‘We Weren't Hip, Downtown People’

Abstract

This paper examines how discourses about obscurity, ambivalence and nostalgia serve to perpetuate cultural scenes. I consider Toronto bar and performance venue the Rivoli and Canadian comedy troupe the Kids in the Hall (KITH) as part of a cultural scene that existed on Queen Street West in the early 1980s. I analyse this case study through media discourses found in reviews and interviews about the scene and argue that representations of KITH's participation in the early days of the scene continue to legitimize the troupe as a groundbreaking and countercultural comedy team. That is, even now that they have ostensibly left ‘the scene’ they are still defined by it. In contemporary interviews with the group, their origins on the Queen West circuit, particularly at the Rivoli, are consistently used to frame them as innovators in Canadian comedy. These discourses also work to obscure the extent to which scenes are constructed and at times part of profoundly predictable taste cultures.

Keywords:

• scenes
• comedy
• Kids in the Hall
• Rivoli
• media discourses

Notes on contributor

Danielle J. Deveau is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Wilfrid Laurier University. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Simon Fraser University. She has published articles on comedy in Feminist Media Studies, Topia: The Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, and Humor: International Journal of Humor Research. She is the Project Lead for Pop Culture Lab, a Kitchener-based, interdisciplinary research centre specializing in the areas of art, culture, media, and the creative economy.

Notes

1 For a critique of the uses, history and meaning of the term ‘hip’, see Henderson (2011, pp. 13–15).

2 The CBC is Canada's national broadcaster (French language version: Radio-Canada). It operates as a hybrid public/private broadcaster as it receives government funding and carries a mandate to produce distinctly Canadian programming, but is also obligated to obtain funds through commercial sponsorship.