An Analysis of Rhetorical Strategies in the Gendered Performances of Nigerian Male Stand-up Comedians

Abstract

Gender relations are enacted in the day-to-day lived experiences of men and women. Mundane practices such as talks and jokes may not only reflect the prevailing gender relations in society, but may also offer opportunities to contest them. Stand-up comedy, as a genre of comedy, is especially suitable in this regard because it is discursive in nature. Stand-up comedians achieve their aim of entertaining and exciting laughter often through gendered manipulations of language — hence, the genre of stand-up comedy offers a veritable site for investigating dominant gender representations in Nigeria. This study seeks to argue that rhetorical strategies are a chief means by which stand-up comedians succeed in their various representations of women and men, and by so doing implicate rhetoric in gender relations of power, as contested in the Nigerian context of stand-up comedy. The data for the study comprise nine selected volumes of two stand-up comedy shows in Nigeria, Nite of a Thousand Laughs and AY Live, which are analysed to examine the rhetorical strategies employed by Nigerian male stand-up comedians in their gendered performances.