Comedy as a Coping Mechanism for Trauma and Political Upheaval in Not Funny

Thematic Claim: Humor as a Pressure Valve for Personal and Collective Trauma in Not Funny

In Not Funny, Jena Friedman presents comedy not as mere entertainment but as a survival mechanism—a way to metabolize grief, fear, and political catastrophe. The book’s central claim is that humor, especially dark and taboo-breaking humor, allows individuals and societies to confront trauma without being crushed by it. Friedman traces this coping strategy from her own childhood, where her mother used jokes to defuse grief, to her adult career, where she deploys abortion jokes and dead-baby humor to process the 2016 election, reproductive-rights crises, and the everyday sexism of the comedy industry. Yet the memoir also complicates this claim: comedy can misfire, alienate, and even be weaponized against the comedian, revealing the limits of laughter as a healing tool.

Tracing the Theme Across the Plot

1. From 9/11 to the Election Night Gaffe: Comedy as a Response to National Trauma

The prologue establishes the theme’s origin. Friedman explicitly states that the September 11 attacks inspired her to pursue comedy: “Watching people jump to their deaths on live TV just as I was about to enter my first year of college had a traumatizing effect on me and my entire generation.” That trauma, she explains, made her realize life is “short and random and sometimes tragic,” and comedy became her way of asserting control over chaos. She also credits her mother as a model: at her grandmother’s funeral, her grieving mother joked that twenty-eight-year-old Friedman was “not yet an adult,” a quip that “stung” but demonstrated how humor can “lighten the mood” even in profound sadness.

The theme culminates in the book’s opening anecdote: Friedman’s appearance on Stephen Colbert’s election-night special on November 8, 2016. As results turned against Hillary Clinton, Friedman felt “speechless and shocked,” but she knew she had to “come up with something funny.” Her response—comparing the moment to “an asteroid crashing into our democracy” and urging viewers to “get your abortions now”—was a desperate attempt to process political upheaval through a joke. The line bombed, drew gasps, and later generated hate mail and conservative media criticism. Yet Friedman defends it as prescient, noting that Roe v. Wade was overturned five years later. She writes, “Comedy is like that: even when it misfires, there’s usually some truth to it.” This moment encapsulates the theme’s promise and peril: humor can name a trauma, but it cannot always control how the audience receives it.

2. Dead Baby Jokes and Abortion Comedy: Healing Through Taboo

In the chapter “Dead Baby Jokes, or, How to Talk to a Fetus Lawyer,” Friedman expands the theme from personal to societal. She traces the history of dead-baby jokes to the 1960s and ’70s, arguing that they emerged as a “reflection of a traumatized society trying to heal itself through culture.” She cites folklorist Alan Dundes, who linked the jokes to the Vietnam War and cultural upheaval. Friedman reframes them as a “pressure valve” for anxieties around motherhood and abortion. She writes, “Dead baby jokes are… healing,” because they allow people to confront mortality and reproductive loss without being paralyzed by fear.

Friedman applies this logic to her own stand-up. She describes performing a “miscarriage joke” during the toxic political climate of 2019, when Republicans were passing restrictive abortion laws. The joke—which mocks the idea that miscarriages are shameful and points out that “one in three pregnancies is a miscarriage after the age of thirty-five”—was “the darkest joke I’ve ever performed,” but it “worked every time” in red and purple states. She explains that the joke’s honesty insulated her from criticism: “It’s rooted in honesty and inspired by batshit-crazy legislation.” Here, comedy becomes a way to process both personal grief (her friends’ miscarriages) and political rage (legislative attacks on reproductive rights). The chapter also connects to the symbol of abortion jokes, which Friedman calls “dead baby jokes for adults”—more pointed and political, but equally cathartic.

3. Comedy as a Coping Mechanism for Institutional Trauma: The iO Thesis and Edinburgh Reviews

The theme also operates on an institutional level. In the chapter “Not Funny,” Friedman recounts writing her undergraduate anthropology thesis on Chicago’s improv scene. She used comedy as a lens to expose sexism and racism at ImprovOlympic (iO), documenting a male teacher’s harassment and the theater’s “subtle racism.” The thesis was meant to be a form of critique, but it also served as a coping mechanism for her own discomfort: she wrote about a “benign” harassment anecdote “to add some levity to the otherwise heavy subject matter.” However, the comedy community did not welcome her analysis. She was kicked out of iO, and two female teachers reprimanded her for writing about sexual harassment. This backlash reveals a contradiction: comedy can be a coping tool for the comedian, but it can also threaten the institutions that rely on humor to mask dysfunction.

A later chapter, “Girl Having Sex, or, What We Talk about When We Talk about Likability,” shows Friedman using comedy to cope with sexist reviews of her Edinburgh Fringe show. After a male critic called her wit “rapier,” she turned the review into a joke: “I didn’t want to make fun of the reviewer with my rapier wit… but he was ASKING FOR IT.” She writes that this act “made me feel powerful” and gave her “a sense of control over my work.” Here, comedy becomes a way to reclaim agency from a culture that dismisses female comedians.

Character and Symbol Connections

The theme is embodied in several characters. Jena Friedman is the primary vehicle, using humor to process everything from 9/11 to the 2016 election. Her mother serves as the original model, demonstrating that laughter can coexist with grief. Jon Stewart, who appears in an interview chapter, reinforces the idea that comedians must accept pushback as part of the job—he tells Friedman, “You don’t need to apologize for any of it,” validating her use of comedy to expose double standards.

The symbols are equally central. Abortion jokes function as a coping mechanism for reproductive trauma and political threat, as seen in the Colbert gaffe and the miscarriage routine. Dead baby jokes represent the broader societal need to laugh at mortality and loss. Bombing on stage is another symbol: Friedman’s election-night line “bombed,” yet she insists it contained truth. Bombing becomes a metaphor for the risk of using comedy to cope—sometimes the audience rejects the medicine.

Complexity and Contradiction

Friedman does not present comedy as an unqualified cure. The election-night joke caused real harm: it was “misconstrued” by conservative media to paint pro-choice women as “cruel, heartless baby killers.” She admits she wished she had said something “softer and less alienating.” This tension—between the need to speak truth and the risk of alienating listeners—runs throughout the book. Similarly, dead baby jokes can be seen as offensive, but Friedman argues they are “completely innocuous” compared to racist jokes, because they target no real group. Yet she also acknowledges that the internet has amplified more dangerous humor, such as Nazi memes, which she cannot counteract.

The iO episode adds another layer: comedy as coping can be silenced by the very communities that claim to value humor. Friedman’s thesis was a form of coping with harassment, but it got her blacklisted. This suggests that comedy’s healing power depends on who controls the narrative.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does Friedman’s mother influence her understanding of comedy as a coping mechanism?

Friedman’s mother used humor to cope with grief, as seen at the grandmother’s funeral when she joked that Friedman was “not yet an adult.” Friedman explicitly states that her own comedy “stems from my attempt to do the same: to find levity in tragedy.” This maternal model frames comedy as a family inheritance and a survival skill.

2. Why does Friedman defend her “get your abortions now” joke despite its negative reception?

She argues that the joke contained a prescient truth—Roe v. Wade was overturned five years later—and that comedy, even when it misfires, “cuts through the bullshit.” She also notes that the hate mail and conservative criticism misrepresented her intent, but she does not apologize because “a cardinal rule of comedy is ‘never apologize.’”

3. How do dead baby jokes function as a societal coping mechanism in the book?

Friedman traces their origins to the Vietnam War era, calling them a “reflection of a traumatized society trying to heal itself through culture.” She argues they act as a “pressure valve” for anxieties about motherhood and abortion, allowing people to confront taboo subjects without being overwhelmed.

4. What contradiction does Friedman expose about comedy’s healing power in the iO chapter?

She uses comedy to critique sexism and harassment, but the comedy community punishes her for it. The thesis that was meant to expose dysfunction gets her kicked out, showing that comedy can be a coping tool for the individual but a threat to institutions that prefer to ignore their own trauma.

5. How does Friedman use comedy to reclaim control in the Edinburgh Fringe episode?

After receiving a sexist review that called her wit “rapier,” she turns the reviewer into the reviewed, joking that he was “ASKING FOR IT.” This act gives her “a sense of control over my work” and allows her to critique the culture that dismisses female comedians, transforming a painful experience into material.