Regeneration Through Laughter: The American Comedic National Fantasy After 9/11

Abstract

Regeneration Through Laughter critically examines narratives about the power of US comedy to act as an antidote to the nation’s political problems. The project explores how post-9/11 film and television comedy develops a comedic utopianism, rooted in the notion of a distinctly national comedic spirit, which is then positioned as a tool to respond to major contemporary political issues, such as the degradation of democratic discourse, national polarization, and the War on Terror. Reading this comedic utopianism alongside political theory, national fantasy discourse, and scholarly commentary on US humor, this work evaluates the political efficacy of comedy in forwarding a vision for redeemed US nationhood. The analysis of comedic utopianism’s efficacy centers on the relationship between culture and politics, as this utopianism recasts political problems in culturalist terms and appeals to cultural forces (i.e., the aesthetic, the affective, civil society) to propose solutions to these problems. Regeneration Through Laughter argues that the culturalization of political problems ultimately undercuts comedic utopianism’s political potential by producing a bind in which the activation of cultural energies is only possible at the expense of depoliticizing the social issues this utopianism hoped to address.