COVID-19 Editorial Cartoons: Theories of Humor Perspectives

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to clarify the understanding of disaster humor in editorial cartoons through the use of classical and novel theories of humor. Select cartoons inked by artists from around the world are analyzed via the lens of five classical theories of humor—superiority, inferiority, relief, play, and incongruity theories—and three novel theories of humor—cleverness, benign violation, and mutual vulnerability theories. The study found that these classical and novel theories helped depict the COVID-19 pandemic as a phenomenon of great consequence that exerted power over citizens, governments, and business entities alike. Governments were often portrayed as entities that valued human life over the state of the economy, albeit not initially. Government policies were conveyed as having the potential to worsen the quality of life and the state of the economy. To our knowledge, no other study in humor literature has so far applied these theories to coronavirus editorial cartoons from all over the world. By bridging theoretical frameworks from the fields of philosophy, psychology, and evolutionary biology with issues penned by artists from various countries, this study enables a better understanding of disaster humor as a defense mechanism.