Structural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual
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Mostafa Abedinifard
Mostafa Abedinifard is a faculty member in the Department of English at MacEwan University. He completed his PhD in Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, with a dissertation entitled “Humor and Gender Hegemony: The Panoptical Role of Ridicule vis-à-vis Gender” (2015). His current research, which is transnational and interdisciplinary in scope, is in masculinities studies, humor studies, and disability studies. He has published articles on gender and humor in
Cultural Sociology ,The European Journal of Humor Research ,Iranian Studies , andSocial Semiotics , among other journals. Mostafa is currently developing a monograph on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in modern Iranian humor, while also guest-editing a special issue ofIran Namag , in English and Persian, on the topic of Iranian men and masculinities.
Abstract
Focusing on the disciplinary function of humor as an understudied subject in humor studies, this article addresses Qazvini jokes – the contemporary Persian joke cycle targeting men from the Iranian city of Qazvin – as mainstream gender humor that uses ridicule as a means of supporting heteronormativity and fueling homophobia. Adopting an historical-analytical approach and considering examples of and references to Qazvini jokes, I argue that the joke series likely originated as a disciplinary tool to buttress the emerging heteronormative gender order of early modern Iranian society. Contextualized instances of these jokes not only illustrate that this punitive function has endured to the present but also indicate their ongoing homophobic role. This argument problematizes the claim made in humor studies that jokes have no social consequences. Qazvini jokes may be inconsequential in the limited sense that they might not affect attitudes toward their direct targets – that is, individual men of Qazvin – yet their heteronormalizing and homophobic functions clearly speak to larger social structures within Iranian society and culture. This form of ethnic humor both adheres to and informs Iran’s prevailing gender and sexuality norms; as such, in this broader sense, the jokes may indeed have far-reaching consequences.
About the author
Mostafa Abedinifard is a faculty member in the Department of English at MacEwan University. He completed his PhD in Comparative Literature in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta, with a dissertation entitled “Humor and Gender Hegemony: The Panoptical Role of Ridicule vis-à-vis Gender” (2015). His current research, which is transnational and interdisciplinary in scope, is in masculinities studies, humor studies, and disability studies. He has published articles on gender and humor in Cultural Sociology, The European Journal of Humor Research, Iranian Studies, and Social Semiotics, among other journals. Mostafa is currently developing a monograph on gender, sexuality, and ethnicity in modern Iranian humor, while also guest-editing a special issue of Iran Namag, in English and Persian, on the topic of Iranian men and masculinities.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Rasoul Aliakbari, Sahar Allamezade, Mike Lloyd, and Neeraj Prakash for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article. He is also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the journal editor, who made invaluable comments and suggestions, and to Marco Katz Montiel, who edited the author’s English translations of the jokes.
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Structural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual
- Metaphor and its humorousness: The case of nominal compounds in German
- The humor of Skopje 2014: Between effects and evaluations
- Faith and laughter: Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor?
- Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ)
- Book Reviews
- Jure Gantar: The Evolution of Wilde’s Wit
- Geert Brône, Kurt Feyaerts and Tony Veale: Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
- Benjamin Lazarus: Humanist Comic Elements in Aristophanes and the Old Testament
- Paul Bouissac: The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning: Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Structural functions of the targeted joke: Iranian modernity and the Qazvini man as predatory homosexual
- Metaphor and its humorousness: The case of nominal compounds in German
- The humor of Skopje 2014: Between effects and evaluations
- Faith and laughter: Do atheists and practicing Christians have different senses of humor?
- Humor at work: validation of the short work-related Humor Styles Questionnaire (swHSQ)
- Book Reviews
- Jure Gantar: The Evolution of Wilde’s Wit
- Geert Brône, Kurt Feyaerts and Tony Veale: Cognitive Linguistics and Humor Research
- Benjamin Lazarus: Humanist Comic Elements in Aristophanes and the Old Testament
- Paul Bouissac: The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning: Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter
