Man's laughter: or humor, meaning and virility's impostures

Author(s)

Filipo Pires Figueira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2023-09-28

Examining board members

Sírio Possenti; Daniela Palma; Carlos Piovezani; Décio Rocha

• Advisor: Sírio Possenti

Abstract

In this thesis, it is sought to investigate the link between humoristic discourse and the processes of male identification and subjectivation to the male domination. In other words, to explore how the humoristic discourse intertwines with the norms, myths, and stereotypes of this dominant position in the sex/gender system and what are its possible practical effects in the identification processes of these men towards the dictates of idealized virility. In this sense, one can understand what is called here the laughter of man: it expresses the ambivalent role that laughter occupies in the construction and maintenance of male gender identity, divided between the laughter that men express and the laughter that men provoke; in all the pun's ambiguity, the laughter of man is intended to refer both to the laughter expressed or aroused by men and to its metaphorical transformations. Therefore, the primary goal of this thesis is to investigate how men become men through humor — notably, through jokes (particularly anecdotes and memes). In parallel, the secondary aim of this thesis is to highlight and reaffirm the intrinsically practical nature of language and discourse, thus also advancing the understanding of the inventive aspect of humorous discourse. In other words, through jokes and memes, it intends to investigate which effects of meaning on men the humorous enunciation fabricates based on the signs offered by the systems and dispositifs that construct our societies; the ways in which these systems define men and the humorous discourse, but also how men assimilate them through this discursive register. The text is divided as follows: the first chapter is dedicated to explain the theoretical framework of Discourse Analysis as well as the elements that outline the characteristics of the research archive, namely, the technologies of the gender dispositif, the injunctions of idealized virility and the particularities of the humoristic register. In the second chapter, it seeks to advance the hypothesis that humorous practices and discourse fulfill a particular role in male socialization; through a review of the literature on masculinities, with special attention to analyses of the role of humor in male interactions, the existence of "humorous technologies of manhood" is proposed. The third chapter, focused on discourse theory, is dedicated to settle conceptual problems entailed for a discursive analysis by the encounter between humoristic representations of men, idealized virility and the performativity of the norm; through a dialogue with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel de Certeau and Judith Butler, the aim is to point out paths for a discursive analysis that takes into account the practical materiality of meaning in the processes of subjectivation. The fourth and final chapter is dedicated to the analysis of the laughter of man, highlighting the interplay within the latency of meaning implied by the norms of virility and the humoristic work with these norms, divided between transgression and limit (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 19/01680-1 - Laughing of men: the virility's crises in houmoristic texts
• Grantee: Filipo Pires Figueira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate