| Summary: | In the world of performance art, comedians have often been considered as minor artists or even have been rejected as mere commercial products. Yet doesn’t the stand-up tradition – defined by the delivery of fast paced jokes – seek to grasp the essence of laughter? The history of LGBTQ comedians has equally been neglected by the queer theater and performance history. This paper aims at revisiting these histories in order to account for the role of queer laughter thanks to its theoretical and functional effects. By exploring the political and esthetic dimensions of gay, lesbian and transgender people since the 1960s, we can understand the role of laughter in the construction of dissenting practices against white heteronormative norms and domination. This resistance through laughter is articulated here through the queer theoretical notions of dissidentification and counterpublicity present in the three paths taken by this work: political, performative, and subversive laughter.
|
|---|
