Thinking Twice: Uses of Comedy to Challenge Islamophobic Stereotypes

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov, Series IV: Philology and Cultural Studies , 2019

The goal of this study is to argue that humour as an entertaining and funny way of perceiving and discursively constructing social affairs is most useful and appropriate in literacy courses, because it could sensitise students to how and why people produce humour as well as to its potentially aggressive and deprecating functions. More specifically, a critical literacy approach to teaching about humour is proposed, focusing on material where 'antiracist' humour is employed to undermine racist ideologies, but occasionally ends up supporting them. Some tentative teaching activities are put forward, which could help students detect humorous and racist ambiguities. Finally, potential objections and reservations concerning teaching about humour, racism, and anti-racism within a critical literacy framework are briefly addressed.

Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 2014

http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/xB7C643qZ9sF3qPHrDDI/full Abstract: From the frequency of the racially motivated and racially-justified slayings of black youth to the increased popularity of blatantly derisive racist humour, the enactment of race and racism appears to have become more defiantly overt and unapologetic. Yet this upswing of racist incidents seems to accompany the rise to prominence of Barack Obama, whose candidacy and election also paradoxically ushered in an American post-racialist discourse. In this contradictory context, humour is a popular technology for weaving together these apparently opposing currents. This article, argues that post-racialist humour is eminently pedagogical, playing a key role in the communication of racial knowledge in the post-racialist climate when race is unspeakable. Drawing theoretically upon Goldberg’s (2009; 2012) analyses of neo-liberal racism and the concept of “racial dis-appearance” (Goldberg 2012), it examines some of the racial humour directed at the Obamas occurring as political cartoons and online. It argues that the contemporary use of historical racist tropes in humour betrays a deep and enduring societal racist literacy rooted in racial history, and performs a specific function of casting and recasting racial boundaries in ways that are congruent with the work performed historically by these tropes. Paying attention to the ways that the racist history of these tropes is denied, I map out some of the features that distinguish racial knowledge and literacy in the post-racialist era from that in the colour-blind era that it is quickly replacing. Framing post-racialist humour as racial plagiarism, I conclude by offering some thoughts about the form that resistance to post-racialist humour, and more broadly post-racialist knowledge, might take.

Some humor, while making us laugh, contains shadows of hostility toward those who cause strife – the racists, the bigots, the unaware and uneducated. Believe it or not, humor does have the ability to educate, to counter stereotypes and, if all else fails, to get even. Although humor can perpetuate and preserve stereotypes, it can also redress a wide variety of prejudices and preconceptions. Humor may not have been a powerful enough weapon to overthrow despotic regimes such as, for example, the US during slavery, Nazi Germany, or the former Soviet Union, but it did provide hope to the oppressed. This paper examines humor used by all kinds of oppressed people including African-Americans, Asians, women, Moslems, the disabled, and Jews. The authors conclude that society is better off if people get even with bullies and persecutors using humor rather than violence. Humor can educate the educable. Humor provides victims with psychological strength, and enables them to rise above despair and hopelessness.

2015

This research investigates the audience perceptions of Muslim standup comedy by Muslim-American college and university students. The research question is 'Do Muslim-Americans feel as if Muslim standup comedy is painting a new image of Islam and Muslims?' There has yet to be any published research that asks Muslim-Americans for their perspectives regarding Muslim standup comedy. Since Muslim-Americans are some of the consumers of Muslim standup comedy, this demographic is necessary to study when it comes to exploring the consumption of Muslim standup comedy. The methodology for this research is a qualitative method that involves semi-structured indepth interviews with Muslim-Americans. I sampled Muslim-American college and university students from various colleges and universities throughout the Chicago-land and Illinois area. Respondents are between the ages of 18-30 years. The respondents were recruited through snowball sampling for this research, since the respondents were interconnected to the same social group. Muslim-Americans provided their own perspectives regarding the role that Muslim standup comedy has with their lives.

Khan, A, 2018

This article uses the lens of the General Theory of Verbal Humour (Raskin, Hempelmann, & Taylor 2009) to examine the patterns of humour created in the selected sample of five E-media cartoons disseminated on the World Wide Web in the year 2017. Due to the hybrid nature of the sample, the critical terminology introduced by Kukkonen (2013) for studying comics and graphic novels has been employed to study the representation of a veiled Muslim woman in the cartoons. Owing to the increased importance of electronic media the (re)production of discursive image of Muslim woman and her veil as an icon of stereotypical representation needs to be critically examined for perpetuating stereotypes. This practice, which is a unique kind of oppression, deprives a Muslim woman from following the dress code of her choice and marginalises the women who consider veil a form of empowerment freeing them from the beauty game of capitalist society. This beauty game forces a woman to ensure gloss in her hair, the glow in her face and continues to force them to struggle to attain that (non-existent) perfect Barbie doll figure. This research establishes that the Muslim women are portrayed as a homogeneous group devoid of any individual characteristics. The flawed assumptions about Islam make her burqa appear like a stooge reflected in strikingly similar patterns in the cartoons.

The European Journal of Humour Research, 2023

Audiovisual texts are social semiotic constructions that arbitrate reality according to a set of discursive patterns and established beliefs. Therefore, it is natural for translators to recreate and manipulate audiovisual texts to overcome challenges pertaining to religion, culture, and politics, which are the three intrinsic determinants of positioning in any translation project. Leaning on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a methodological approach, this paper aims to investigate how stereotypes and disparagement humour about Arabs and Muslims are dealt with in translating a segment from Family Guy into Arabic. The focus of the paper is on examining ideology-related shifts, and how and to what degree the students manipulated or mitigated religio-cultural barriers, as well as on assessing the role of visuals in the decisionmaking process. The students' translations denote the inextricable intertwining of their authoritative voices and the act of translation, that is, some students consciously attempted to expose the writers' intentions, while others subverted the text as a protective and resistive measure against the anti-Islamic, racist, sexual humour of the show.

… Journal of Humor …, 2008

At the 2006 conference of the International Society for Humor Studies (Danish University of Education, Copenhagen), several panels addressed issues raised by the Muhammad cartoon story. Among these, a colloquium organized by Paul Lewis and decorously titled ''Transnational Ridicule and Response'' focused on the implications for humor research of the events surrounding the publication of the cartoons. Along with other materials, panelists were encouraged to review summaries of and timelines for the story available from the BBC and Wikipedia. Of the questions considered by panelists, the following drew interesting and, at times, provocative responses: Were the cartoons humorous; if so, did they represent a distinct or new kind of humor? Were the modes of global transmission of the cartoons new? Does the story have implications for ongoing humor research and advocacy? The goal was to approach the controversy not as partisans with particular political outlooks but as students of humor. The brief essays collected here were written following the conference by members of the panel (Christie Davies, Giselinde Kuipers, Paul Lewis, and Victor Raskin) and by two others who attended the colloquium (Elliott Oring and Rod A. Martin). After reviewing the essays, HUMOR editor Salvatore Attardo suggested that each of the participants be invited to read what the others had written and submit a brief response. Responses included here were received from Davies, Kuipers, Lewis, Oring, and Raskin.

While humor has long been documented as a useful teaching tool, it is almost entirely untheorized in terms of its potential for multicultural education. Specifically, the learning opportunities that racial comedic media offer in multicultural and anti-racist coursework is a particularly under-studied area, while research in this vein has great potential to positively affect pedagogies both within and beyond courses on critical multicultural education. In this article, two instructors, together with their students, examine the use of racial comedy as a teaching tool for multicultural education. The article begins by providing a brief overview of the literature on racial comedy and use of comedy in teaching, followed by a close look at salient characteristics of the teaching and learning environment of the course that allowed this work to emerge. The crux of the article centers on the identification and exploration of four themes, or interpretive tensions, animated by the class’ engagement with racial comedy, and thusly helps illuminate the possibilities and complexities of utilizing racial comedy for multicultural education: (1) insider humor carries questions about who holds permission to initiate racial jokes and who is allowed to laugh at them; (2) perceptions of comedic irresponsibility inspired discussion around delineating between critical race comedy versus overtly racist comedy, and the gray areas in between; (3) educative commentary ensconced within racial comedy, such as that of many Dave Chappelle sketches, revealed our concerns about viewers who, lacking historicity and knowledge of root contexts undergirding the comedy, would likely misinterpret the humorous scenarios and thusly have their own racist stereotypes reinforced; and (4), while parody is humorous because of its inherent ridiculousness, we found that parodic racial comedy may create the opportunity for a slightly uncomfortable self-check, where the viewer can process her or his own actions and responses (assuming that he or she is receptive to such thinking). In highlighting these interpretive tensions, this analysis offers guidance for instructors and facilitators embarking on this journey, and furthermore contributes to our understanding of the possible pedagogical benefits from using racial comedy more broadly.

The aftermath of 9/11 and the corresponding rise of global mil-itarism and imperialism have had deep consequences for the realities of Muslims around the world. The reemergence of Orientalist representations have provided the ideological justifications for military incursions. This short reflective article outlines the challenge that critical educators faced in developing an epistemological and pedagogical framework and resources for anti-Islamophobia education in response to the resurgence of neo-Orientalist politics and representations.

2013

Over the last few years, humour has provided many Muslims with a means of seeking to establish a positive sense of self-identity, as well as a means of challenging misconceptions and fears of Islam in a wide variety of countries on both sides of the Atlantic. This article brings together two interviews with performers who use comedy to engage with perceptions of Islam and (re-)present Muslims in a generally non-threatening and everyday context. It compares and contrasts atrio of American stand-up comedians who tour under the name ‘Allah Made Me Funny’ and the two French performers who created ‘À part ça tout va bien’/‘Apart from that everything’s fine’, a humorous web series in France. The interviews provide an insight into processes of identity negotiation and (re)presentation by performers based in countries with very differing approaches to multiculturalism and diversity.