A sociological case of stand-up comedy: censorship, offensiveness and opportunism

Calvey, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3473-4769 (2019) A sociological case of stand-up comedy: censorship, offensiveness and opportunism. In: The Lost Ethnographies: Methodological Insights From Projects That Never Were. Studies in Qualitative Methodology, 17 (17). Emerald Publishing, Bingley, pp. 65-78. ISBN 9781787147744 (print); 9781787147737 (ebook)

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Abstract

This book chapter reflectively explores the challenges of studying provocation, satire, bad taste and offence in stand-up comedy. The author’s sociological lens on the topic is situated within the broader field of humour studies, which is a relatively small yet creative and innovative field within the human, cultural and social sciences. This lost ethnographic project contains shelved and dormant interview data with a number of stand-up comedians, including the controversial and emotive late Bernard Manning and an early career Steve Coogan. The project also explores the author’s autoethnographic journey into rant poetry, as both a hobbyist and, on further reflection, a way of keeping the project informally but theoretically alive. The issues of censorship, political correctness and informed consent are key ones in the author’s confessional type analysis. Finally, the value and richness of loss, failure and resilience as marginalised yet significant and unacknowledged learning resources in our academic adventures are frankly discussed. The call here is for more lost ethnographic projects to be recognised and appreciated in academia.