Performing Arabness in Arab American Stand-up Comedy

Autor: Fouad Selim Yasser
Jazyk: English<br />French
Rok vydání: 2014
Předmět:
Zdroj: American, British and Canadian Studies Journal, Vol 23, Iss 1, Pp 77-92 (2014)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 1841-964X
DOI: 10.1515/abcsj-2014-0028
Popis: This article deals with the dramatic art of stand-up comedy. It locates Arab American stand-up comedy within a broader American humorous tradition and investigates the way Arab American performers use this art to negotiate and (re)construct their identity. The main question in this article is the way Arab American stand-up comedians define their relationship to the Arab and the western worlds in the process of establishing their Arab American identity. Three humor theories - the relief theory, the incongruity theory, and the superiority theory - are deployed in the study to examine the representation of Arabness in selected Arab American performances. The study argues that Arab American comics minstrelize their own diasporic origin through reinscribing a range of orientalizing practices in order to claim their Americanness.
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