Journal article
Quvenzhané and the Comedians: Black Girlhood and Sexuality at the “Edge” of Mediated Humor
Communication, culture & critique, Vol.8(4), pp.505-521
12/2015
DOI: 10.1111/cccr.12099
Abstract
During the 2013 Academy Awards, the satirical newspaper The Onion tweeted a sexually explicit message about the child actress Quvenzhané Wallis. While the racism and sexism of the tweet drew fire, the tweet was also hotly defended by comedians who insisted that it functioned to “expand the boundaries of comedy.” In this essay, the tweet is analyzed as a “discourse knot” to interrogate the intersections of comedic discourse and the construction of Black girlhood in U.S. culture. The study's 2 key findings are that first, purportedly “edgy” comedy can function to sustain social power hierarchies, and second, Black girlhood constitutes an unintelligible subject position in the Foucauldian sense, necessitating rigorous attention, especially with regard to issues of cultural sexualization.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Quvenzhané and the Comedians: Black Girlhood and Sexuality at the “Edge” of Mediated Humor
- Creators
- Meenakshi Gigi Durham - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Communication, culture & critique, Vol.8(4), pp.505-521
- DOI
- 10.1111/cccr.12099
- ISSN
- 1753-9129
- eISSN
- 1753-9137
- Publisher
- Wiley Subscription Services, Inc; Hoboken, USA
- Number of pages
- 17
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 12/2015
- Academic Unit
- Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies; English; School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Record Identifier
- 9984002482002771
Metrics
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