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“I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”: Humor as a Force for Disruption

“I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”: Humor as a Force for Disruption

Julie Faulkner, Bronwyn T. Williams
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 14
ISBN13: 9781613504956|ISBN10: 1613504950|EISBN13: 9781613504963
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61350-495-6.ch008
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MLA

Faulkner, Julie, and Bronwyn T. Williams. "“I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”: Humor as a Force for Disruption." Disrupting Pedagogies in the Knowledge Society: Countering Conservative Norms with Creative Approaches, edited by Julie Faulkner, IGI Global, 2012, pp. 108-121. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61350-495-6.ch008

APA

Faulkner, J. & Williams, B. T. (2012). “I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”: Humor as a Force for Disruption. In J. Faulkner (Ed.), Disrupting Pedagogies in the Knowledge Society: Countering Conservative Norms with Creative Approaches (pp. 108-121). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61350-495-6.ch008

Chicago

Faulkner, Julie, and Bronwyn T. Williams. "“I’m not Always Laughing at the Jokes”: Humor as a Force for Disruption." In Disrupting Pedagogies in the Knowledge Society: Countering Conservative Norms with Creative Approaches, edited by Julie Faulkner, 108-121. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2012. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61350-495-6.ch008

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Abstract

Humor in popular culture plays with our perceptions and sense of dislocation. The inherently ambiguous logic of humor allows for multiple interpretations of social phenomena, and constructs the world as arbitrary, multiple, and tenuous (Mulkay, 1988). At the same time, humor is one of the central elements of much of what young people find appealing in popular culture. Exploring the potential of humor to interrogate cultural assumptions, Australian and American students participated in a cross-cultural television study. The student cohorts then communicated on line, developing their reading of the sitcom in a cross-cultural forum. Their responses highlight the disruption to accepted patterns of social order that the play upon form, or parody, delivers. Through exploring ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ readings of a television parody, this chapter explores how humorous conventions function to reflexively position readers, and thus invite critical readings of popular and engaging texts. It also examines broader questions of the role of the US in producing and distributing popular culture, and how readers might find creative and critical ways to deal with culturally disparate world views.

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