Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking

This article takes up the transnational comedy career of Trevor Noah as a way to explore how the political work of racial comedy can manifest, circulate and indeed communicate differently across different racial-political contexts. Through the close textual analysis of two key comic performances –“...

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Autores principales:	Jennalee Donian, Nicholas Holm
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies 2021
Materias:	comedy race racism politics Trevor Noah Language and Literature P
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/641e2086999e407babec11daeea18865
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:641e2086999e407babec11daeea188652021-11-05T08:50:18ZTrevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking10.7592/EJHR2021.9.3.5252307-700Xhttps://doaj.org/article/641e2086999e407babec11daeea188652021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://europeanjournalofhumour.org/ejhr/article/view/525https://doaj.org/toc/2307-700X This article takes up the transnational comedy career of Trevor Noah as a way to explore how the political work of racial comedy can manifest, circulate and indeed communicate differently across different racial-political contexts. Through the close textual analysis of two key comic performances –“The Daywalker” (2009) and “Son of Patricia” (2018), produced and (initially) circulated in South Africa and the USA, respectively – this article explores the extent to which Noah’s comic treatment of race has shifted between the two contexts. In particular, attention is paid to how Noah incites, navigates and mitigates potential sources of offence surrounding racial anxieties in the two contexts, and how he evokes his own “mixed-race” status in order to open up spaces of permission that allow him to joke about otherwise taboo subjects. Rejecting the claim that the politics of Noah’s comedy is emancipatory or progressive in any straightforward way, by means of formal analyses we argue that his comic treatment of race does not enact any singular politics, but rather that the political work of his racial humour shifts relative to its wider political contexts. Thus, rather than drawing a clear line between light entertainment and politically meaningful humour, this article argues that the political valence of racial joking can be understood as contingent upon wider discourses of race that circulate in national-cultural contexts. Jennalee DonianNicholas HolmCracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language StudiesarticlecomedyraceracismpoliticsTrevor NoahLanguage and LiteraturePENThe European Journal of Humour Research, Vol 9, Iss 3 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	comedy race racism politics Trevor Noah Language and Literature P
spellingShingle	comedy race racism politics Trevor Noah Language and Literature P Jennalee Donian Nicholas Holm Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
description	This article takes up the transnational comedy career of Trevor Noah as a way to explore how the political work of racial comedy can manifest, circulate and indeed communicate differently across different racial-political contexts. Through the close textual analysis of two key comic performances –“The Daywalker” (2009) and “Son of Patricia” (2018), produced and (initially) circulated in South Africa and the USA, respectively – this article explores the extent to which Noah’s comic treatment of race has shifted between the two contexts. In particular, attention is paid to how Noah incites, navigates and mitigates potential sources of offence surrounding racial anxieties in the two contexts, and how he evokes his own “mixed-race” status in order to open up spaces of permission that allow him to joke about otherwise taboo subjects. Rejecting the claim that the politics of Noah’s comedy is emancipatory or progressive in any straightforward way, by means of formal analyses we argue that his comic treatment of race does not enact any singular politics, but rather that the political work of his racial humour shifts relative to its wider political contexts. Thus, rather than drawing a clear line between light entertainment and politically meaningful humour, this article argues that the political valence of racial joking can be understood as contingent upon wider discourses of race that circulate in national-cultural contexts.
format	article
author	Jennalee Donian Nicholas Holm
author_facet	Jennalee Donian Nicholas Holm
author_sort	Jennalee Donian
title	Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
title_short	Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
title_full	Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
title_fullStr	Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
title_full_unstemmed	Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
title_sort	trevor noah and the contingent politics of racial joking
publisher	Cracow Tertium Society for the Promotion of Language Studies
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/641e2086999e407babec11daeea18865
work_keys_str_mv	AT jennaleedonian trevornoahandthecontingentpoliticsofracialjoking AT nicholasholm trevornoahandthecontingentpoliticsofracialjoking
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Trevor Noah and the contingent politics of racial joking

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