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- Title
Gender and Humour: Reinventing the Genres of Laughter.
- Authors
Keck, Annette; Poole, Ralph J.
- Abstract
What happens when women laugh outright, seemingly out of control, making a spectacle of themselves? Ever since Freud claimed that it is woman being laughed at and man doing the laughing,On the tendentious joke in particular, i.e. the 'dirty' joke ("Zote"), Freud remarks: "Der tendenziöse Witz braucht im allgemeinen drei Personen, außer der, die den Witz macht, eine zweite, die zum Objekt der feindseligen oder sexuellen Aggression genommen wird, und eine dritte, an der sich die Absicht des Witzes, Lust zu erzeugen, erfüllt. […] Durch die zotige Rede des Ersten wird das Weib vor diesem Dritten entblößt, der nun als Zuhörer - durch die mühelose Befriedigung seiner eigenen Libido - bestochen wird" (114). See, however, Michael Billig, who in discussing this passage concedes: "Freud's argument is theoretically interesting for the way that he links male sexual joking with both sexual frustration and aggressive degradation. It is also rhetorically interesting: the section contains not a single example. Freud did not want smutty talk in his book" (162). laughter has entered contested gendered territory. What, indeed, happens when Medusa returns the male gaze and laughs herself as Hélène Cixous famously suggested making fun of the Freudian theory of woman's notorious lack? "You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing," claims Cixous (2048). But why, however, is it that whenever women (dare to) laugh, this laughter is considered breaking limits, rules and taboos? Does that mean, on the other hand, that male laughter necessarily remains within established boundaries of proper conduct and expected behaviour? What then happens when men become the objects rather than subjects of laughter, being ridiculed by women's humour? And above all we may ask whether humour is necessarily gendered, thus invariably reinforcing gender boundaries that otherwise have long been contested and overturned?
- Subjects
LAUGHTER; WIT &; humor; GENDER; BILLIG, Michael; ATTITUDES toward sex
- Publication
Gender Forum, 2011, Issue 33, p1
- ISSN
1613-1878
- Publication type
Article