<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Have you ever felt really bad about something you were going through, but used up jokes to hide the crisis you were dealing with? I know I’ve been there, and so has Hannah Gadsby by using stand up comedy as a muse to talk about controversial topics and issues in her life. Nevertheless, we can become so caught up in a humorous world we create for ourselves that we forget what reality is. Therefore, Gadsby defies expectations and opens up about how real these issues are, from mental health of artists to a ignorant president in the White House. She shifts the conversation completely by showing us how everyone has a voice and can use it to call out the struggles they are dealing with. The tension she builds for her audience is crucial and is even a sort of rhetoric to persuade them about how the patriarchal oppression we live under is very harmful to everyone. The top of an iceberg from a distance looks like a small block of ice, but there is a colossal amount of it under the water that no one notices. People cling to the idea that dark jokes are just “black humor” but Gadsby exposes the underside of the iceberg when she challenges the culture of abuse and how we portray art. Sedgwick also has similar ideas to her and he critiques serious social issues and their impact on evolving society. I resonated with Gadsby extremely since we both were once queer women afraid of the world and constantly made self deprecating jokes to hide the pain. I’m extremely proud and happy that she has moved past it, but it was a wake up call for me that humor isn’t going to solve my issues. There are real problems that need actual attention and to be honest, the comedy was kind of inspiring. </span>
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