Don’t express yourself? Social justice versus artistic value in a popular singer’s stand up comedy (warning: contains code)

This paper responds to the popular singer Madonna’s attempt at stand up comedy, or one of her attempts at least. The audiences for comedy, in my experience, are mostly young people - 20 somethings or early 30 somethings - and Madonna is surely an expert at winning over such audiences, but her comedy seems suited for older audiences with more experience of life. Strange for someone with a reputation for business shrewdness: I present this as a dilemma. After addressing it, I introduce the suspicion that under the pressures of the comedian system (hostile audiences), Madonna will feel disposed to move towards more one liners - brief jokes - but this makes it hard to allow her to share her rich vat of experiences in comedic form: a project surely of artistic value. On the other hand, by doing one liners she stands more chance of amusing diverse audiences and she stands greater chance of social justice: we can track new one liners, given what we know and give her credit as a comedic craftswoman.