MLA 2022: The Power of Laughter: Discursive Communities and the Deconstruction of Social Hierarchies
In her 2014 text, All Joking Aside, Rebecca Krefting argued that “Jokesters unmask inequality by identifying the legal arrangements and cultural attitudes and beliefs contributing to their subordinated status—joking about it, challenging that which has become normalized and compulsory, and offering new solutions and strategies” (2). Humor has long been a tool for upsetting the status quo, for questioning the social institutions that exalt some, while leaving so many others behind. But does this comedic approach succeed in effecting change? What are the tangible results of challenging the existing situation?