‘Let’s try that curtsy again’: Understanding the Royal presence in a New Zealand photo caption competition

Abstract

Abstract This article builds on a previously published article in this journal that analysed the first twenty episodes of a photo caption competition running in a very popular New Zealand magazine. Visible hand gestures and embodied expressions were central in the photos that entrants completed by submitting a caption. These provide a readily understandable and economic platform for directing competitors in the task of making humour. Returning to the competition over two years later, embodiment is still central, but another interesting feature of the competition is discovered. Using a fuller set of 132 episodes, and on the basis of readily available categorizations of the people shown in the photos, we see an interesting breakdown in the types of people shown in the photos: politicians are most frequently shown, but the British Royal Family are also high up in the appearance stakes. The strong royal presence deserves analysis, and to help in this task Davies’ work on Jokes and Targets (2011), and varied work from celebrity studies, is employed. Such work can only partly explain the complexity of such visual humour, as each photo has its own particularities that help channel humour construction.