Prank comedy has long been a limited but enduring television genre. (Of course “Crank Yankers” is being rebooted.) But nearly every lowbrow form, from gangster flicks to horror movies, eventually gets repackaged as prestige, and in recent years, some skilled pranksters have been making their move.

Last year, Sacha Baron Cohen used various disguises to pull off the most startling political humor of the Trump era on the Showtime series “Who Is America?”; and on Comedy Central’s “Nathan for You,” Nathan Fielder turned elaborate real-world stunts into unexpectedly emotional and intricate narratives. These artists expanded the ambition of the prank show while still clinging to its queasy-making juvenile roots. The latest sneaky star of this new wave, the comedian Jena Friedman, introduces a gonzo feminist perspective in her Adult Swim show, “Soft Focus With Jena Friedman” that doesn’t just crack jokes about misogynist violence. It offers the giddy pleasure of payback.

Last year, Friedman, in character as an unflappable news reporter, did a biting segment on campus rape in which she persuaded three college frat brothers to drag around life-size female dolls called Cannot Consent Carrie. And in a bracing episode last month she built a more elaborate mousetrap involving sexual harassment in online gaming. The bit’s conceit was, If men knew what being victims of sexual harassment and abuse felt like, would that change anything?

After inviting male gamers to take part in “a virtual reality immersive experience on what it’s like to be a woman,” she gives them VR headsets that offer a vision of a sexually aggressive man, played by a porn star she hired, approaching them, pulling his penis out and then masturbating into a plant. Meanwhile, Freidman sneaks near her subjects, whose headsets shield their vision, and sprays them with water while rubbing a hot dog on their arms. When asked afterward, Friedman denies touching them. “That’s gaslighting,” one guy protests, and, of course, that’s the point.