WORT 89.9FM Madison · Comedy Against Work

If you think about it, the very idea of selling hours of your life to a nebulous entity that bosses you around for a while, then attempts to compensate you with some sort of agreed-upon scrip is fundamentally absurd.  Imagine trying to explain this arrangement to a Cro-Magnon human.  As long as work has existed, artists, comedians and satirists have found audiences eager to laugh at their workplace.  Look at any video streaming service or podcast site and try to count the number of workplace satires or stand-up routines pointing out how ridiculous it is to spend 8 hours a day or more doing someone else’s bidding for cash.  Is laughing at work just a way to blow off steam so we can go back to work the next day, or does some comedy point the way to a more revolutionary project: a world without work?  Madeline Lane McKinley writes about culture, feminism and Marxism.  When she sells hours of her life for money, she does so as a Lecturer in the Writing Program of the University of California Santa Cruz.  Her new book, “Comedy Against Work: Utopian Longing in Dystopian Times” is out now from Common Notions press.

 

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