Laughter in Disaster: Understanding the Frames of Covid-19 Humour in Nigeria

Abstract

This study, deviating from the extant literature’s focus on interactional frames in Nigerian humour, focuses on the primary frameworks—signifying social parameters and resources—with which humorists represented the fears and inhumanities of the tragic global Covid-19 pandemic, especially in the first quarter of 2020. The project draws on Gregory Bateson’s mood-sign, a signifying emotional response to stimulation; Erving Goffman’s theory of social frames; and Arthur Schopenhauer’s notion of suffering owing to human beings’ innate and perpetual cruelty to their fellows. Goffman’s notions of key, keying, fabrication, and primary frameworks untangle the different social signifying practices drawn on to present Nigerians’ painful encounters with Covid-19, while Schopenhauer’s work assists in unveiling the mode of suffering encountered. Each skit provides a perspective on the suffering experienced. The skits that are most versatile in their incorporation of transformative keys, framing elements, and suffering during that uneasy period are analysed. The results indicate that the primary frameworks were transformed in order for Nigerian comedians to represent the suffering experienced by Nigerians.