The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy

This article outlines the ‘reverse discourses’ of black, African-American and Afro-Caribbean comedians in the UK and USA. These reverse discourses appear in comic acts that employ the sign-systems of embodied and cultural racism but develop, or seek to develop, a reverse semantic effect. I argue the...

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Main Author:	Simon Weaver
Format:	Default Article
Published:	2010
Subjects:	Other human society not elsewhere classified Other language, communication and culture not elsewhere classified Ambivalence Comedy Humour Reverse discourse Rhetoric Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified
Online Access:	https://hdl.handle.net/2134/6679
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id	rr-article-9471875
record_format	Figshare
spelling	rr-article-94718752010-01-01T00:00:00Z The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy Simon Weaver (7188047) Other human society not elsewhere classified Other language, communication and culture not elsewhere classified Ambivalence Comedy Humour Reverse discourse Rhetoric Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified This article outlines the ‘reverse discourses’ of black, African-American and Afro-Caribbean comedians in the UK and USA. These reverse discourses appear in comic acts that employ the sign-systems of embodied and cultural racism but develop, or seek to develop, a reverse semantic effect. I argue the humour of reverse discourse is significant in relation to racism because it forms a type of resistance that can, first, act rhetorically against racist meaning and so attack racist truth claims and points of ambivalence. Second, and connected to this, it can rhetorically resolve the ambiguity of the reverse discourse itself. Alongside this, and paradoxically, reverse discourses also contain a polysemic element that can, at times, reproduce racism. The article seeks to develop a means of analysing the relationship between racist and non-racist meaning in such comedic performance. 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Text Journal contribution 2134/6679 https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/The_Other_laughs_back_humour_and_resistance_in_anti-racist_comedy/9471875 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
institution	Loughborough University
collection	Figshare
topic	Other human society not elsewhere classified Other language, communication and culture not elsewhere classified Ambivalence Comedy Humour Reverse discourse Rhetoric Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified
spellingShingle	Other human society not elsewhere classified Other language, communication and culture not elsewhere classified Ambivalence Comedy Humour Reverse discourse Rhetoric Language, Communication and Culture not elsewhere classified Studies in Human Society not elsewhere classified Simon Weaver The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
description	This article outlines the ‘reverse discourses’ of black, African-American and Afro-Caribbean comedians in the UK and USA. These reverse discourses appear in comic acts that employ the sign-systems of embodied and cultural racism but develop, or seek to develop, a reverse semantic effect. I argue the humour of reverse discourse is significant in relation to racism because it forms a type of resistance that can, first, act rhetorically against racist meaning and so attack racist truth claims and points of ambivalence. Second, and connected to this, it can rhetorically resolve the ambiguity of the reverse discourse itself. Alongside this, and paradoxically, reverse discourses also contain a polysemic element that can, at times, reproduce racism. The article seeks to develop a means of analysing the relationship between racist and non-racist meaning in such comedic performance.
format	Default Article
author	Simon Weaver
author_facet	Simon Weaver
author_sort	Simon Weaver (7188047)
title	The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
title_short	The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
title_full	The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
title_fullStr	The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
title_full_unstemmed	The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
title_sort	'other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy
publishDate	2010
url	https://hdl.handle.net/2134/6679
_version_	1797471518769283072

The 'Other' laughs back: humour and resistance in anti-racist comedy

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