Negative assessments in humour: a way of doing gender

Abstract

AbstractBeing humorous is more than just being able to tell jokes. The uptake of the joke is as important in order to be funny. I have examined the Swedish humour panel show Parlamentet in a conversationand multimodal-centered analysis. I argue that the representation of gender does play a part in who is able to be humorous, as I see humour as a group achievement. In my examples of women negatively assessing or teasing men on the panel, I am interested in how the other participants react and play along the humorous story. I conclude that women and men tend to have different expectations on who will be able to continue the humorous story and that the distribution of attention in the panel reflect those expectations. The women’s jokes do not render in as much laughter or attention from the panel as the men’s attempt of being humorous.