The Comedian as Portrayer of Social Morality

Abstract

Although historically the pedigree for the modern role of professional comedian is about a hundred years old,¹ there is very much less appreciation of his role in terms of the mutual expectations of his behaviour in interaction with other significant role players, especially his audience in contemporary society. At the very least, of course, in the consistency of his orientation to his audience, the comedian is expected to make them laugh. We can, then, say simply that the role of professional comedian is to elicit or invoke laughter in other persons by telling jokes about subjects, objects, or human situations which his listeners can cognise or perceive as being humorous. This role, in fact, can better be seen as consisting of a range of role-types as indicated by the designations of ‘comedian’, ‘clown’, ‘satirist’, etc., in its more professional or occupational guise. (see Table 10.1 below).