The ‘Other’ Laughs Back: Humour and Resistance in Anti-racist Comedy

Weaver, Simon

doi:10.1177/0038038509351624

Cited by 106 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…In short, emotions are a constituent part of any social phenomenon, whether it be conflict between partners (Retzinger, 1991), violence (Collins, 2008), the Christmas season (Schervish et al, 1996), law and legal processes (Grossi, 2015;Nussbaum, 2006), the attack on September 11 (Burkitt, 2005;Kemper, 2002), politics (Demertzis, 2013), comedy series on television (Weaver, 2010), or trends in the stock market (Berezin, 2009). And this fact requires the development of a sociology which studies the complex existing affective structures and emotional dynamics in the context of social life.…”

Section: The Emotional Nature Of Social Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The sociology of emotions: Four decades of progress

2015

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The emotions that human beings experience play a fundamental role in all social phenomena. As a result, sociology needs to incorporate the analysis of affective structures and emotional dynamics into its objects of study. The integration of feelings, affects, moods and emotional states into sociological research, which began four decades ago with the birth of the sociology of emotions, must continue advancing until emotions are fully integrated into the general sociological perspective. This article offers an introductory and critical overview of the work sociologists of emotions have carried out so far. They have helped us, first of all, to understand what an emotion is, the countless number of existing feelings, and the great complexity of emotional processes. Second, they have revealed the social nature of human emotions, and the emotional nature of social phenomena. Third, they have developed a number of theoretical approaches to studying the emotions. And, lastly, they have carried out sociological analyses of many specific emotions (fear, trust, shame, etc.), and emotional analyses in many areas of sociology (gender, work, organizations, social movements, etc.). This article also offers suggestions for the future development of the sociology of emotions, and a selected and updated bibliography.

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Section: The Emotional Nature Of Social Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The sociology of emotions: Four decades of progress

2015

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“…@CultureIsLife: "We gave you the right to "x"#whiteproverbs-being forced to stop denying ppl rights is not quite the same thing as "giving" ppl rights These quite extensive commentaries on the proverbs indicate the seriousness of the game, despite the overall playfulness of the meme. This reduces some of the risk of irony that the audience will not understand, although in doing so it reduces the humor and makes the discussion heavier (Jacobs & Smith, 1997, p. 74 In these responses, we see explicit examples of the kind of reverse discourse that makes humor a liberating act for nonWhite people (Pérez, 2013;Weaver, 2010).…”

Section: @Drsrp1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Your Privilege Is Trending: Confronting Whiteness on Social Media

Petray

2017

Social Media + Society

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Social media activism provides an important space for dialogue and consciousness-raising. Racism, privilege, and inequalities have received considerable attention in social media discussions. #WhiteProverbs was one attempt to confront this issue, focusing particularly on White privilege. The tweets show how social media is a site where “serious games” are played, as agents are constrained by the “rules” but still able to make choices and push boundaries. This article explores the #WhiteProverbs tweets that came from Australian users to better understand how Australian social media users understand and confront whiteness. Through the use of humor, specifically irony and sarcasm, Twitter users identify a number of key ways that White privilege is reproduced, including justifications for racial inequality, questioning claims to racial differences, and constructing an exclusively White national identity.

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“…Jokes from US websites have been selected because the mechanisms are clearer than both the rhetor and the audience, and thus lead to an emphasis on the comic tropes used in the jokes. It is accepted that joking is often a highly ambiguous activity (see also Weaver 2010), and that the jokes used in this article represent a hard form of racism. That said, I will unpack some of the ambiguities that exist in these jokes.…”

Section: Approaches To Rhetorical Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a rhetorical analysis of racist humour: examining anti-black jokes on the Internet

Weaver

2010

Social Semiotics

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Racist humour is frequently the subject of media and public debate in relation to issues of offence and acceptability. Despite this, little has been done to analyse it or its relationship to other forms of racism. I argue that an analysis of racist humour needs to account for the rhetorical structures of humour Á to consider humour as a rhetorical device similar to metaphor or metonym Á that has a persuasive potential. Using jokes from four US websites, the rhetorical aspects of humour are unpacked through the use of rhetorical discourse analysis and semiotic theories of humour. I then identify an important effect of racist humour. Zygmunt Bauman's ideas on the problem of ambivalence for dichotomous discourse and category formation are employed to argue that racist humour expresses racist dichotomies and has the potential, among others, to ''hide'' the ambivalence to which such dichotomies are prone. The article then considers the meaning and ambivalence of less severe racist joking.

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The ‘Other’ Laughs Back: Humour and Resistance in Anti-racist Comedy

Cited by 106 publications

References 13 publications

The sociology of emotions: Four decades of progress

The sociology of emotions: Four decades of progress

Your Privilege Is Trending: Confronting Whiteness on Social Media

Developing a rhetorical analysis of racist humour: examining anti-black jokes on the Internet

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