Yawp Mag ISSUE 20: The Festival that Was | Page 37

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Tisdell from Queensland, who was the overall
winner on the day.
When asked about some differences between
Indigenous and mainstream comedy, Tisdell
notes that, “being an Indigenous competition,
there was an element of story telling and material covering Aboriginal issues and stories”. It’s
true that Aboriginal humour does have some big
differences to what many caucasians may be
used to.
According to the website ‘Creative Spirits’, a site
that encourages people to discover what Aboriginal life is like today, a key characteristic of Aboriginal people is their sense of humour and their
matter how serious, in order to deal with whatever circumstances they may encounter.
Indigenous humour, “we’re actually really funny
people. We don’t sit around just talking about
politics most of the time; instead, we’re telling
yarns with our aunties and uncles and making
fun of ourselves”. Kropinyeri is also quoted on
the ‘Creative Spirits’ website describing how different Aboriginal humour can be to mainstream
humour, “we’ver got different stories, we’ve got a
different brand of comedy”.

As Kropinyeri can attest, winning ‘Deadly
Funny’ can be a huge boost and help launch
a career. Stephanie Tisdell, however, nearly
missed the opportunity to enter the prestigious competition altogether, “I entered the
competition after being told about it from
my cousin”, she recalls, “I actually missed
the work shops and I thought, because I’d
asked so late, they wouldn’t let me enter.
Luckily, I was wrong”. Luckily indeed, as
winning the competition gave Tisdell the
dollars.
I had no idea at all I would win, I just couldn’t
believe I had the opportunity”, Tisdell adds,
“but the win, if nothing else, has boosted my
larly as a comedian.” The competition has
now given the twenty-two year old the conwith an overwhelmingly large amount of self
doubt that irked me and made me think it
wasn’t a sensible option. Just having some
backing now makes it seen possible. Plus
that”.