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Tragedy plus Time: National Trauma and Television Comedy

2022; Penn State University Press; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/studamerhumor.8.1.0210

2333-9934

Jay Friesen,

Humor Studies and Applications

Philip Scepanski’s book Tragedy plus Time feels prescient. Reading the book, I got the sense that I was immersed in a discourse that society will be examining for the foreseeable future in trying to understand the relationship between comedy and trauma. The book opens with Comedy Central’s 2011 roast of Hugh Hefner at the New York Friars Club. The event happened mere weeks after the 9/11 attacks, and, as Scepanski deftly describes, it was an uneasy and uncertain time concerning what constituted acceptable humor. The United States was experiencing massive trauma, and what was fair game to laugh at (or even if laughing was appropriate at the time) was ambiguous. Comedy was a moving target; comedians sought to hit the sweet spot that embraced comedy’s rebelliousness while respecting the vague limits of when jokes supposedly went too far. The roast functions as a historical fulcrum for the argument; it sets the stage for what came before and after 9/11 during significant cultural changes. Scepanski does an admirable job of analyzing American tragedies from a historical perspective, including the JFK shooting, and in using 9/11 as a lens through which to view more recent events, like the beginning of the Trump presidency. The book is especially valuable because the progressive view of humor and trauma (when is it too soon?) arrives just as we embark on thinking about the COVID-19 virus and humor. Thus, the lessons and ideas contained in this book seem particularly relevant.Broadly speaking, this book investigates how trauma and humor intersect to shape the American national imagination and identity. As a whole, Tragedy plus Time advances a noteworthy collection of ideas about how collective trauma is (often unexpectedly) processed through humor. Understanding this process offers a unique way of seeing how a society views itself: the major events through which we make sense of our world, what offers a modicum of emotional relief during tough times, and what subjects are a bridge too far to joke about. Drawing extensively on television comedies, Scepanski effectively handles the ambiguity and nuance between the ostensibly opposite experiences of trauma and humor. In a passage that seems apt for nearly all writing on comedy, he describes this ambiguity well: “Humor has been significant to emotional responses people attach to these [traumatic] histories and . . . actually serves a role in debating the truth of orthodox historical narratives” (20). Comedy, he explains, “is especially well suited for holding contradictions in tension, resolving the discomfort with a laugh rather than logic or action” (20). Furthermore, while mainstream views on humor often cast it as illogical, silly, and irreverent, Scepanski does an excellent job of accounting for how humor helps reveal what constitutes socially acceptable types of discourse during times of national trauma. On the one hand, a well-timed joke can snap audiences out of a tragedy and offer a measure of relief to the weariness of trauma. On the other hand, when a joke falls flat, if it is in poor taste, it can fulfill an opposite function by reaffirming the boundaries established when societies collectively need time to heal.As with the stages of grief, this process of understanding trauma through humor is cyclical: a tragedy happens, society begins to process the tragedy (in part through humor), then the next disaster comes along. Throughout his book, Scepanski builds on this idea by accounting for the passage of time and cultural context, which allows him to discuss more recent topics attentively and show how each societal trauma has similar features while still being its own event. Chapter 1 lays a historical foundation, detailing how television comedies have addressed tragedies in the past. Focusing heavily on JFK’s assassination, Scepanski claims that before a mid-eighties Saturday Night Live (NBC, 1975–present) sketch, TV comedies largely avoided addressing the event. SNL’s sketch opened the doors for more referential and aesthetically driven styles of comedy in shows like Seinfeld (NBC, 1989–98) and, finally, more risqué and so-called sick comedy styles in recent times such as Family Guy (Fox, 1999–present). The second chapter provides a fascinating look at how something as seemingly static as a single television episode in fact can vary significantly in its syndication, streaming, and boxset sales. Small iterations in each, Scepanski shows the shifting impact of censorship.The book’s most substantial contribution to humor studies comes in the third chapter, which analyzes humor concerning emotional nonconformity. Comedy performs emotional labor for people. It is why Monty Python trumps Celine Dion: the comedy classic “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” was crowned the most popular funeral song, beating out the more melancholy sounds of “My Heart Will Go On.” The chapter examines the two roles comedy plays in relation to trauma. It considers how comedy can alleviate trauma and in doing so shape society’s attitudes about trauma. The more positive view of this process (which is similar in spirit to Monty Python) is that this tactic of challenging and mocking consequential topics—like the personal experience of a person dying that one is close to or the collective experience of national trauma—brings clarity by acting as an emotion buffer, by clearing a space through laughter. Yet Scepanski adds an important caveat to this view, noting that humor is not inherently progressive and liberatory, although it might feel that way. Returning to the example of Family Guy, he notes the show’s earlier comic riffing on the Columbine shooting, which was seemingly critical of gun culture, might have paved a path for the public to quickly process and move on from future tragedies like the Parkland shooting, providing a sort of comical emotional crutch.Chapter 4 examines television comedy’s indecisive relationship with conspiracy theories. At times, Scepanski notes, the medium undercuts these theories through mockery while, at other times, it fosters them to take advantage of their comedic potential. The following two chapters focus on racial and ethnic groups in connection with the intersection of trauma and comedy. In chapter 5, Scepanski does a deep dive into how comedies with predominantly black casts responded to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1992. Chapter 6 moves nearly a decade later to examine the events following 9/11.Scepanski’s final chapter, on Donald Trump’s presidency, feels like the appropriately logical conclusion to the book. As with the other sections in the book, this chapter does an excellent job of offering a balanced and nuanced viewpoint by looking at comedies like Broad City (Comedy Central, 2014–19) and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS, 2015–present). Scepanski makes careful distinctions between comedy that frames discourse and helps viewers make sense of events and that enables relief and comedy that does not.Tragedy plus Time is particularly well timed. Scepanski wrote the epilogue in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. While we all try and make sense of the pandemic and what it means to move forward to a postpandemic era, what preceded the epilogue seems like necessary reading for what is next. Making a somewhat ominous observation, Scepanski reminds—or perhaps warns—us that comedies about trauma tend to reflect political fractiousness. Accordingly, paying close attention to what and how jokes are told will provide essential insights into the near-future political climate. While aimed toward comedy scholars broadly, this book is particularly valuable to those curious about comedy’s intersection with history and politics. Moreover, it will be beneficial to those who study trauma, and it is a welcome (and relatively novel) addition to humor studies, particularly given its connections to psychology and health as well as cultural and media studies.