A Decade of Dark Humor: Chapters 5, 6, 11 & 12

1. A Decade of Dark Humor: Chapters 5, 6, 11 & 12 Angela Stobaugh

2. Laughs, Tears, and Breakfast Cereals: Rethinking Trauma and Post-9/11 Politics in Art Spiegelman’sIn the Shadow of No Towers • “ If 9/11 allowed the United States government to successfully channel anxieties over domestic insecurities and ambivalences about economic, social, and political realities toward a (brown) Other or even an (unpatriotic ) Self, should we not look at that process rather than at the events that gave it/us the excuse?” (Gournelos 2011, 83)

3. What is this chapter saying about: • Naming the events as 9/11 and how that has impacted our understanding about it? • What has it done to our understanding of trauma? • What does Spiegleman say is important about our understanding of these events? • How were these events used to distract us from other anxieties? And what other anxieties were we being distracted from?

4. Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers

5. In Terms of Film • What is used to establish context? • What is the inciting incident? • What is the rising action? • How is the sequence concluded?

6. Republican Decline and Culture Wars in 9/11 Humor • “The rather bleak and intellectual joke depends on the reader recognizing the futility of these civil gestures, for, as Biegbeder tells us, the fragile late blooming of citizenship and republican virtue encoded in post 9/11 “apocalyptic politeness” occurs in an epoch when permissive liberalism and late capitalism have wrecked the republican moral compass” (Holloway 2011, 99).

7. What is the author saying about the republic in this chapter? • What are the two themes that the author says are prevalent in Beigbeder’s chapter? • Other than the film’s stated in this chapter (Team America, Fahrenheit 9/11, etc) are there any others you feel fit in this category? Why or why not?

8. Laughing All the Way to the Bank: Enron, Humor, and Political Economy • “If, as other essays in this collection suggest, 9/11 humor became more political throughout the decade, Enron jokes followed an inverse trajectory. The quietly, though undeniably conservative, humor of the Fool’s site hinted that ownership society and neoliberalism had achieved some sort of hegemonic victory” (Benke 2011, 211). • This author seems to believe that humor failed– for Enron humor was not enough to change our opinions of Enron, do you agree? Why or why not?

9. What’s So Funny About a Dead Terrorist?: Toward an Ethics of Humor for the Digital Age • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go • Start at 6:40

10. This clip is trying to push boundaries about jokes surrounding topics of terrorism, celebrity culture, etc but also knows that it is. • He states, you can’t tell jokes like that you’ll offend people. • “Unlike most professional comedy and canned jokes, these stories feature mockery and ridicule used not only (or even primarily) to amuse but also to shock, persuade, relax, insult, impress, soothe, taunt, and/or denigrate” (Lewis 2011,215).

11. What do you believe made some jokes offensive and others an acceptable way to have a dialogue about 9/11? • Do you think humor was enough? Why or why not? • Do Paul Lewis believe that humor was enough? Why or why not?

12. “Coming from a leading humor researcher and a leading humor advocate, these assertions inadvertently highlight myopic tendencies in the field: how easy it can be to conclude that someone (or group) that does not find your (or your group’s) comic materials funny has no sense of humor, while at the same time failing even to recognize humor directed at oneself or one’s group as humor” (Lewis 2011, 217).

13. Works Cited • Gournelos, Ted. Laughs, Tears, and Breakfast Cereals: Rethinking Trauma and Post-9/11 Politics in Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers. A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post 9/11 America. Edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca Greene. The University Press of Mississippi, 2011. • Holloway, David. Republican Decline and Culture Wars in 9/11 Humor. A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post 9/11 America. Edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca Greene. The University Press of Mississippi, 2011. • Benke, Gavin. Laughing All the Way to the Bank: Enron, Humor and Political Economy. A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post 9/11 America. Edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca Greene. The University Press of Mississippi, 2011. • Lewis, Paul. What's So Funny About A Dead Terrorist?: Towards and Ethics of Humor for the Digital Age. A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post 9/11 America. Edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca Greene. The University Press of Mississippi, 2011.