The Blue Collar Comedy Tour: Southern Fried Humor in the Context of Class Society

摘要

A popular culture phenomenon of some note over the last few years has been the emergence, and substantial popular and commercial success, of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. The Tour, and related movies, books, television series and specials, and spin-off merchandise, consists of joint appearances by four established American comics who have developed comic personas based on stereotypical ideas, jokes and representations of “blue-collar” or “redneck” behavior and lifestyles. The success of the Tour, and its individual members, is analyzed in light of the role comedy plays in a highly stratified class society such as the United States.