From its origins, comedy has been not only a popular form of entertainment, but a powerful medium for critiquing society and shaping public consciousness. Comedy is generally at its best when it challenges the status quo.
It has served a potent tool of social resistance in revolutionary history. During the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Mayakovsky produced plays which used humour and satire to criticise the old Tsarist regime and promote Bolshevik ideas.
The commodification of comedy shifts its purpose from generating laughter through providing a unique perspective on life, to generating profit.
It becomes diluted by the need to appeal to mass audiences and promoters. Mainstream comedians are pressured to conform to market-friendly content, avoiding material which may alienate promoters.
Commercial comedy
In Britain, the comedy scene has become increasingly commercialised, with a focus on corporate sponsorships and high-profile television deals.
It offers a sanitised version of comedy, one that avoids critiquing any element of capitalist society too sharply. After all, only the comedians who are willing to echo the opinion of the British establishment have any chance of “making it”.
The contemporary comedy scene is also majority a gig economy. Performers work under conditions of harsh financial instability and job instability, particularly for working class comedians.
At the start of their careers, most comedians will go at least six months before receiving even £5 for a performance. Unless an act is lucky enough to catch some “big break” paid gigs come few and far between even five years into a comedy career.
This makes the industry inaccessible for working class acts, who don’t have a cushion of money to fall back on.
Fringe
Sadly, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, despite being celebrated for its ‘diversity’, continues to starkly reveal these economic disparities.
Participation costs – including accommodation, venue hire, fringe registration and promotion materials – are no laughing matter, racking up into the thousands.
Furthermore, the venue times offered to new or non-mainstream acts tend to be either in the middle of the day or night.
If you have a full-time day job, you’re either plainly excluded or forced to abandon your wellbeing in the hope your show will draw an audience larger than three.
Yet, even as capitalism attempts to crush any enjoyment out of the entertainment industry, the Fringe still offers a glimpse of comedy’s potential – culturally, and for the purposes of revolution.
Amongst the commercially-driven acts that make up the majority of Edinburgh’s 1,373 shows this year, there remains a small space for radical and subversive performances that develop comedy in fresh directions, or critique the failing capitalist system.
The sheer concentration of talent in Edinburgh in August makes it inevitable that, despite the many barriers, some working class talent willing to provide that bold voice that audiences crave so much, will break through.
But we deserve more than the chance of some talent trickling through the cracks.
Liberating comedy from the constraints of the market, as part of society being freed from these same chains, would give real opportunity to countless talented comedians, stuck now in the grind of an exploitative industry and exhausting day jobs to fund the dream.
Comedy can be a formidable weapon in the class struggle, exposing the absurdities of capitalism – but so too will class struggle galvanise and revolutionise the comedy that we know today.
