacly? ES: Treacly too sweet, too sacchariney... RESEARCHER: Got it! ES: Too sentimental. RESEARCHER: Because? ES: Because then it's not funny. Then it becomes sappy, you know it's always easier to make people cry than to make them laugh. Because to make people cry you can just tap into sentiment it doesn't have to be true emotion, it could just be sentiment. I mean I cry when I see a Hallmark commercial, and I'm crying you know. To make people laugh you got to hit them in another place. RESEARCHER: Interesting. All right so, what other advice would you give someone that was just starting out who wanted to perform humor that was, you know relevant?

191 ES: Well, don't ever talk down to your audience. That's another
. . ,
T

,.

j.

CWAlb establish trust

mistake I see young comics making. Don't ever disrespect your audience. Um it's all about the relationship with the audience, and the respect you have with the audience, and the communication with the audience. And audiences are so ah sensitive they can smell condescension, and they can smell um when your, the fear, they could pick up on it immediately, or defensiveness. A lot of comics do they get defensive because their fearful, and I don't know for me, to repeat myself but I think it's important. I really don't think about, I'm going to go out there and preach this and teach that, or CWA1 - connect even I'm going to go out there and make them laugh. I just think I'm with the audience going to go out there and communicate. I'm going to go out there and connect. And when I think about it, I haven't really thought about this, but I think the best educators are the best communicators. You know, when you have a really great teacher that's because they're communicating to you, they're teaching you, they're connecting with you in some way. And I think that that's something a lot of young comedians don't get, that that's what their job, it's to entertain really. RESEARCHER: Yeah, but like you don't go out there with a message thinking this is what I want these folks to know? ES: No. No I never ever think about that honestly, I never think about that. Who was it Louie B Mayor that said, "If I want to send a message I call Western Union"? RESEARCHER: Yeah, yeah. ES: (LAUGHS) He was the one who said that? You know. He was out there making movies, and a lot of them had messages. You know, deep messages and whether they were simplistic like "there's no place like home" or they were deeper things about war and life and love. I mean it was, what he was trying to do was tell a story and it's the same kind of thing. When you tell a story and the story rings true then it has, it's an archetype it has universality to it. I think the same is true with comedy, I mean basically, I'm up there telling a story. I'm up there telling a story about my life, and my thoughts, and my feelings about things. I'm never thinking about the effect I want to have on an audience. I'm never thinking about that; that I want to move them or make them think about this or make them think about that. I'm just, I'm just giving my point of view, and I do think that if you're true to your point of view and honest with your point of view, and willing to take something apart. Then people respond to it because it's real. RESEARCHER: What do you mean by take something apart? ES: To analyze it, to be willing to you know be wrong, to be willing to take n chances on something. I mean that's a big thing for a comic. You have to be willing to be bad, and I might go up and start talking about something, and it just doesn't pay off. I have to be willing to do that. RESEARCHER: But, so going back for a second to where you said, you know the best comedian, the best educators are communicators? ES: Yeah. RESEARCHER: I mean could you be a good comedian and not be a good communicator? Like...
_ take

192 ES: Yes, yes there are some...well maybe no...maybe because they are communicating. You know I think of somebody, there's so many different kinds of comedians, I think of somebody like Gilbert Godfried. Who's one of my favorite comedians and he has his eyes closed most of the time when he's on stage. RESEARCHER: (LAUGHS) Yeah. ES: He's not communicating, he's not connecting in the way that I connect. Yet, his humor is in a different place, his humor is so specific, and so funny that he is communicating, you just don't...he has a different message than I do. So, um so the answer is no, you have to communicate on some level that's what you're doing if not you would have no need to get on stage because I think the need to get on stage. There's always the yeah you want to be the center of attention whatever the pathology is, but I think so many comics that I know, the greatest need that they have is to speak and be heard. Is to have what they think and feel out there, so it's to communicate. RESEARCHER: Hmm.. .and what do you think is, well I won't ask you about them, but what is your goal like what are you trying to accomplish? ES: Um, it's funny because I never think about it in these terms. Ah I think when I'm on stage I'm trying to create an experience, and one of the reasons why I improvise so much is because I like the idea of live theatre, of live experience. That we are all here together experiencing this moment, and it's happening the way it's happening right now, and it's never going to happen like this again. It's very experiential, and RA&C2b I think when people are having that kind of experience they do have new motivate thoughts and new feelings that something changes in them. It's different others to than the passiveness of watching TV let's say, or a movie, it's live and it's feel always you know, it's always crackling up there. There's energy going on, on the stage, and you never know what's going to happen, and in that is, is creation happens. Maybe it's like sex, in the sense that there's, when you're having sex there's always the poss....well not anymore since I'm menopausal but... RESEARCHER: (LAUGHS) ES: Always the possibility of creation. Yeah there's always that possibility that, you know a life could be forming here. RESEARCHER: Oh interesting. ES: and I think that it's kind of like that on stage; that there's always this possibility that something new is going to happen. I'm going to say something that I've never said before. I mean that's something that motivates me, that I'm going to get up on stage, and I don't know what this experience is going to be like. But, I know that I have enough technique to know that whatever it is I'm going to bring it in the direction that I want to go in, and you're really like a conductor up there. You're bringing them up, you're bringing them down, and you bring them back up, you know there's a flow and a rhythm to it. To a performance, and um but I include the audience in that flow and rhythm. I want them to be in on it with me, so it's very experiential, and in that sense it's communicating and if I'm lucky I guess it's educating. RESEARCHER: Hm ES: But, I'm an educator by nature. You know I think a lot of comedians have a teacher like quality. The same thing that gets us up on stage and wants us to communicate to an audience is the same thing that probably what a teacher does in a classroom. If you're a

193 good teacher in a classroom, I assume that what you want to do is you want to touch people in some way. And I think that's what performers do you want to touch people. I mean actors want to evoke emotion; comedians want to evoke laughter, which is another kind of emotion. And I think when you're touching, when you're moving people, when you're having feelings because of what you're doing whether it's laughter, or crying, or sadness or joy that you are affecting change. You are changing them. RAK&C2b - motivate others to
fpel

194 Appendix G Focus Group Protocol

Please answer the following question: 1.) What do you perceive are the elements comedians need to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues?

and then

2.) How do comedians learn to use humor to raise awareness and consciousness of social and political issues?

Appendix H Documents Reviewed Material About Participants (details are withheld in an effort to protect participants' anonymity) Autobiographies Press material including reviews and articles in The New York Times Television programs including Comedy Central Presents, Last Comic Standing, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Youtube videos Participants' websites and Facebook pages Live performances

DVDs about Stand-Up Comedy Alan King: Inside the Comedy Mind Aristocrats Catskills on Broadway F**: A Documentary Funny Ladies: Volume 1-4 Funny People Goodnight We Love You: The Life and Legend of Phyllis Diller I Am Comic Jerry Seinfeld Comedian Joan Rivers: Piece of Work Laughing Matters Let Me In I Hear Laughter: A Salute to the Friars Club Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World Make 'Em Laugh Mr. Saturday Night Punchline Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip Stand Up: Muslim American Comics Come of Age The Best of The Tonight Show: Starring Johnny Carson - Stand-Up Comedians The Comedians of Comedy The Green Room (series on Showtime) The N Word: Divided We Stand When Stand Up Stood Out Why We Laugh: Black Comedians on Black Comedy Wise Cracks

196 Podcasts about Stand-Up Comedy WTF with Marc Maron In the Tank with Jon Fisch Websites about Stand-Up Comedy Thecomicscomic.typepad.com Sheckymagazine.com Punchlinemagazine.com/blog Books about Stand-Up Comedy a funny time to be gay by Ed Karvoski Jr. And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers by Mike Sacks Black Comedians on Black Comedy: How African-Americans Taught Us to Laugh by Darryl Littleton Comic Insights: The Art of Stand-up Comedy by Franklin Ajaye Comic Lives: Inside the World of American Stand-Up Comedy Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor by John Morreall Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict: Paul Lewis Great Comedians Talk About Comedy by Larry Wilde I'm Dying Up Here by Williams Knoedelseder Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters: Ted Cohen Out on the Edge: America's Rebel Comics by Mike Player Pretend the World is Funny and Forever: A Psychological Analysis of Comedians, Clowns, and Actors by Seymour Fisher and Rhoda L. Fisher Stop Me If You've Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes: Jim Holt Queens of Comedy: Lucille Ball, Phyllis DiUer, Carol Burnett, Joan Rivers, and the New Generation of Funny Women by Susan Horowitz Revolutionary Laughter: The World of Women Comics by Roz Warren Successful Stand-Up Comedy by Gene Perret The Dance of the Comedians by Peter M. Robinson The Essential Lenny Bruce, Edited by John Cohen The Haunted Smile: The Story of Jewish Comedians in America by Lawrence J. Epstein The Humor Prism in 20th Century America, Edited by Joseph Boskin The New Blue Media: How Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, Jon Stewart and Company are Transforming Progressive Politics by Theodore Hamm You've Got to Be Kidding! How Jokes Can Help You Think by John Capps and Donald Capps

197 Appendix I Final Conceptual Framework Research Problem: How do some comedians learn to use humor as a way to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues?

RQ1: What do participants perceive are the goals of their material? o Raise Awareness and Consciousness about Social and Political Issues o Presenting alternative perspectives o Challenging assumptions o Acting unconventionally o Highlighting absurdities o Discussing un-discussable o Motivating others o Motivating others to discuss o Motivating others to feel o Motivating others to act

Providing Comfort o Providing Distraction o Providing Healing Synthesizing Information Expressing themselves

o o

RQ2: What do participants perceive are the elements needed to use humor as a way to raise awareness and consciousness about social and political issues? o Awareness of social and political landscape o Know what you're talking about o Emotional investment Willingness to question prevailing point of view o Question authority or the status quo o Point out illogical or absurd o Be funny, not preachy

Connecting with the audience o Create relatable material o Establish trust o Have fun Take risks o Be confident in your opinion

Question 3: How do participants learn to use humor as a way in which to raise awareness and consciousness about contemporary social and political issues? o Draw on past experience o Draw on previous jobs o Influence of family o Draw on life experience Observation o Observe other comedians o Observe the news and the world around you o Observe audiences' reactions Learn by doing Role models o Comedians as role models o Family members as role models Reflection o o Other o

o o

Reflection-IN-action Reflection-ON-Action

It's partially innate

Appendix J Coding Legend Raise Awareness and Consciousness about Social and Political Issues o Presenting alternative perspectives o Challenging assumptions o Acting unconventionally o Highlighting absurdities o Discussing un-discussables Motivating others o Motivating others to discuss o Motivating others to feel Providing Comfort o Providing Distraction o Providing Healing Synthesizing Information Expressing themselves Awareness of social and political landscape o Know what you're talking about o Emotional investment Willingness to question prevailing point of view o Question authority or the status quo o Point out illogical or absurd o Be funny, not preachy Connecting o o o Take risks o Draw on past o o o with the audience Create relatable material Establish trust Have fun RA&C RA&C1 RA&C la RA&C1 RA&Clc RA&C Id RA&C2 RA&C2a RA&C2c RA&C3 RA&C3a RA&C3b RA&C4 RA&C5 ASPL1 ASPLla ASPLlb

QPPV1 QPPVla QPPVlb QPPVlc

CWA1 CWAla CWAlb CWAlc TR1 TRla DPE1 DPEla DPElb DPElc

Be confident in your opinion experience Draw on previous jobs Influence of family Draw on life experience

Observation Observe other comedians o Observe the news and the world around you o Observe audiences' reactions o o Learn by doing Role models o o Reflection o o o Other o It's partially innate

OBS1 OBSla OBSlb OBSlc LBD1 RM1 RMla RMlb REF1 REFla REFlb OTH1 OTHla

Comedians as role models Family members as role models

Reflection-IN-action Reflection-ON- Action

201 Appendix K Audience Reaction Feedback Survey for Second Survey My 4 digit code is Performer's Name Here Reaction Sheet Please take a few moments to respond to the five questions below based on this performance. Please answer each question, use a check mark to indicate your response. Your responses are anonymous. Strongly Disagre e 1 1. The performer raised a social issue and caused me to think about it in a new or different way. 2. The performer's delivery / presentation contributed to my understanding of this social issue. 3. The performer raised a political issue and caused me to think about it in a new or different way. 4. The performer's delivery / presentation contributed to my understanding of this political issue. 5.1 will keep this comedian's comments in mind next time I am talking about these social or political issues. Non Applicabl e N/A

Disagre e 2

Agree 3

Strongl y Agree 4

202

Appendix L Distribution Chart for Research Question 1

HOW DO PARTICIPANTS GO ABOUT RAISING AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES?

COMEDIANS BL CK DJ DM DW ES FM GN GW KL MK MP RK WS TOTAL

Present Alternative Perspectives

X X X X X X X

Motivate Others

Synthesize Information

Express Themselves

X X X

X X X X X X X X X

12

203

Appendix M Distribution Chart for Research Question 2

WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS PARTICIPANTS PERCEIVE ARE NECESSARY TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES? Talk about Personal Issues, Political Issues and/or Social Concerns
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

NAME BL CK DJ DM DW ES FM GN GW KL MK MP RK WS TOTAL

Questioning Point of View

X X X X X X X

Connect with the Audience

Take Risks

X X

X X X

X X X X X X X

14

12

10

204 Appendix N Distribution Chart for Research Question 3

HOW DO PARTICIPANTS LEARN TO USE HUMOR TO RAISE AWARENESS AND CONSCIOUSNESS ABOUT CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ISSUES?
Learn by Doing Trial & Error
X

COMEDIANS BL CK DJ DM DW ES FM GN GW KL MK MP RK WS TOTAL

Draw on Past Exp

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Observe
X X X X X

Role Models
X X

Reflection
X X X X

Dialogue w others

Partly Innate

X X X

X X

X X X

X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X

X X X X X X X

X X

14

13

12

12

11

205 Appendix O Evidence Table of Focus Group's Contribution to Understanding of Findings Finding/Learning Present Alternative Perspectives: acting unconventionally can simply be a function of having racial, ethnic, or sexual differences from the audience Motivate others: the desire to motivate others to discuss, feel and act may come from a love of humanity. Perhaps they critique social and political issues because they want to improve them. Know the social/ political landscape: your material is often a function of your interests. As you and your interests change so can your material. It's important to be interested in your material because you have to know it well enough to make an airtight argument about it - it must be logical to others. Also, it's important to see issues from other people's perspectives. Focus Group Quote hey, I'm Muslim.. .And I feel like often times, people come to me enough to say.. .1 learned something, which is like also, you know, weird for me 'cause I'm like 'That totally wasn't necessarily my intention' but I guess that's what happens when you.. .you never think about the Middle East and I'm suddenly saying like.. .you know.. .nuanced things about it.. .then I end up .. .accidentally educating people you end up informing what their opinions are, you know in the future. .. .but I think it really, like it comes from a place of love, like I think comedians, have a genuine love of people because why else would you get up in front of strangers, night after night after night.. .a desire to talk about these things... a desire to create community, and create you know, discussion and.. .and to find truth, you know? So, to me it's like a very loving act, that comedians do night after night.

.. .if you are going to delve into something political or social.. .uh... it has to be something that's.. .important enough to try to make it funny which is you know it's not an easy trick, if it's a kind of a hot button issue or something like that, so I think that's the main thing, something that kind of engages you and interests you. .. .talking about things that you care about. I mean, It takes a long time before you can get around to that, because at first when you're starting just like I wanna' laugh by any means .. .are they laughing in the places I want them to laugh, and then for the reasons I want them to laugh. So, then you start to apply, I guess how you see the world, to your.. .to your comedy and then bringing up things you care about in trying to either challenge them um, uh or confirm them, that's the only way, only two ways to handle an audience, either you are confirming what they believe or challenging what they believe. I think we all probably construct it in a.. .like an offensive and defensive way, where like you make the logic so air tight... I also think it's important to have a friends um of other races, I mean like you know, it's important to have black friends.... I think also, there is a parallel growth, there's a parallel growth

206 Finding/Learning Focus Group Quote of your personal growth, with your uh, comedic professional growth, you know? Like you.. .you, have to be continually (inaudible) as a person and nourishing yourself.. .uh, you know, artistically and spiritually...all, all, all the things that make you a, um.. .you know, uh.. .broader person, a fuller person, that you can bring to the stage all of that happens over time as well. ...you don't accept things for rote as a child.. .during that sometimes you start noticing that other things you are being told by rote aren't necessarily true. You find out because to find the joke angle you can't give them something they already know.. .the answer to in the way they heard it before they're not going to laugh 'cause they already kind of...it's like telling a joke to someone that already knows that joke. I'm taking the side of the underdog, like I think that's the thing that all comedians have in common and comedy has in...the, the point of comedy is like, siding with the underdog... I think it also depends again on intent, what you want to challenge with the audience. Every joke, has purpose and an intent and sometimes you want people to challenge certain things.

Question prevailing points of view: the ability to question what you're told is available to anyone regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity or sexual orientation. You have to know the prevailing point of view in order to question it. For comedy to be successful it should side with the underdog, not those in power. Not all comedy is intended to challenge; sometimes it is intended to confirm

207 Finding/Learning Connect with your audience: part of the appeal of comedians is that they are a part of the community not apart from (for instance, as opposed to movie stars who are often perceived as bigger than life) The more you can know about what the audience is thinking and feeling, the better able you will be to connect with them and then challenge their thinking Focus Group Quote .. .knowing your audience and being able to talk to them in a way, that without being condescending and being able to talk to them in a way that's umm, uh relatable.. .and, not feeling like you are on a pedestal,....not a pedestal, what's it called? A soap box? Soap box, and if you start talking like you are on a soap box, then you have to immediately acknowledge that and make fun of yourself... I feel like what's just great about really good political comedians is that they take those really terrible things that are really depressing and there's this catharsis that, that is achieved when they turn it into something funny. .. .right after 9/11, the audiences were not only hungry for comedy but they wanted the comics to talk about these issues, especially in New York, where I was... .. .you need to learn. It's not just what you wanna' say but, learning the jargon and what the audience comes in with is their preconceived notions, you have to understand what they're starting with, when they're in those seats looking up at you, in order to figure out how to take them, you're taking them on a journey to your point of view, if you just start in a arbitrary point, you're sunk, but if you go, 'Okay, these people know this, they think this, here's a place I can start from'.. .you can actually move them, but you have to understand the audience... .. .their multitudinous demographic and you.. .it's hard to figure out the language that's going to like, universally speak to people. .. .1 wanted to push the button and say, you need to understand how this works, and make the audience feel uncomfortable. Part of art is to be grotesque, and I think as stand-ups, we don't attack that avenue enough, we don't challenge the audience enough, cause we're all afraid that they are going to complain to the owners and we won't be invited back to, you know, the Chuckle Hut again and I think part of what we need to do is to walk on that line and just sit on that edge and to challenge.

Take risks: comedians must walk a fine line to balance their goals and intentions with the audiences' and comedy clubs' expectations. This is a business after all and if they don't make the customers happy it will impact .. .to be able to do dangerous things and not have a fire storm their ability to both start but have a crowd that totally, like grooves on that fact that make a living and you did something bold and dangerous. We're not an unopposed impact future audiences hippie era, we're entering a Nazi era. Observation: .. .1 learned, um to discuss things that maybe were...a little more Observing other challenging, because they were social or political or

208

Finding/Learning comedians who perform the type of comedy you want to perform, not just any kind of comedian, can facilitate learning. A sense of curiosity about human nature is helpful to learning. Learning by doing: performing in front of a live audience provides opportunities for reflection about the content of the joke, its position in one's act, how it was orally conveyed, and ways to do it differently to get the desired results.

Focus Group Quote religious.. .by watching guys who were very adept at doing it. Whether it was, Chappelle or Greg Geraldo or uh Louis C.K. you know, just, you learn by watching people that are good at that... Watch other people.. .know human nature. Say something, just say things that...that flip people out and go.. .hmm.. .and then ask yourself why the flipped out? A lot of answers in that...human nature tells you...it's a, it's a library. .. .you go into these jokes with like the of best intentions and you expect this great... the joke's gonna' have a long full life and it's gonna be popular, and then you do it and you just see like uggh and then you have to kinda reverse engineer it.. .uh, do some forensics about what about it turned people off, you know? ,maybe you go in, with like ten political jokes in a row, and then you're like 'Wow,.. .they weren't on board with me the whole time. But if I, couched those jokes.. .between jokes about my sagging dolls.. .this might work out' like I can see doing this with like political commentary and you like figure out the ratio, um like, through bombing. ... [a]joke just dropping on deaf ears 'cause you didn't catch it right is the biggest teacher of all time, 'cause your passion for the joke hasn't died, you still want it to work, but you're going 'Okay, they couldn't hear it this way, how do I make them hear it?' And that, that to me is the biggest teacher, the failure of an individual bit or, or an individual concept, will make you go back and learn how to do it properly for any audience. .. .there's really no one way to learn how to do any of this, the only way that you can say is that, you just have to do it, you just have to get on stage and continuously get on stage until you feel like you're doing something you want to do. .. .1 always felt like it was kind of hard to become friends with comedians that were more experienced, that were, that were headliners.. .you do you're act but then having people that have been doing it longer than you...

Role models: it's hard to network up and meet comedians who have had more experience. There are important lessons to be drawn That is how I go, that's what George Carlin would of done. The from the way they amount you flip over something is the reason I should open the approach their material. box and look inside.