Satire of Homosexuality in Nigerian, South African and African-American Stand-up Comedies

Abstract

Stand-up comedy, a new subgenre of comedy, is largely a product of the sociological realities of national and global societies. Its lucrativeness and patriotism by its audiences reveal its popularity among its audiences over other forms of theatrical performances across the globe. Its dramatic shows bring succor and mirth to its target audience. When it is performed before its live audience, the stand-up comedians stylistically draw the attention of their audiences to social realities. Previous studies have drastically examined its entertaining significance and theatrical shows without considering its deeper satirical significance. Therefore, this paper deeply investigates how the selected stand-up comedians from Nigeria, South Africa and United States of America use their stand-up performances to lampoon inordinate ambition of homosexuality in their various societies. This is a bid to significantly show how stand-up comedy plays other social functions of social criticism besides its entertaining and theatrical functions in the given societies. The selected stand-up comedians are Godwin Komone (Gordons), Ayo Makun (AY), Nigeria; Trevor Noah, South Africa; Richard Pryor, United States of America. Schechner’s Performance, Freudian and Jungian psychoanalytic theories were used to analyse the embodied behaviours of the stand-up comedians. The data were subjected to performance and literary analyses.