Humor in the Midst of the AIDS Epidemic: Jokes, Absurdity, and Denial as Coping Mechanisms in Three American Gay Dramas

ABSTRACT This article focuses on humor as a coping mechanism and a means of dealing with trauma during the AIDS crisis in three important gay American plays written and performed during the first decade of the AIDS epidemic: William Hoffman’s As Is (1985), Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart (1985), and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1991–92). These dramas demonstrate how satire, sarcasm, incongruity theory humor, absurdist denial, and gallows humor enable characters with AIDS to cope emotionally with their disease during an era that was frightening because of the dearth of information about the disease and because of intense homophobia, and to maintain their sanity and dignity during a horrific time in their lives.