Confirmation Versus Contestation of Tourism Theories in Tourist Jokes

Abstract

Tourism has a playful side, and its apparent lack of seriousness has frequently been the butt of irony, derision, and satire, even by social scientists. Since MacCannell's attack on Boorstin's critique of tourism, social scientists have taken tourism seriously. An ironic critique of tourism became unfashionable. However, tourists are still frequently seen as funny by the general public, and tourism, in its various manifestations, remains a topic of popular humor and critical satire. Jokes about tourists constitute an important aspect of the public's perception of tourism as a social phenomenon, but have yet to be taken seriously by students of tourism; they remain a virtually unexplored topic in tourism research. This article argues that jokes about tourists are not just innocent fun, but can be fruitfully explored as indirectly conforming or contesting some of the more sweeping propositions by theoreticians of tourism about its nature and social functions. To demonstrate the argument, jokes on several specific topics, like the tourists' quest for authenticity and Otherness, the alleged reversal of quotidian life in vacations, and the restitutive role of tourism are examined. This leads to the important conclusion that jokes help to discover and illuminate some aspects of touristic situations, which have been commonly overlooked in the literature.