14. Celebrations of a satirical song: Ideologies of anti-racism in the media
-
Julia McKinney
Abstract
This chapter examines mainstream media discourses that celebrated a satirical anti-racist YouTube video by a Chinese American named Jimmy Wong. Focusing on nine widely circulating spoken and written media texts, we identify four highly praised dimensions of Wong’s video: first, how he had outwitted a racist individual, second, how his viral success had led to his public celebrity, third, how he embodied personal genius, and fourth, how he had adopted an appropriately light-hearted tone for public discourse. We argue that while these media discourses appeared to presume an anti-racist stance, they inadvertently reproduced a “folk ideology” of racism that placed limits on anti-racist possibilities. In other words, while humorous language play can potentially subvert racist images, media romanticizations of humor may reproduce the very assumptions that keep racist ideologies in place.
Abstract
This chapter examines mainstream media discourses that celebrated a satirical anti-racist YouTube video by a Chinese American named Jimmy Wong. Focusing on nine widely circulating spoken and written media texts, we identify four highly praised dimensions of Wong’s video: first, how he had outwitted a racist individual, second, how his viral success had led to his public celebrity, third, how he embodied personal genius, and fourth, how he had adopted an appropriately light-hearted tone for public discourse. We argue that while these media discourses appeared to presume an anti-racist stance, they inadvertently reproduced a “folk ideology” of racism that placed limits on anti-racist possibilities. In other words, while humorous language play can potentially subvert racist images, media romanticizations of humor may reproduce the very assumptions that keep racist ideologies in place.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- Introduction 1
- 1. Language play in conversation 11
- 2. Playing with turns, playing with action? A social-interactionist perspective 47
- 3. The shape of tweets to come: Automating language play in social networks 73
- 4. “This system’s so slow”: Negotiating sequences of laughter and laughables in call-center interaction 93
- 5. Laughter as a “serious business”: Clients’ laughter in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome 119
- 6. Jocular language play, social action and (dis)affiliation in conversational interaction 143
- 7. “Everything he says to me it’s like he stabs me in the face”: Frontstage and backstage reactions to teasing 169
- 8. Cities, conviviality and double-edged language play 199
- 9. Building rapport and a sense of communal identity through play in a second language classroom 219
- 10. The first English (EFL) lesson: Initial settings or the emergence of a playful classroom culture 245
- 11. The emergence of creativity in L2 English: A usage-based case-study 281
- 12. Teaching language learners how to understand sarcasm in L2 English 317
- 13. Anti-language: Linguistic innovation, identity construction, and group affiliation among emerging speech communities 347
- 14. Celebrations of a satirical song: Ideologies of anti-racism in the media 377
- Index 403
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter i
- Contents v
- Introduction 1
- 1. Language play in conversation 11
- 2. Playing with turns, playing with action? A social-interactionist perspective 47
- 3. The shape of tweets to come: Automating language play in social networks 73
- 4. “This system’s so slow”: Negotiating sequences of laughter and laughables in call-center interaction 93
- 5. Laughter as a “serious business”: Clients’ laughter in prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome 119
- 6. Jocular language play, social action and (dis)affiliation in conversational interaction 143
- 7. “Everything he says to me it’s like he stabs me in the face”: Frontstage and backstage reactions to teasing 169
- 8. Cities, conviviality and double-edged language play 199
- 9. Building rapport and a sense of communal identity through play in a second language classroom 219
- 10. The first English (EFL) lesson: Initial settings or the emergence of a playful classroom culture 245
- 11. The emergence of creativity in L2 English: A usage-based case-study 281
- 12. Teaching language learners how to understand sarcasm in L2 English 317
- 13. Anti-language: Linguistic innovation, identity construction, and group affiliation among emerging speech communities 347
- 14. Celebrations of a satirical song: Ideologies of anti-racism in the media 377
- Index 403
