Diagonal Character
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#01
Only a Joke Can Save Us: A Theory of Comedy · Todd McGowan · p.182
Ideology and Equality > Egalitarian Comedy
Theoretical move: McGowan argues that genuine egalitarian comedy must expose the division within authority itself (not merely mock discursive identities), running parallel to Hegel's move in the Phenomenology that substance is always also subject; this means egalitarian comedy can target both authority figures and the excluded, provided it refuses to idealize either pole as a substantial ground.
The vehicle for this subversion is a character that Badiou calls 'diagonal.' The diagonal character reveals that the identity of figures of power is a purely discursive identity, a symbolic fiction in which we have invested ourselves.