American Cornball is Christopher Miller's irresistibly funny illustrated survey of popular humor--the topics that used to make us laugh, from hiccups and henpecked-husbands to outhouses and old maids--and what it tells us about our country yesterday and today.
Miller revisits nearly 200 comic staples that have been passed down through our culture for generations, many originating from the vaudeville age. He explores the (often unseemly) contexts from which they arose, why they were funny in their time, and why they eventually lost their appeal. The result is a kind of taxonomy of humor during America's golden age that provides a deeper, more profound look at the prejudices, preoccupations, and peculiarities of a nation polarized between urban and rural, black and white, highborn and lowbrow.
As he touches on issues of racism and sexism, cultural stereotypes and violence, Miller reveals how dramatically our moral sensibilities have shifted, most notably in the last few decades. Complete with more than 100 period illustrations, American Cornball is a richly entertaining survey of our shifting comic universe.
| ISBN: | 9780062225184 |
| Publication date: | 17th November 2015 |
| Author: | Christopher Miller |
| Publisher: | Harper Paperbacks an imprint of HarperCollins |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 544 pages |
| Genres: |
Strip cartoons Television Biography: general Anthologies: general Gender studies: women and girls History Social and cultural history Humour collections and anthologies Graphic novel / Comic book / Manga: styles / traditions Graphic novel / Comic book / Manga: Memoirs, true stories and non-fiction |