Brown skin, white laughs: navigating the white humour regime at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe as brown comedians

Thesis

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is one of the most significant events in the global comedy landscape. Despite its official inclusive discourse, the Fringe has been heavily criticised for its lack of diversity in the public domain. This dissertation explores the dissonance between the official discourse and on-ground reality through ethnographic fieldwork among brown comedians at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe. Using participant observation and intensive interviews, this study explores how brown comedians navigate negotiate, and resist the political, economic, and creative challenges of the Fringe. I build on Foucault’s notion of ‘regime of truth’ to argue that the Fringe operates as a white humour regime that privileges white audiences and aesthetics while disadvantaging others. The heterogeneous identities and life histories of brown comedians become homogenised for their on-stage performances which are shaped by the humour regime to fit racially palatable tropes of ‘brownness’. This research highlights how comedians negotiate between identity, industry, and creative expression, positioning themselves across the spectrum of racial performativity and subversion. Through its emphasis on the structural inequalities, the thesis further challenges the meritocratic understanding of the performing arts and the tokenistic diversity, equality, and inclusion initiatives within them. Instead, comedy emerges as a site of contested cultural production embedded in broader socio-political hierarchies.

Authors: Kamdar, T

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-wxwdw200e
• Type of award: MPhil
• Level of award: Masters
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: South Asian comedians; cultural production; white humour regime; Edinburgh Festival Fringe
• Subjects: Anthropology