# Stand-Up Comedy, Authenticity, and Assertion: Rappaport and Quilty-Dunn  ## Metadata - Author: [[Oxford University Press]] - Full Title: Stand-Up Comedy, Authenticity, and Assertion: Rappaport and Quilty-Dunn - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: Stand-up comedians do not make real assertions; they only pretend to do so like actors. However, because audiences expect authenticity, comedians can still share true insights. This makes stand-up a unique art form that conveys messages without direct assertions. ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > Even the way [1970s comics] told jokes, the strategy of their humor, was more populist and inclusive. The old-style comics might talk about subjects we all recognized (the wife and kids, airline flights, TV commercials), but they got laughs with the artifice of gag lines-a pun, or a witticism, or a surprise reversal. This emphasized the distance between performer and audience. (4) ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k0bmgy7yfh568sq9cnmjcs8w)) > It is clear that the performances of stand-up comedians are not subject to these felicity conditions. If a comedian performs a routine about “her boyfriend,” but in reality the performer is single, this does not affect our appreciation of the performance at all. Similarly, comedians appear free to make statements that normally a person would “have no right to state”-one would not criticize a comedian's routine by saying, “Well, she doesn't really *know* that what she's saying is true.”14 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k0c6vz9s2fzw5z9q9h3jpg25)) > Thus, being on stage not only facilitates pretend assertions, it in fact tends to preclude sincere ones and thereby creates surmountable but nontrivial obstacles to conveying a serious message (which, as we argued above, does not require assertion). On the Mixed View of comedic assertions, performers may, in effect, freely move from pretense to sincerity in the course of their act. However, we claim that the very condition of being on stage as a comedic performer makes it difficult to break the pretense, and hence makes direct, sincere assertions impossible (without signaling a break in the performance). Rather, the performer's actual attitudes must always be inferred indirectly from the attitudes expressed by the artist on the stage. One may object that comedians may end their performance by announcing future gigs or plugging merchandise to be sold after the show. However, while these speech acts do seem to be assertions, they do not seem to be *stand-up comedy*-they are not part of the comedian's act. Likewise, an actor in a play might close a show by asking people to donate to the theater, but this speech act is not part of the performance; both actor and comedian in these cases step outside the performance to make a sincere assertion. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01k0c3kzc6sxpsynqz0p6134hf))