Tiffany Midge
Tiffany Midge has a very dry, sarcastic humor. She does not overshare and invite the reader into
parts of her life which would not be deemed socially acceptable. She does not center her humor around
herself, but around white society at large. I feel like I compare everything to Samantha Irby, but only
because Irby writes so flawlessly. Midge's humor differs immensely from Irby's. I see the value in
Midge's humor, and her essays provide great representation for Indigenous Americans, but her comedy is
not entirely inviting. It does not need to be! But in the articles about comedy having the ability to change
the world, the caveat is that a wide audience needs to feel connected to the comedy in order to listen to
the message. In my opinion, Midge's work does not do that.
Midge's goal does not seem to be to save the world with her comedy; it seems to just be
representation for Indigenous Americans. This is also perfectly okay! In fact, her non-Indigenous
audience then learns something while reading her work. Two of her essays from the second half, "Feast
Smudge Snag" and "Eight Types of Native Moms" were clearly not written for a non-Indigenous
audience. There were a lot of references I did not get (generationally, pop culture wise, and culture wise),
and it made it a little bit more difficult to be engaged. Obviously Indigenous Americans should have a
voice in comedy. However, the audience Midge writes for appears to be a mainly Indigenous audience.
She differs in this approach from Irby, where Irby invites non-Black readers in to see that Black women
are people too. Midge does a lot less of this bridge building, which-- again-- is totally okay, but is
something that should be recognized.
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