{"id":4719,"date":"2009-09-24T00:00:16","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T07:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.org\/?p=4719"},"modified":"2009-09-24T00:00:16","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T07:00:16","slug":"your-joke-is-not-my-joke-racism-and-sexism-in-jokes-and-satire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2009\/09\/your-joke-is-not-my-joke-racism-and-sexism-in-jokes-and-satire\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Joke is Not My Joke: Racism and Sexism in Jokes and Satire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Have you ever noticed how minorities\u2014and oppressed people in general\u2014lack a sense of humor? Lately, there have been plenty of jokes about Arabs and Muslims. So why aren\u2019t we laughing?<\/p>\n

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux recently felt his joke fall flat after this year\u2019s summer congress. One of his traditional supporters, Amin Benalia, asked if he could take a picture with the minister. A woman in the crowd jokingly introduced Benalia to the team as someone different because he \u201ceats pork and drinks beer\u201d. Ah, a meeting of old friends and politicians united under the banner of pork, beer and the finest French jokes. The Minister explained about Benalia:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe doesn\u2019t fit the prototype [of an Arab Muslim] at all. Not at all. We always need one. When there\u2019s one, that\u2019s all right. It\u2019s when there a lot of them that there are problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

This moment of free expression had been launched on the website of Le Monde<\/em><\/a> and raised lots of questions, reactions and criticism. But the merry minister did not apologize. He simply said it was a joke, and most journalists gave it legitimacy by saying the minister was \u201cvery laid-back\u201d.<\/p>\n

David Gee, the author of Shaikh Down<\/a><\/em>\u2014a \u00a0very \u201cfunny\u201d novel about the Arabs (again)\u2014claimed he \u201cspent six years in the Gulf and never met an intelligent woman\u201d, ignoring the fact that intelligent women had better things to do than meet up with a poor so-called satirist.<\/p>\n

In Shaikh Down<\/em>, Gee writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cNayla was tall, olive-skinned, voluptuous, at twenty-six two years younger than her brother Ibrahim and exactly half her husband\u2019s age, a feminist intellectual in a society that tended to ignore women and mistrusted intellectuals .\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Exclusively focusing his attention on the body of Nayla, the author completely ignores the role that high-profile women play in the Gulf. The \u201cfeminist intellectual\u201d is at some point described as if she was either a prostitute or a commodity: by the size and the color of her \u201cvoluptuous\u201d Orientalized body.<\/p>\n

Here is another sample about Nayla, when the death of her husband is announced:<\/p>\n

\u201cNayla sighed, which the houseboy took for an upper-caste Arabic demonstration of controlled grief. But grief was not what the new widow felt. Her marriage had been arranged between her brother and the Bahzoomis, whose wealth was second only to that of the ruling al-Khazi clan. Nayla had despised her husband in life \u2013 his gambling and drinking, his belly-dancing whores, his newspapers that kissed the backside of her uncle the Amir \u2013 and she felt only relief at his passing, however brutal it seemed to have been.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this paragraph, Gee develops the stereotype of oppressive arranged marriages among Arabs and Muslims. Nayla \u201cdespises\u201d her husband. The Orientalist clich\u00e9 of sensuality and availability always works in association with a harsh criticism of traditional marriage. Marriage is bound to be oppressive among these \u201cshaikhs\u201d and, most importantly, it makes the available resource of women not so available. Gee is not criticizing marriage as a social institution or as a bourgeois civil contract \u2013 like many feminists did in Europe. He is criticizing marriage in Arab societies\u2013<\/em>as if an Arab man was not able to love his wife and as if an Arab woman could only hate her husband while longing to be saved by some romantic white man\u2026<\/p>\n

But maybe, it only was a joke, again.<\/p>\n

In one sentence, despising both the countries of the Gulf and the people who live in them, Gee proves that he is only recycling his own White middle-class fantasies. His book aims to be a \u201chilarious \u2018blueprint\u2019 for a Revolution that will sweep the tyrant Rulers of Arabia into the dustbin of history!\u201d It is just one more Orientalist novel<\/a> \u2013 a really bad and poorly written one.<\/p>\n

Gee and the French minister are not comic; they only are racist. But maybe, I have no sense of humor. That\u2019s the main problem, according to David Gee, Brice Hortefeux and all their funny ruling friends.<\/p>\n

Kathleen Hanna<\/a> gave the best reply you can ever make to these clowns:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to deal with sexism every day so it\u2019s like maybe boys can find that really funny and humorous, I don\u2019t have the luxury to find that humorous. I live it every fucking day. That\u2019s not funny to me, and if I say it\u2019s not funny, it\u2019s not funny. You know what I mean? It\u2019s like there\u2019s no argument there, whether it\u2019s funny or not, if I say I don\u2019t find it funny it means: hey, be cool to me and respect me, your joke is not my joke.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This article was updated on September 27, 2009. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever noticed how minorities\u2014and oppressed people in general\u2014lack a sense of humor? Lately, there have been plenty of jokes about Arabs and Muslims. So why aren\u2019t we laughing? French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux recently felt his joke fall flat after this year\u2019s summer congress. One of his traditional supporters, Amin Benalia, asked if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14],"tags":[229,331,1104,1215,1230],"class_list":["post-4719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-booksmagazines","category-politics","tag-brice-hortefeux","tag-david-gee","tag-racism","tag-sexism","tag-shaikh-down"],"yoast_head":"\nYour Joke is Not My Joke: Racism and Sexism in Jokes and Satire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Have you ever noticed how minorities\u2014and oppressed people in general\u2014lack a sense of humor? 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