"Nanette": Knocking Down Genres (and Genders)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze Hannah Gadsby: Nanette, an audiovisual record of the stand-up comedy show of the same name created by Gadsby, available on Netflix. Such record is conceived not as a substitute for the performance but as an approximation to it: the result of a particular analysis, based on interpretative and stylistic choices. In this sense, the first purpose of this study will be to show how these two writings –the audiovisual and the theatrical– work, as well as how they interact. Regarding the theatrical writing, it is observed that, with Nanette, the comedian breaks –to a certain extent– with stand-up comedy, one of the variants of one-person theater. Thus, a second purpose will be to characterize the formal structure of this modality and to point out how the show in question puts it in crisis. Finally, Gadsby not only breaks with a theatrical genre, but also with the binary conception of gender and the labels created around it. Her speech can be linked to Judith Butler's theoretical work as well as to queer theory. Reflecting these connections will be the third and last purpose of this work.