‘Laughing ourselves out of the closet’: comedy as a queer pedagogical form

This paper explores comedy as a queer pedagogical form that  subverts problematic representational tropes of queerness  pervading mainstream depictions of queer experience.  Articulating ‘form’ less as a fixed arrangement of characters,  images, objects, and ideas, and more as a kind of formation  that positions these in dynamic relation to the wider context  in which comedies are encountered, we mobilise the idea of  queer pedagogical forms to capture how comedy can foster  new modes of thinking about and embodying queerness for,  and with, audiences. Drawing on specific examples from  Schitt’s Creek and Derry Girls, we document the potential of  specific comedic modalities (e.g. irony, sarcasm, irreverence,  and slapstick) to foster alternative representations of queerness, in which normative tropes are poked fun at, problematised, and reimagined. Through these examples, we  demonstrate how comedies can enable us to ‘laugh our-selves out of the closets’ we live by, feel, navigate, and  embody.