{"title":"Cartoons on trial: a case study integrating discursive, legal and empirical perspectives","authors":"Ana Pedrazzini, Tjeerd Royaards","doi":"10.1515/humor-2022-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2022-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper focuses on two controversial cartoons that elicited debates around the conflicts between freedom of expression and the right to satire on the one hand, and the protection of the reputation or rights of others on the other. Paying special attention to genre-related aspects, we adopt a comprehensive approach that combines a discourse analysis of the cartoons, the analysis of the legal cases that followed their publication, and the assessment by 68 cartoonists from 33 nationalities on the clarity and offensiveness of the selected cartoons. The cartoons were published in Charlie Hebdo (France) and El Universo (Ecuador), respectively. Based on our analyses, we propose that the main triggers of discursive controversy are the target as well as the modal and rhetorical ways of addressing a theme. We also conclude that: (1) The plaintiff’s most relevant arguments deny the satirical status of these cartoons; (2) The high disparity in the cartoonists’ assessments of Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon can be associated with its ambiguity when addressing a sensitive issue; (3) Regardless of their positive or negative assessment, cartoonists have a strong position in defense of the authors’ and newspapers’ right to publish them; (4) No significant differences were found in the assessment of the cartoons in relation to the geographical origin of the cartoonists who took part in the questionnaire.","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"3 1","pages":"361 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84269571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Imagining interdisciplinary dialogue in the European Court of Justice’s Deckmyn decision: conceptual challenges when law and technology regulate parody","authors":"K. Breemen, V. Breemen","doi":"10.1515/humor-2021-0119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0119","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In Deckmyn v Vandersteen, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) defined parody as an “autonomous concept of EU law” with certain “essential characteristics.” The case revolved around a parodic drawing modeled after a cover of the well-known Suske & Wiske comic book series. Building on literary theory on parody, including the work of Genette, this paper will analyze both the ECJ’s reasoning in Deckmyn and the preceding Advocate General’s opinion in this case. In search for a shared vocabulary, we will focus on the specific legal interpretation in comparison to the characteristics identified from a humanities perspective. We identify opportunities for interdisciplinary dialogue, which now remains too implicit in the legal documents. In addition, we will address the conceptual challenges posed by parody in the digital age. For instance, to what extent can parody’s nuanced characteristics be recognized by filter technologies as required by modern copyright law in the online environment that has become a catalyst for sharing creative content?","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"15 1","pages":"447 - 482"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81499780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Santa Banta jokes: the intersection between humor, religion and the law","authors":"Shivangi Gangwar","doi":"10.1515/humor-2021-0099","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0099","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Santa and Banta jokes are the mainstay of most Indian childhoods. Santa and Banta were used as stage names by the comedian duo Gurprit and Prabhpreet Singh but somewhere along the line, they turned into fictional characters in their own right and acquired pan-Indian fame. The defining characteristics of Santa and Banta jokes are that both are simple-minded middle-aged men belonging to the Sikh religious community. Most Indians consider these jokes lame but many Sikhs find them to be offensive and demeaning, not because of what is said but because of who says it. In 2015, Harvinder Chowdhury, a Sikh lawyer, petitioned the Supreme Court of India to ban the online dissemination of the Santa and Banta jokes. The Court admitted the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition and constituted a committee to look into this matter, before ultimately dismissing the petition in 2017, without judging it on merits. This paper will examine this specific attempt of the Indian judiciary to regulate humor, within the broader context of freedom to religion and free speech. It will study the arguments raised in the PIL, the recommendations of the committee, and the observations of the Court. No study has been done of the relationship between law and humor in India. This paper will examine whether the Court missed an opportunity to contribute to the virtually non-existent humor jurisprudence in India. Last year a children’s book The Art of Tying a Pug was withdrawn by its publishers because of the backlash it faced from the Sikh community on the wordplay in its title, which referred to the dog breed and the turban (pag or pagdi) worn by Sikhs. This incident is illustrative of the chilling effect on humor publications and the current publishers’ strategy of withdrawing the material deemed offensive instead of submitting it for judicial determination. Could a decision on merits in the Santa and Banta jokes case have laid down guidelines on what was acceptable and what was offensive? What would such guidelines be? Is the laying down of guidelines even possible, or desirable, given the unique set of issues presented by humor for the law? Ethnic jokes, in the form of minority-majority community jokes, are found in cultures all over the world. This paper will also undertake a comparative analysis of ethnic jokes in an attempt to answer these questions.","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"56 1","pages":"329 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90467522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Afterword: on words and disciplines in studying humor","authors":"J. Davis","doi":"10.1515/humor-2022-0041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2022-0041","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"24 1","pages":"501 - 508"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80273071","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Different systems, similar challenges: humor and free speech in the United States and Europe","authors":"Alberto Godioli, Laura E. Little","doi":"10.1515/humor-2021-0121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0121","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The United States and Europe are often contrasted with each other regarding their approach to freedom of expression. Yet, despite the differences between their respective judicial systems, courts from both regions inevitably face similar interpretive challenges when dealing with humor. Our paper conducts a comparative discussion of humor-related jurisprudence from the US and Europe, mostly (but not exclusively) focusing on two landmark cases – namely Hustler v. Falwell (US Supreme Court, 1988) and Vereinigung Bildender Künstler v. Austria (European Court of Human Rights, 2007). In particular, our analysis foregrounds two aspects: 1) How courts deal with the complex relations between humor, exaggeration and factual reality; 2) The role of objective harm (as opposed to subjective offence) in distinguishing between lawful and unlawful expression, and how the subjectivity of humor interpretation can undermine this criterion. On both levels, we argue that insights from literary and linguistic theories of humor – from Simpson’s work on satirical discourse to Attardo and Raskin’s General Theory of Verbal Humor – can set the basis for a more fine-grained and systematic approach to humor across different judicial systems.","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"36 1","pages":"305 - 327"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74292192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Humor and hierarchy: an experimental study of the effects of humor production on male dominance, prestige and attractiveness","authors":"Ali Giritlioğlu, Nikhil Chaudhary","doi":"10.1515/humor-2022-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2022-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We conducted a cross-cultural experiment on a sample of 230 participants, to examine how listening to an audio recording of a male telling a joke followed by either laughter (humorous condition) or an unimpressed murmur (non-humorous condition) affected participant ratings of that male’s social status, dominance, prestige and attractiveness. The experiment followed a between-subjects design. The sample was cross-cultural to explore possible cultural variation and compared effects among Western (UK & USA) (n = 119, 74 females) and Turkish (n = 111, 87 females) participants. We measured participants’ ratings of dominance/prestige and attractiveness, based on validated and previously used scales. In the humorous condition, the male was rated as having significantly higher social status and prestige but not dominance. He was also rated as more attractive by female participants from the UK & USA; this effect was mediated by prestige. Conversely, attractiveness ratings by female Turkish participants did not differ across conditions. The effect among the former was found to have been mediated via prestige. We interpret these findings as suggesting that humor production represents a means of gaining status but also highlighting that its recognized role in attractiveness varies cross-culturally. Although the present endeavor represents a pilot study, we believe that our findings raise new questions regarding the interrelationships of humor production, status, and attractiveness, and their evolutionary background.","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"27 1","pages":"553 - 586"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89824616","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Meng-Hua Tsai, Hsueh-Chih Chen, Jen-Ho Chang, Yu-Lin Chang, H. Chien
{"title":"How ethnic groups and clan systems influence humor styles: evidence from indigenous students in Taiwan","authors":"Meng-Hua Tsai, Hsueh-Chih Chen, Jen-Ho Chang, Yu-Lin Chang, H. Chien","doi":"10.1515/humor-2021-0094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0094","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The aim of this study is to compare the differences in humor styles between indigenous and Han Chinese populations in Taiwan. The differences in humor styles between clan systems (patriarchy or matriarchy) within indigenous people were further examined. A total of 442 indigenous students and 1,040 Han Chinese students (M age = 12.88) in Taiwan were recruited. The Chinese version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire was applied. The following are the main findings. (1) Indigenous students use positive humor (affiliative and self-enhancing humor) more often than do Han students. (2) Indigenous girls in matriarchal societies use aggressive humor more often than do indigenous girls in patriarchal societies. (3) Indigenous boys use aggressive humor more often than do girls in patriarchal societies. However, such evidence was lacking in matriarchal societies. From the perspective of social constructions, the present findings reconfirm the effect of social status on humor.","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"66 1","pages":"213 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90719690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew R. Olah, Janelle S. Junkin, Thomas E. Ford, Sam Pressler
{"title":"Comedy Bootcamp: stand-up comedy as humor training for military populations","authors":"Andrew R. Olah, Janelle S. Junkin, Thomas E. Ford, Sam Pressler","doi":"10.1515/humor-2022-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2022-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper details the results of an 18-month program impact evaluation (n = 72) on Armed Services Arts Partnership’s “Comedy Bootcamp,” a popular stand-up comedy course specifically tailored to military veterans. Based on literature around the benefits of sense of humor and humor training (e.g., 7 Humor Habits), we anticipated that participants in Comedy Bootcamp would show greater well-being relative to a control group, and that this effect would be mediated by an increase in sense of humor (i.e., self-enhancing humor style). Results largely supported the hypotheses, showing that Comedy Bootcamp participants experienced an increased self-enhancing humor style, which in turn yielded improved self-esteem, resilience, depression, and stress (though not anxiety). Further, longitudinal analyses demonstrated the benefits of the program persist at 3- and 6-month follow-ups. Implications and future directions are discussed.","PeriodicalId":73268,"journal":{"name":"Humor (Berlin, Germany)","volume":"10 1","pages":"587 - 616"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88450935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}