Comedy a cultural practice by Shubhanshi Dimri

‘Jane de na yaar joke hi toh hai’

Photo Courtesy: Social Media (Lead Image)

What was the last time you heard or read a joke? I can bet you on this that it would not be more than few hours ago. Jokes, they are omnipresent in this dominant arena of social media, on Insta posts commonly known as memes now a days, WhatsApp forwards, Facebook posts, Twitter; can be in any form, audio, visual, literature, visual art like cartoons.

Okhay, now get ready for the boring part: What Is Comedy? In a jargon free definition, an artform which has an ability to make you smile or laugh. Oh, I know…. I Know your quench for authentic, true definition will trigger you to google search it, let me take that pain for you.

The word comedy has been derived from Greek verb meaning ‘to revel’. Aristotle claimed that comedy was originated in Phallic songs and that, like tragedy, it began in improvisation Though tragedy evolved through means that can be traced, the progress of comedy went unnoticed because it was not taken seriously. There are broadly 13 types of comedy: Slapstick comedy, Dark comedy, Self-deprecating humor, Romantic comedy, High comedy, Situational comedy, Parody, Surreal humor, Tragicomedy, Farce, Wordplay comedy, Deadpan comedy, Observational comedy.

For more information; there are three types of comedy performances: Stand-up Comedy, Sketch Comedy, Improvisational Comedy.

So, I recently watched a stand-up comedy which was forwarded on WhatsApp to me by a friend, and the title prompted me to click on the link, the title was DAUGHTER: Stand Up Comedy by Gaurav Gupta. Before playing the video, my curious mind told me to read the description of the You-Tube video, which stated, Importance and Advantages of having a Girl Child. I was for a moment confused because never have I ever seen a comic video or content on this topic. I watched it to see what was funny about having a girl child.

 

It started off with a positive note, where the comedian said and I quote, “hey bhagawan mere kabhi bhi bacha ho toh mujhe daughter hi dena, or bhagwan ne sun li… daughter ho gyi”

Oh… I forgot if you want to watch the video dive into the emotions I had while watching, here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-oCDFtqnUo&t=13s

As the description suggested Gaurav Gupta (The comedian) focused on the advantages of having a girl child. In this particular video, the target audience was Delhi’s bourgeois community. Yes, I had the same question of why Delhi middle class?

As we studied in our lectures about how advertisements as cultural practise forms the new middle class through Douglas E. Haynes’s work ‘Creating the Consumer? Advertising, Capitalism, and the Middle Class in Urban Western India, 1914-40”. Douglas explained that Advertisements not just create middle class but build on anxiety, concerns, and aspirations of the middle class, so it is easy and unique at the same time to target the bourgeois class.

I could relate to this theory while watching the video and thanks to Douglas, I got my answer. Gupta here played with two aspirations of middle-class parents, Pre marriage aspirations (that their child gets good education and do get good grades and a job) and Post Marriage (Where she is settled with a suitable boy).

Gupta explains how after marring off you daughter will ease your life on many levels: When she will be 22-23 you only have to marry her off (Prescribed life routine of a respectable woman), she will only ‘Visit’ your place, you can enjoy your weekend and weekdays. The only task for you will be to handle the ‘Complains’ from her in-laws that she does not perform her ‘Duties’ with perfection; How will you handle it, Gupta explains, you only have to laugh at them and say, “Bhugto”, “Humne toh kardi apni PROBLEM outsource.”

Photo Courtesy: Social Media

Do I even have to explain at what levels this is problematic? I could not just stop the video now, could I? I had to see more, so I did.

Before the marriage of your daughter the only aspiration according to Gupta is she study well, with good grades. Here the parents don’t have to worried about anything as, ‘Ladikiyan toh fail hoti hi nhi’, the comedian said. Is he even serious, I wondered to myself, because I (a girl child) failed few subjects in my schooldays….. ok and am not even ashamed.

Photo Courtesy: Social Media

Further, the comedian makes the point of girls (assuming ‘girls’ as a homogeneous category) always are good students. Ignore the fact that they have been created that way, they been told at a very young age what a girl and a boy should and should not do in their lives, where ‘Not to do list’ is long beyond imagination and different for every girl. Here, I remember Catharine A MacKinnon’s work on Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination, where she explains how its not the difference that subordinate women but the dominance which emerges on difference and is maintained to benefit patriarchy, capitalism, and social order.

On the other hand, boys as Gupta describes are always at the worst level of carelessness, they are irresponsible, towards studies, life, basically they stays this way their whole life and somehow they have give more opportunities, more acceptance in society, more respect for what? For just being the man…!

“Or inke hone ke lie ardase mangi jati hai”, Gupta sarcastically says. I wont lie, I giggled a bit at this punch.

It is well acknowledged by the audience, by us that comedy sketches are mostly exaggeration of fiction/non-fiction incidents. I am not even touching questions of what was wrong and what was right in Gupta’s comedy sketch, it was very hard not to touch the dichotomy of right and wrong, and I can bet 8 months earlier me would have aggressively jumped to these white and black area, but this course and particularly the ‘Culture ad Gender’ subject have taught me to go and look for answers beyond right and wrong.

The formation and construction of his sketch is from his experiences and observations which evidently are gendered. Stand-up comedy is not just being a good orator, stand-up requires a script, dialogues, punches and this script comes from observation.

Comedians don’t directly insult women on public platform but gives us a clear picture how patriarchy and its convictions are painted to be natural and obscure the work behind maintaining the social order and patriarchal dominance.

As Nivedita Menon in her book ‘Seeing Like a Feminist’ states that maintaining social order is not a natural, flawless practise, it requires faithful performance of prescribed rituals over and over again to produce the effect of untouched naturalness.

Audience, viewers grab sexiest, problematic jokes, punches, and dialogues and redefine, refashion, reuse in their every day. And this everyday then becomes the observation of the artist. It works in a loop, and the redefinition of comedy in everyday is a dangerous activity as it strengthens, re-produces the patriarchy, hegemony and dominance. Cultural practise has a significant impact on creating one’s every day, Cinema, and other forms of popular culture re-create and work co-constitutively with each other.

 

With these sexiest punches and comedy sketches or any kind of popular culture it then becomes a dangerous and difficult to dismantle the notion of and convictions of patriarchy as a feminist.

Do you want to know what I replied to my friend? Well, leave it, its not appropriate for this space but, what I can tell you is what my friend replied,
‘Jane de na yaar joke hi toh hai.’

Photo Courtesy: Social Media