Abstract
Stand-up comedy raises questions about the quality of and limits to democracy in post-apartheid South Africa. It does so by telling a before democracy and after apartheid story in the mushrooming of comedians and comedy venues and in the generational differences between comedians and their approaches to comedy since 1994. This before-and-after story marks out boundaries between the old puritanical strictures and censorship of the National Party's apartheid and the new possibilities for freedom and enjoyment in a democracy riddled with profound social and political problems of extreme violence and poverty — and run by the ANC, a ruling party with a strong sense of entitlement to State power.
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