This journal provides a unique, national forum for emerging Canadian researchers. Encompassing co... more This journal provides a unique, national forum for emerging Canadian researchers. Encompassing communication studies approaches to the often overlapping “streams ” of culture, politics and technology, Stream challenges conceptions of these subjects with innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship. Visit www.streamjournal.org for more information. The editors would like to thank and acknowledge the work of all those who volunteered as peer-reviewers. Submit to Stream Stream is interested in publishing articles and book reviews by Canadian graduate students in commu-nication studies and related fields. Papers should fit into one of the three proposed “streams, ” but we invite contributors to challenge their conceptions of these subjects with interdisciplinary approaches to these subject areas. We hope that this student initia-tive will become a space for graduate students to publish new work and expand upon new ideas, con-
This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I ... more This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I consider the characters Buddy Cole (The Kids in the Hall), Red Green (The Red Green Show), and Raj Binder (This Hour Has 22 Minutes). These characters offer Canadian audiences unique parodies of nostalgic conceptions of Canadian masculinity. Using camp and gender parody, the above-mentioned comedians deconstruct popular mythologies about masculinity and Canadian-ness. These portrayals are at one and the same time both critical and optimistic—a paradox that works its way through much of Canadian popular culture.
We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica ( BSG) through interviews with creative peopl... more We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica ( BSG) through interviews with creative people working on the show to illustrate the production context of the show and the science fiction (sf) genre. Media scholars suggest sf stories are critical stories about our political systems and our anxieties about new technologies, social change, race, gender, class, and religious conflicts. We investigate constraints and agency in the production of BSG as a site of critical cultural commentary and the politics of racial and gender representation in the series. We find that the creators behind BSG struggle with the moral and political nature of the stories they create, within the constraints of power, social structures, and a neoliberal economy and in doing so actively participate in their own acts of meaning-making in the production process.
This article considers Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni’s self-deprecatory humour as a performa... more This article considers Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni’s self-deprecatory humour as a performative strategy. In keeping with a performance tradition of self-deprecation as established by women like Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers, DiGiovanni offers ‘failure’ as a comic strategy. Her comedy is heavily reliant upon the framing of her lack in relationships, in self-control and in body image (in relation to normative gender standards and expectations). At the same time, however, DiGiovanni also engages critically with gendered expectations of heteronormative desirability, lampooning thin women, superficial men and celebrity culture. Although her comedy is generally characterized by self-deprecation, her humour also leaves space for an ambivalent politics of gender.
We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica (BSG) through interviews with creative people... more We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica (BSG) through interviews with creative people working on the show to illustrate the production context of the show and the science fiction (sf) genre. Media scholars suggest sf stories are critical stories about our political systems and our anxieties about new technologies, social change, race, gender, class, and religious conflicts. We investigate constraints and agency in the production of BSG as a site of critical cultural commentary and the politics of racial and gender representation in the series. We find that the creators behind BSG struggle with the moral and political nature of the stories they create, within the constraints of power, social structures, and a neoliberal economy and in doing so actively participate in their own acts of meaning-making in the production process.
This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I ... more This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I consider the characters Buddy Cole (Kids in the Hall), Red Green (The Red Green Show) and Raj Binder (This Hour has 22 Minutes). These characters offer Canadian audiences unique parodies of nostalgic conceptions of Canadian masculinity. Using camp and gender parody, the above-mentioned comedians deconstruct popular mythologies about masculinity and “Canadianness.” These portrayals are at one and the same time both critical and optimistic—a paradox that works its way through much of Canadian popular culture.
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 2012
In the film The Aristocrats (2005) comedy audiences are given a rare glimpse inside the entertain... more In the film The Aristocrats (2005) comedy audiences are given a rare glimpse inside the entertainment industry green room. An analysis of the age-old joke “The Aristocrats”, the film offers insight into the role of humor in everyday life, the gendered nature of comedy, and the powerful ties that bind stand-up and variety comedy performers. This paper applies Bakhtinian theories of laughter and the carnivalesque to The Aristocrats. In particular, I consider the way in which female comics construct humor from within a masculinized and often misogynist field. I find that comedy is able to make evident divergent perspectives while paradoxically also serving to pull people together into a common discursive framework.
This essay discusses Canadian stand-up comic Nikki Payne whose sexually aggressive material and c... more This essay discusses Canadian stand-up comic Nikki Payne whose sexually aggressive material and characterization of herself as "unattractive" inverts the gendered dynamics of the comedy club.
If Canadian culture can be said to have a master narrative, it is surely one of ambivalence. It i... more If Canadian culture can be said to have a master narrative, it is surely one of ambivalence. It is a concept that is laced implicitly throughout Canadian popular culture, as well as Canadian cultural studies. Although Canadianists frequently grapple with the issue of cultural industrialization, especially in relation to cultural nationalist fears about Americanization, it is my contention that these analyses do not adequately consider Canadian popular culture as a process of ambivalent industrialization which allows certain non-industrial practices to be preserved. This process is particularly evident in the subject of my doctoral dissertation the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival (JFL) where carnival and industry collide in very public ways.
This journal provides a unique, national forum for emerging Canadian researchers. Encompassing co... more This journal provides a unique, national forum for emerging Canadian researchers. Encompassing communication studies approaches to the often overlapping “streams ” of culture, politics and technology, Stream challenges conceptions of these subjects with innovative, interdisciplinary scholarship. Visit www.streamjournal.org for more information. The editors would like to thank and acknowledge the work of all those who volunteered as peer-reviewers. Submit to Stream Stream is interested in publishing articles and book reviews by Canadian graduate students in commu-nication studies and related fields. Papers should fit into one of the three proposed “streams, ” but we invite contributors to challenge their conceptions of these subjects with interdisciplinary approaches to these subject areas. We hope that this student initia-tive will become a space for graduate students to publish new work and expand upon new ideas, con-
This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I ... more This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I consider the characters Buddy Cole (The Kids in the Hall), Red Green (The Red Green Show), and Raj Binder (This Hour Has 22 Minutes). These characters offer Canadian audiences unique parodies of nostalgic conceptions of Canadian masculinity. Using camp and gender parody, the above-mentioned comedians deconstruct popular mythologies about masculinity and Canadian-ness. These portrayals are at one and the same time both critical and optimistic—a paradox that works its way through much of Canadian popular culture.
We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica ( BSG) through interviews with creative peopl... more We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica ( BSG) through interviews with creative people working on the show to illustrate the production context of the show and the science fiction (sf) genre. Media scholars suggest sf stories are critical stories about our political systems and our anxieties about new technologies, social change, race, gender, class, and religious conflicts. We investigate constraints and agency in the production of BSG as a site of critical cultural commentary and the politics of racial and gender representation in the series. We find that the creators behind BSG struggle with the moral and political nature of the stories they create, within the constraints of power, social structures, and a neoliberal economy and in doing so actively participate in their own acts of meaning-making in the production process.
This article considers Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni’s self-deprecatory humour as a performa... more This article considers Canadian comedian Debra DiGiovanni’s self-deprecatory humour as a performative strategy. In keeping with a performance tradition of self-deprecation as established by women like Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers, DiGiovanni offers ‘failure’ as a comic strategy. Her comedy is heavily reliant upon the framing of her lack in relationships, in self-control and in body image (in relation to normative gender standards and expectations). At the same time, however, DiGiovanni also engages critically with gendered expectations of heteronormative desirability, lampooning thin women, superficial men and celebrity culture. Although her comedy is generally characterized by self-deprecation, her humour also leaves space for an ambivalent politics of gender.
We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica (BSG) through interviews with creative people... more We examine the television show Battlestar Galactica (BSG) through interviews with creative people working on the show to illustrate the production context of the show and the science fiction (sf) genre. Media scholars suggest sf stories are critical stories about our political systems and our anxieties about new technologies, social change, race, gender, class, and religious conflicts. We investigate constraints and agency in the production of BSG as a site of critical cultural commentary and the politics of racial and gender representation in the series. We find that the creators behind BSG struggle with the moral and political nature of the stories they create, within the constraints of power, social structures, and a neoliberal economy and in doing so actively participate in their own acts of meaning-making in the production process.
This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I ... more This article considers the performance of Canadian masculinity in sketch comedy. In particular I consider the characters Buddy Cole (Kids in the Hall), Red Green (The Red Green Show) and Raj Binder (This Hour has 22 Minutes). These characters offer Canadian audiences unique parodies of nostalgic conceptions of Canadian masculinity. Using camp and gender parody, the above-mentioned comedians deconstruct popular mythologies about masculinity and “Canadianness.” These portrayals are at one and the same time both critical and optimistic—a paradox that works its way through much of Canadian popular culture.
Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 2012
In the film The Aristocrats (2005) comedy audiences are given a rare glimpse inside the entertain... more In the film The Aristocrats (2005) comedy audiences are given a rare glimpse inside the entertainment industry green room. An analysis of the age-old joke “The Aristocrats”, the film offers insight into the role of humor in everyday life, the gendered nature of comedy, and the powerful ties that bind stand-up and variety comedy performers. This paper applies Bakhtinian theories of laughter and the carnivalesque to The Aristocrats. In particular, I consider the way in which female comics construct humor from within a masculinized and often misogynist field. I find that comedy is able to make evident divergent perspectives while paradoxically also serving to pull people together into a common discursive framework.
This essay discusses Canadian stand-up comic Nikki Payne whose sexually aggressive material and c... more This essay discusses Canadian stand-up comic Nikki Payne whose sexually aggressive material and characterization of herself as "unattractive" inverts the gendered dynamics of the comedy club.
If Canadian culture can be said to have a master narrative, it is surely one of ambivalence. It i... more If Canadian culture can be said to have a master narrative, it is surely one of ambivalence. It is a concept that is laced implicitly throughout Canadian popular culture, as well as Canadian cultural studies. Although Canadianists frequently grapple with the issue of cultural industrialization, especially in relation to cultural nationalist fears about Americanization, it is my contention that these analyses do not adequately consider Canadian popular culture as a process of ambivalent industrialization which allows certain non-industrial practices to be preserved. This process is particularly evident in the subject of my doctoral dissertation the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival (JFL) where carnival and industry collide in very public ways.
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