Ridicule, Humour and Anti-Roma Racism in Romanian Television News: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis
Keywords:
Downloads
Abstract
Research shows that the public image of Roma on television reinforces existing prejudice and stereotypes in relation to illiteracy, criminality, primitiveness, or refusal to comply with societal norms and values. Scholars have drawn attention to the various forms of racism, both overt and covert, we find in media and political discourse. Yet, one aspect that is less explored is the role of humor and ridicule in communicating anti-Roma racism. In this article, I conduct a multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) of two news clips aired by one of the leading audio-visual stations in Romania. I draw attention to the use of humor and ridicule on public television as discursive strategies to belittle or conceal anti-Roma racism. I argue that such representations—where buffoonery, bad taste, cultural incompetence, and arrogance are highlighted—go beyond simple entertainment and cheap laughs but reinforce the inferior and marginalised status that Romani people have held for centuries on Romanian territories.
Downloads
References
Ana, O. S. (2009). Did you call in Mexican? The racial politics of Jay Leno immigrant jokes. Language in Society, 38(1), 23-45. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404508090027
Google Scholar CrossrefAnderson, L. (2015). Racist humor. Philosophy compass, 10(8), 501-509. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12240
Google Scholar CrossrefAnsell, A. E. (2016). New right, new racism: Race and reaction in the United States and Britain: Springer.
Google Scholar CrossrefAtkinson, W. (2017). Class in the new millennium: The structure, homologies and experience of the British social space. London Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefBarker, M. (1981). The new racism: Conservatives and the ideology of the tribe: Junction Books.
Google Scholar CrossrefBennett, T., Savage, M., Silva, E., Warde, A., Gayo-Cal, M., & Wright, D. (2009). Class, culture, distinction. Abingdon: Routlege.
Google Scholar CrossrefBernstein, B. (2004). The structuring of pedagogic discourse: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefBernstein, B. (2005). Theoretical Studies Towards A Sociology of Language. Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefBillig, M. (2001). Humour and hatred: The racist jokes of the Ku Klux Klan. Discourse & Society, 12(3), 267-289. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0957926501012003001
Google Scholar CrossrefBillig, M. (2005). Laughter and ridicule: Towards a social critique of humour: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefBonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Google Scholar CrossrefBonilla-Silva, E. (2015). The structure of racism in color-blind,“post-racial” America. In: Sage Publications Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA.
Google Scholar CrossrefBourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power: Harvard University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefBourdieu, P. (2013). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefBreazu, P. (2020). Representing the Roma in Romanian Media: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis. Örebro University.
Google Scholar CrossrefBreazu, P., & Machin, D. (2019). Racism toward the Roma through the affordances of Facebook: bonding, laughter and spite. Discourse & Society, 30(4), 376-394. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926519837396
Google Scholar CrossrefBreazu, P., & Machin, D. (2020). How television news disguises its racist representations: The case of Antena1 reporting on the Roma. Ethnicities, 20(5,) 823-843. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1468796820932588
Google Scholar CrossrefBreazu, P., & Machin, D. (2021). 'It's still them': Concealed racism against Roma in Romanian television news. Social Identities, 1-18 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2021.1976134
Google Scholar CrossrefBreazu, P., & Machin, D. (2022). Using humor to disguise racism in televsion news: the case of the Roma. International Journal of Humour Research (HUMOR), 35(1), 73-92. https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2021-0104
Google Scholar CrossrefBrooks, D. E., & Hébert, L. P. (2006). Gender, race, and media representation. Handbook of gender and communication, 16, 297-317.
Google Scholar CrossrefBurmila, E. (2018). Scientific Racism Isn’t ‘Back’: It Never Went Away. Nation. Retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/scientific-racism-isnt-back-it-never-went-away
Google Scholar CrossrefCamfield, D. (2016). Elements of a historical-materialist theory of racism. Historical Materialism, 24(1), 31-70. https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206X-12341453
Google Scholar CrossrefCowley, C. (2012). My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding exploits our community for cheap laughs. The Guardian.
Google Scholar CrossrefCretu, G. (2014). Roma Minority in Romania and its Media Representation. Sfera Politicii, 22(4/5), 112.
Google Scholar CrossrefDines, G., & Humez, J. M. (2003). Gender, race, and class in media: A text-reader: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefDoane, A. (2017). Beyond color-blindness:(Re) theorizing racial ideology. Sociological Perspectives, 60(5), 975-991. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0731121417719697
Google Scholar CrossrefEntman, R. M., & Rojecki, A. (2001). The black image in the white mind: Media and race in America: University of Chicago Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefErjavec, K. (2001). Media representation of the discrimination against the Roma in Eastern Europe: The case of Slovenia. Discourse & Society, 12(6), 699-727. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0957926501012006001
Google Scholar CrossrefFlemmen, M., & Savage, M. (2017). The politics of nationalism and white racism in the UK. The British journal of sociology, 68, S233-S264. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12311
Google Scholar CrossrefGasper, P. (2018). The return of scientific racism. International Sociolist Review, Race and Class (110).
Google Scholar CrossrefGradin Franzén, A., & Aronsson, K. (2013). Teasing, laughing and disciplinary humor: Staff–youth interaction in detention home treatment. Discourse Studies, 15(2), 167-183. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461445612471469
Google Scholar CrossrefHaliliuc, A. (2014). Manele music and the discourse of Balkanism in Romania. Communication, Culture & Critique, 8(2), 290-308. https://doi.org/10.1111/cccr.12083
Google Scholar CrossrefHolmes, J. (2000). Politeness, power and provocation: How humour functions in the workplace. Discourse Studies, 2(2), 159-185. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461445600002002002
Google Scholar CrossrefHusband, C., & Downing, J. (2006). Representing" race": Racisms, Ethnicities and Media: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefImre, A., & Tremlett, A. (2011). Reality TV without class: The postsocialist anti-celebrity docusoap. In Reality television and class (pp. 88-103): Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefJensen, T., & Ringrose, J. (2014). Sluts that choose vs doormat gypsies: Exploring affect in the postfeminist, visual moral economy of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Feminist Media Studies, 14(3), 369-387. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2012.756820
Google Scholar CrossrefKnowles, S. (2012, March 1). Is Big Fat Gypsy Weddings a real representation of Gypsy life? Reveal Magazine.
Google Scholar CrossrefKress, G., & Leeuwen, T. (2020). Reading Images (Third ed.). Milton: Taylor & Francis Group.
Google Scholar CrossrefLamont, M., et al. (2016). Getting respect: Responding to stigma and discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel: Princeton University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefLeudar, I., & Nekvapil, J. (2000). Presentations of Romanies in the Czech media: on category work in television debates. Discourse & Society, 11(4), 487-513. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0957926500011004003
Google Scholar CrossrefLiu, J. H., & Mills, D. (2006). Modern racism and neo‐liberal globalization: the discourses of plausible deniability and their multiple functions. Journal of community & applied social psychology, 16(2), 83-99. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.847
Google Scholar CrossrefLuke, A., & Graham, P. W. (2006). Class language. In Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics 2nd Edition (pp. 428-431): Elsevier Science.
Google Scholar CrossrefMachin, D. & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical discourse analysis: A Multimodal Introduction. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefMachin, D. (2013). What is multimodal critical discourse studies? Critical Discourse Studies, 10(4) 347-155. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2013.813770
Google Scholar CrossrefMachin, D., Caldras-Coulthard, C. R., & Milani, T. M. (2016). Doing critical multimodality in research on gender, language and discourse. Gender and Language, 10(3) 301-308. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v10i3.32037
Google Scholar CrossrefMartin, R., A. (2007). The Psychology of Humor: An Integrative approach. In. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefMeyer, J. C. (2000). Humor as a double-edged sword: Four functions of humor in communication. Communication theory, 10(3), 310-331. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2000.tb00194.x
Google Scholar CrossrefPark, J. H., Gabbadon, N. G., & Chernin, A. R. (2006). Naturalizing racial differences through comedy: Asian, Black, and White views on racial stereotypes in Rush Hour 2. Journal of Communication 56(1), 157-177. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00008.x
Google Scholar CrossrefPérez, R. (2013). Learning to make racism funny in the ‘color-blind’era: Stand-up comedy students, performance strategies, and the (re) production of racist jokes in public. Discourse & Society, 24(4), 478-503. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0957926513482066
Google Scholar CrossrefPérez, R. (2017). Racism without Hatred? Racist Humor and the Myth of “Colorblindness”. Sociological Perspectives, 60(5), 956-974. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0731121417719699
Google Scholar CrossrefSue, C. A., & Golash-Boza, T. (2013). ‘It was only a joke’: How racial humour fuels colour-blind ideologies in Mexico and Peru. Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(10), 1582-1598. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.783929
Google Scholar CrossrefTremlett, A. (2014). Demotic or demonic? Race, class and gender in ‘Gypsy’reality TV. The Sociological Review, 62(2), 316-334. https://doi.org/10.1111%2F1467-954X.12134
Google Scholar CrossrefTremlett, A., Messing, V., & Kóczé, A. (2017). Romaphobia and the media: mechanisms of power and the politics of representations. Identities, 24(6), 641-649. https://doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2017.1380270
Google Scholar CrossrefTrofin, C. (2015). POLITICS AND TELEVISION IN ROMANIA. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai-Ephemerides, 60(2), 75-91.
Google Scholar CrossrefVan Dijk, T. A. (1991). Racism and the Press: Critical Studies in Racism and Migration: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefVan Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefVan Leeuwen, T., & Wodak, R. (1999). Legitimizing immigration control: A discourse-historical analysis. Discourse Studies, 1(1), 83-118. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1461445699001001005
Google Scholar CrossrefWeaver, S. (2016). The rhetoric of racist humour: US, UK and global race joking: Routledge.
Google Scholar CrossrefWillett, C. (2016). The Sting of Shame: Ridicule, Rape, and Social Bonds. In N. Zack (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race (pp. 608-618): Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefWodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2015). Methods of Critical Discourse Studies: Sage.
Google Scholar CrossrefZack, N. (2016). The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar CrossrefDownloads
Published
Metrics
Almetric
Dimensions
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Petre Breazu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All articles are published under Creative Commons copyright (CC BY). Authors hold the copyright and retain publishing rights without restrictions, but authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy articles as the original source is cited.
