World Trade Center Jokes and Their Hungarian Reception
2003; Indiana University Press; Volume: 40; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2979/jfr.2003.40.2.175
ISSN1543-0413
Autores Tópico(s)Comics and Graphic Narratives
ResumoThis analysis of World Trade Center jokes explores one of the central questions of media studies: how do people come to terms with catastrophes they encounter in the media? Is it true that the spectacle of catastrophes results in feelings of paralysis and frustration among viewers? Or by contrast, does it suggest an active audience, which shapes the representations of the events according to its own needs? Csaszi first reviews World Trade Center jokes and explores the ways they can be considered typical of catastrophe jokes within a framework of folklore theory. Using the example of Challenger jokes, three catastrophe joke models are discussed as expressions of different post-traumatic reactions: the socio-critical, the therapeutic, and the media-critical. After establishing the typology of World Trade Center jokes, the essay explores sixty-six Hungarian versions of WTC jokes that young professionals of a Budapest company sent each other in e-mails and compares them with a broader sample of jokes circulating in English- and Hungarian-language web sites. Csaszi concludes that the selection of jokes in the e-mails allowed this group of Hungarians to come to terms with the World Trade Center tragedy, making it possible for them to reinterpret the catastrophe stories acccording to their own circumstances and identities.
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