tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/dark-comedy-44882/articlesDark comedy – The Conversation2023-04-20T17:13:28Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2033212023-04-20T17:13:28Z2023-04-20T17:13:28ZWill the brilliance of Netflix’s ‘Beef’ be lost in the shadow of a sexual assault controversy? — Podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521458/original/file-20230418-14-d6yi11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=61%2C14%2C1287%2C723&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 'Beef,' two L.A. strangers (played by Steven Yeun and Ali Wong) end up in an escalating feud after a road rage incident. The identity of the characters is both incidental and central to the story, blasting through stereotypes. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Andrew Cooper/Netflix)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/bf0a3fa5-4f7f-4629-a28b-252eb0e38ae1?dark=true"></iframe>
<p><em>Beef</em> premiered on Netflix this month to <a href="https://www.vulture.com/article/beef-finale-ending-explained-danny-amy-therapy-analysis.html">rave reviews</a> and quickly became the <a href="https://top10.netflix.com/united-states/tv">top watched</a> series on the platform in the U.S. In Canada, it took the No. 2 spot.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/06/1167959412/beef-review-ali-wong-steven-yeun"><em>Beef</em> is a dark comedy series</a> created by Lee Sung Jin. It follows two L.A. strangers, courageously played by Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, who get into a road rage incident — and end up in an escalating feud.</p>
<p>The show is a beautiful meditation on life and survival and highlights universal issues of alienation and loneliness as well as class and race and gender. Critics have praised <em>Beef</em> for its performances and also for its revolutionary representation of Asian Americans. The identity of the characters is both incidental and central to the story, blasting through stereotypes. </p>
<p>But over the weekend, a Twitter storm erupted after a podcast episode featuring supporting actor David Choe resurfaced. In the 2014 podcast, <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/david-choe-rape-controversy-netflix-beef-1235390907/">Choe vividly relays a sexual assault story where he is the perpetrator</a>. Choe has apologized since and has also said the story was made up. </p>
<p>The David Choe Foundation has filed a copyright infringement claim to <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/beef-star-david-choe-rape-joke-podcast-clips-removed-twitter-1235585677/">get the podcast taken offline</a>. There has been no response from the producers of <em>Beef</em>.</p>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/will-the-brilliance-of-beef-be-lost-in-the-shadow-of-a-sexual-assault-controversy">This week on <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, we explore the advances <em>Beef</em> has made in television. As the controversy continues to swirl, we also explore the limits of those advancements and ask whether the brilliance of <em>Beef</em> will be overshadowed by Choe’s controversial history. </p>
<p>Joining us to discuss this is Michelle Cho, an assistant professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, specializing in Korean film, media and popular culture. Also with us is Bianca Mabute-Louie, a PhD student in Sociology at Rice University in Houston with a background in Asian American studies and racial justice work.</p>
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<p>[Beef provides] “a really compelling portrayal of Asian American women’s experience of female rage and the nuances of living in a world, in a society that expects a certain type of docility and a placid surface.”
— Michelle Cho, assistant professor of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto</p>
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<h2>Read more in <em>The Conversation</em></h2>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-music-and-film-a-new-korean-wave-is-challenging-asian-stereotypes-158757">In music and film, a new Korean wave is challenging Asian stereotypes</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-model-minority-myth-hides-the-racist-and-sexist-violence-experienced-by-asian-women-157667">The model minority myth hides the racist and sexist violence experienced by Asian women</a>
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<h2>More info</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/beef-netflix-asian-american-media-17902085.php">We’re in Asian America’s peak media moment. But ‘Beef’ has poisoned the well by Soleil Ho</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beef-netflix-asian-american-rage_n_642ed194e4b0859acb92d4c3">Finally, A Show About Angry Asians by Ian Kumamoto</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/what-to-watch/ct-ent-david-choe-rape-story-beef-20230417-rfzbycqzzfdhtktunuaromcyc4-story.html">Made up rape story or not, David Choe’s remarks were public long before ‘Beef.’ Our silence on them is deafening by Nina Metz</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/17/beef-tv-review-netflix">Comic High Jinks and Repressed Despair in Netflix’s ‘Beef’ by Inkoo Kang</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52845775"><em>Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning</em> by Cathy Park Hong</a></p>
<p><a href="https://blog.angryasianman.com/2023/04/they-call-us-bruce-193-they-call-us-beef.html">They Call Us Bruce podcast with Jeff Yang and Phil Yu (on ‘Beef’)</a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.reelasian.com/">Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival</a></p>
<h2>Listen and Follow</h2>
<p>You can listen to or follow <em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/dont-call-me-resilient/id1549798876">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS9qZFg0Ql9DOA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/37tK4zmjWvq2Sh6jLIpzp7">Spotify</a> or <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com">wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts</a>. <a href="mailto:DCMR@theconversation.com">We’d love to hear from you</a>, including any ideas for future episodes. Join The Conversation on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationCA">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheConversationCanada">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@theconversation">TikTok</a> and use #DontCallMeResilient.</p>
<h2>Unedited transcript</h2>
<p><a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/will-the-brilliance-of-beef-be-lost-in-the-shadow-of-a-sexual-assault-controversy/transcript">Transcript for S5 EP 4, ‘Beef’</a></p>
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The brilliance of the new Netflix TV show, ‘Beef,’ which looks at loneliness and urban life, is threatened by the controversial history of one of its supporting actors, David Choe.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1286222019-12-15T18:56:42Z2019-12-15T18:56:42ZJojo Rabbit: Hitler humour and a child’s eye view of war make for dark satire<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306274/original/file-20191211-95138-ytoxwh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C14%2C1940%2C1305&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jojo's allegiances in the film are split between an imagined friends and a real hideaway. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fox Searchlight</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jojo Rabbit is not Disney Studios’ first foray into Hitler parody. In 1943, it produced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L90smU0SOcQ">der Fuehrer’s Face</a> – an anti-Nazi film inside Donald Duck’s nightmares.</p>
<p>Now, Disney is the Australian distributor of Jojo Rabbit, a story of a young boy whose imaginary friend (and buffoonish life coach) is Adolf Hitler. </p>
<p>In this dark satire, from the Polynesian-Jewish-New Zealand director Taika Waititi who brought us <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4698684/">Hunt for the Wilderpeople</a>, Nazi Germany is in its waning days. The Germans have all but lost the second world war but 10-year-old Johannes “Jojo” Betzel (Roman Griffin Davis) believes he, and he alone, will be the Aryan hero to turn the tide.</p>
<p>The boy’s imaginary friend, a hilariously incompetent Hitler (played by Waititi in blue contact lenses and the trademark moustache), cheers him on. When asked to kill a rabbit to get into the Hitler Youth, Jojo baulks, though he does almost manage to kill himself in a grenade stunt. </p>
<p>“You’re still the bestest, most loyal little Nazi I’ve ever met,” the fantasy Fuhrer enthuses.</p>
<h2>Through children’s eyes</h2>
<p>Themes and images of children have often been central in films exploring WWII. Steven Spielberg famously used <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUJ187mkMq8">“the girl in red coat”</a> to create a powerfully moving symbol of innocence in <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2017/03/31/schindlers-list-one-most-visually-powerful-war-films-ever-made">Schindler’s List</a> (1993).</p>
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<span class="caption">Germany Year Zero (1948) focused on the life of children in Berlin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tevere Film</span></span>
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<p>Immediately after the war, a stream of films, including Roberto Rosselini’s <a href="https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1358-germany-year-zero-the-humanity-of-the-defeated%22%22">Germany Year Zero</a> (1948), Gerhard Lamprecht’s <a href="https://ecommerce.umass.edu/defa/film/6025">Somewhere in Berlin</a> (1946), and Fred Zinnemann’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu8h7OyX8-Y">The Search</a> (1948) looked at wartime trauma through injuries acquired by children. </p>
<p>Like Jojo’s grenade mishap, their wounds were permanent. </p>
<p>In war films, children’s perspectives don’t diminish the ghastliness of war. Quite the contrary. When war and its pervasive horror spills over from the battlefield and intrudes on their youth, viewers are appalled at its spread.</p>
<p>Containing that disease of war, curing it even, is where Waititi’s takedown of fascist group-think truly begins. </p>
<p>How will Jojo escape the brainwash army of Reichswehr propaganda parrots like Rebel Wilson’s Fräulein?</p>
<p>There are several steps. The first one for Jojo is finding out his mother has been hiding a Jewish girl in the attic. </p>
<p>Scarlett Johansson gives an enchanting performance as a single mum who tries to keep the embers of humanity and love in Jojo’s heart alive as he gets lost in Nazi doctrines of vile anti-Semitism.</p>
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<span class="caption">Scarlett Johansson tries to counter Nazi brainwashing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twentieth Century Fox</span></span>
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<p>Jojo starts falling for Elsa Korr (Thomasin McKenzie), the hideaway in his attic, as her humanity – and his pre-pubescent hormones – triumph over fascist indoctrination. Through Jojo’s eyes, we see Elsa turn from monster into human as he comes back from the brink of fanatic hatred. </p>
<p>Waititi hides that innocent, simple love story under slapstick and a ton of special effects. The latter don’t always work. And some of the jokes fall flat. </p>
<p>But what works is the message that Jojo is both manipulated and self-manipulating. His Nazi hate is a cage of his own making, and Elsa is the key to unlocking it. She teaches him that empathy for those who we think are different from us is powerful. </p>
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<h2>Irreverent or irresponsible?</h2>
<p>Hitler comedies have a long history. In 1940, Charlie Chaplin released <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVLQ8lNd1Pk">The Great Dictator</a>. Mel Brooks created <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brkp2VhzdDI">The Producers</a> in 1968. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/too-soon-the-case-for-holocaust-humour-9894">Too soon? The case for Holocaust humour</a>
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<span class="caption">In Look Who’s Back, Hitler wakes up in the 21st Century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Constantin Film</span></span>
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<p>German filmmakers Dani Levy (<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780568/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">My Führer – The Really Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler</a>, 2007) and David Wnendt (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylstybS6rqw&list=PL-2fuUy0f-jOu3bV_Bj1Uh-SbTO8OCK1A&index=2&t=0s">Look Who’s Back</a>, 2015) strived to find the right balance between comedy and drama. </p>
<p>Like Waititi, those filmmakers experienced how mining sombre Holocaust themes and hateful iconography for the ridiculous splits public reactions along extreme lines. The critics bemoaned that Levy committed only halfheartedly to a funny Hitler, making the film the worst thing a comedy can be: too harmless. </p>
<p>Wnendt faced another issue. He intercut his film with hidden camera footage of Germans reacting to the lead actor dressed as Hitler. People thought this was too much realism. </p>
<p>Waititi <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-09/jojo-rabbit-review-and-taika-waititi-on-making-comic-hitler/11721074">says</a> he didn’t look at these forerunners and didn’t do any research on Hitler. He looked to literature instead. </p>
<p>Jojo Rabbit uses the masterful dramatic novel <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25641300-caging-skies?from_search=true&qid=ev2DKS7scE&rank=1">Caging Skies</a> by New Zealand-Belgian author Christine Leuens as source material. The book doesn’t have the same generous scoops of comedy and tragedy found in Ladislav Fuks’ <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/725311.Mr_Theodore_Mundstock">Mr. Theodore Mundstock</a>, or in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18582851-the-nazi-and-the-barber">The Nazi and the Barber</a> by Edgar Hilsenrath.</p>
<p>It’s all the more reason to recognise what Waititi has tried to accomplish. He had to negotiate between a book adaptation, Holocaust memory, and Hollywood. </p>
<p>Commenting on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJSwD_17qjY">his motivation</a> for making the film, Watiti, whose mother is Jewish, said: “I just want people to be more tolerant and spread more love and less hate”.</p>
<p><em>Jojo Rabbit opens across Australia on Boxing Day, check listings for advance screenings.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Nickl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Disney Hitler comedy by the director of Hunt for the Wilderpeople tests the line between funny and Führer.Benjamin Nickl, Lecturer in International Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1147152019-04-12T10:40:59Z2019-04-12T10:40:59ZVenezuela’s crisis is a tragedy - but comedy gold for satire, cartoons and memes<p>Thirty-nine journalists have been <a href="https://cpj.org/blog/2019/03/venezuela-crisis-detained-journalist-weddle-maduro.php">detained</a> in Venezuela this year, far more than in <a href="https://cpj.org/reports/2018/12/journalists-jailed-imprisoned-turkey-china-egypt-saudi-arabia.php">any other Latin American country</a>, according to the Caracas-based Institute for Press and Society.</p>
<p>Their arrests are part of the government’s crackdown on journalists who report on the country’s escalating <a href="https://theconversation.com/venezuelas-power-struggle-reaches-a-tense-stalemate-as-human-suffering-deepens-114545">instability</a> as President Nicolás Maduro fights to retain power against the opposition’s internationally backed effort to oust him. </p>
<p>Local reporters have seen early morning <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/06/venezuela-journalist-cody-weddle-reports-caracas">raids of their homes</a>, arrests, rushed and legally questionable trials for charges of “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/12/venezuela-luis-carlos-diaz-journalist-taken-sebin">inciting violence</a>. They’ve been given verdicts ranging from <a href="https://cpj.org/2019/04/journalist-luis-carlos-diaz-released-from-detentio.php">self-censorship</a> to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/venezuela-releases-german-journalist-billy-six-from-jail/a-47943133">jail time</a>. Several foreign reporters – including Univision TV anchor and U.S. citizen Jorge Ramos – have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/25/jorge-ramos-univision-detained-venezuela-maduro-interview">deported</a> from Venezuela.</p>
<p>In this repressive environment, journalists are finding ways to <a href="https://intpolicydigest.org/2018/01/04/censorship-venezuela-fuels-social-media-growth/">avoid censorship</a> and still cover the country’s crisis. </p>
<p>Digital news sites and social media platforms, in particular, have become key platforms for informing the public. Using <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/4/nicolas-maduro-media-control-censors-news-venezuel/">humorous memes</a> and <a href="https://qz.com/1282733/venezuela-under-maduro-the-crisis-as-told-by-its-version-of-the-onion/">political satire</a>, they publicize government abuses, protest daily humiliations like water shortages and blackouts and resist Maduro’s <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-20426-venezuela-leads-latin-america-most-journalists-jailed-because-their-work-according-cpj">autocratic regime</a>.</p>
<h2>Laugh so you don’t cry</h2>
<p>Government pressure on the Venezuelan media dates back to the late <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hugo-Chavez">President Hugo Chávez</a>, who took office in 1999. Over three administrations, Chávez used his power and immense popularity to chip away at the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/31/venezuelas-crumbling-facade-democracy">separation of powers</a> and undermine press freedom.</p>
<p>Maduro has continued this tradition since <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/04/nicolas-maduro-hugo-chavez-s-handpicked-successor-declared-victory-in-venezuela.html">succeeding Chávez</a>, his political mentor, in 2013. He has also overseen Venezuela’s slide into humanitarian crisis, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2019/01/01/venezuelas-hyperinflation-hits-80000-per-year-in-2018/#67bce7e74572">economic collapse</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/23/venezuela-dictator-democracy-nicolas-maduro-venezuelans">political chaos</a>. To quash protests, his government has turned <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/11/29/crackdown-dissent/brutality-torture-and-political-persecution-venezuela">increasingly authoritarian</a>, violently repressing dissent and silencing journalists. </p>
<p>Under such circumstances, Venezuela’s turn toward <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/00-18674-make-humor-anger-satirical-news-reveals-absurd-venezuelan-politics">satirical news</a> recalls an old saying that’s grown popular in these difficult days: "Me río para no llorar” – laugh so you don’t cry.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268691/original/file-20190410-2914-1cy7hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Several power outages in Venezuela have disabled electric water pumps, forcing people to fill up buckets of river water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Week-That-Was-In-Latin-America-Photo-Gallery/5da464e9363549d7a2ccb67c4dc8dbab/73/0">AP Photo/Fernando Llano</a></span>
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<p>A satirical website called “El chigüire bipolar” – the bipolar capybara, a name that references a giant South American rodent – <a href="https://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article148660919.html">recently won an international prize</a> for “creative dissidence.” </p>
<p>Its animated series, “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npUI1vOA_fI">La isla presidencial</a>,” “The Presidential Island,” which began in 2010, has Venezuela’s leftist strongman leader – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DSqp_oO5-Y">first Hugo Chávez</a>, now Nicolás Maduro – stranded on a desert island with other presidents of Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Nicaragua, Colombia and with the king of Spain. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The English language trailer for the Venezuelan web series ‘Presidential Island.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“The Presidential Island” portrays Maduro as illiterate and overweight, a blundering simpleton who is overly proud of his mustache and incessantly invokes the late Hugo Chávez.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgPvcc6G2Co">one episode from the current season</a>, Maduro takes it upon himself to ration water during a drought. His poor handling of water distribution leads the other presidents to revolt. They find water sources of their own. </p>
<p>Maduro declares it a “coup d'etat” and insists that it’s all an “imperialist” plot – just as he has done during Venezuela’s repeated recent national blackouts.</p>
<p>Political cartoonists are another front of the Venezuelan media’s resistance to oppression by the Maduro regime. </p>
<p>Cartoonist and graphic artist Rayma Suprani was <a href="https://elpais.com/elpais/2014/09/22/inenglish/1411401634_302890.html">dismissed</a> from the national newspaper El Universal in 2014 after a drawing that mocked Maduro’s authority. She portrayed Chávez’s signature as a flatline on a hospital heart-rate monitor, as if to say, “Venezuela’s Socialist revolution is dead.” </p>
<p>Being fired didn’t stop Suprani from drawing. Today, her <a href="https://www.raymasuprani.com/">satirical cartoons</a> and drawings are widely circulated online, offering powerful visual depictions of the country’s always worsening news.</p>
<h2>Juan Guaidó, meme hero</h2>
<p>Venezuela has a long history of satire during times of political and economic crisis. </p>
<p>First published in 1892, “<a href="http://200.2.12.132/SVI/hemeroteca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=292&Itemid=433">El cojo illustrado</a>” – “The Illustrated Cripple” – was a Venezuelan magazine that used satirical drawings and articles to address political topics without explicitly referring to the government in power. </p>
<p>During its 23 years in circulation, the publication skewered everything from current events to Venezuelan identity politics – always obliquely, using sly humor.</p>
<p>Today, stand-up comics are more explicit, using dark humor to expose the government’s policy missteps and predictable rhetoric.</p>
<p><a href="http://laureanomarquez.com/">Laureano Márquez</a>, a Venezuelan humorist, political scientist and author with 3.43 million <a href="https://twitter.com/laureanomar">Twitter followers</a>, irritates the government from the safety of Spain, where he now lives.</p>
<p>“Russia votes at UN against intervention in Venezuela,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/laureanomar/status/1101464632143810561">tweeted</a> on March 1. “Except if it’s Russian, Chinese or Cuban.” </p>
<p>Communist Russia, China and Cuba are the Maduro regime’s three most powerful international allies. More than 50 countries – including the United States, Colombia and Canada – back National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó’s bid to unseat the president.</p>
<p>Even Guaidó, who appears to have massive popular support for his challenge to Maduro, has also been the target of online ribbing in Venezuela. </p>
<p>On Jan. 22, security footage from the Hotel Lido in Caracas surfaced that appeared to show Guaidó <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-video/under-pressure-over-video-venezuelas-guaido-says-met-officials-idUSKCN1PL00L">meeting with officials from the Maduro regime</a>. That would have been an unpopular move among opposition supporters. </p>
<p>But the grainy video simply showed an unidentified person wearing a baseball cap and gray hoodie, walking with his hands in his pockets, followed by Guaidó’s aide Roberto Marrero. It could be anyone, Guaidó’s supporters reasoned.</p>
<p>The hashtag <a href="https://noticiasya.com/2019/01/25/viral-de-que-trata-el-guaidochallenge/">#GuaidoChallenge</a> quickly went viral on Instagram as users posted photographs and videos of themselves, cartoon characters and random people posing in hats and hoodies. One Instagram user dressed up his dog in a hat and sweatshirt and quipped, “It’s a GuaiDog!” </p>
<p>Even former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and U.S. Senator <a href="https://www.instagram.com/marcorubiofla/p/BtGiQfbHaWb/">Marco Rubio</a> joined the #GuaidoChallenge. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/marcorubiofla/p/BtGiQfbHaWb","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Guaidó eventually admitted that he had in fact meet with the Maduro regime, hoping to persuade them to hold a new presidential election. </p>
<p>That had been unacceptable to Maduro. The next day, Guaidó declared himself interim president of Venezuela, triggering the power struggle that has plunged the country into chaos. </p>
<p>There’s nothing funny about Venezuela’s tragedy. But humor is among the few ways Venezuelans have left to cope with their desperation and frustration. </p>
<p>They’re laughing, as the saying goes, so they don’t cry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114715/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Juan-Carlos Molleda is affiliated with Institute for Public Relations, as an academic trustee; with the LAGRANT Foundation, as a board member; with the HIV Alliance, as a board member; and with the Latin American Communication Monitor, as a co-director. </span></em></p>The rise of black comedy to explain Venezuela’s chaos recalls an old saying in the crisis-stricken South American country: ‘Laugh so you don’t cry.’Juan-Carlos Molleda, Edwin L. Artzt Dean and Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/899972018-01-17T10:27:37Z2018-01-17T10:27:37ZDerry Girls: finally, a realistic comedy about being a young woman in Northern Ireland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201788/original/file-20180112-101486-jm5qvr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Derry Girls</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.channel4.com/info/press/images/list?week=201802&channel=all&freetext=">Channel4/Aidan Monaghan/Hat Trick</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Teenage girls are often left out of literary and cultural representations of Northern Ireland. Children, in books and drama set during the Troubles, are often <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/health/revealed-significant-numbers-of-young-people-in-northern-ireland-worry-about-their-mental-health-35826054.html">symbols for the horrors of war</a> or for hopes of a non-sectarian future. But teenage girls are different. They are seen as unruly, hormonal and morally transgressive, so they have the power to unsettle traditional ideas around identity in Northern Ireland. Channel 4’s series <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derry-girls">Derry Girls</a> allows them to be raucous, wild and deadly funny.</p>
<p>Right from the beginning, the show is pure Derry. From the shots over the iconic walls and murals to the young men painting over the “London” on street signs to leave the town with it’s original name, “Derry”. Characters emphasise the small town nature of Northern Ireland’s second city (Derry/Londonderry/Stroke City/The Maiden City/Doire, however you like it). It is dense with 1990s nostalgia, from the soundtrack of The Cranberries and House of Pain, through the hoop earrings and mousse-scrunched hair to the relentless quoting from Pulp Fiction. </p>
<p>Recent years have seen a boom in 1990s nostalgia, as evidenced by the proliferation of think pieces on the availability of <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2018/01/friends-couldn-t-work-2018">Friends on Netflix</a> and the endless lists of “things only <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/beckybarnicoat/british-people-nostalgic-for-the-90s?utm_term=.djOJ0Z29B#.ifb41kRoQ">90s kids</a> understand” on Buzzfeed. </p>
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<p>Bruno Mars and Cardi B’s recent hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsoLEjrDogU">Finesse</a> is marked by its visual and auditory homage to 1990s hip hop. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/28/will-grace-review-rusty-revival-feels-worn-out-in-the-age-of-trump">Will and Grace has been revived</a>, as have iconic film franchises such as Jurassic Park. Even <a href="http://bust.com/style/16076-15-nostalgic-hair-accessories-and-where-are-they-now.html">hair scrunchies have become popular again</a>. </p>
<h2>The power of nostalgia</h2>
<p>In Derry Girls, this nostalgia is shot through with the reality of living during the Troubles. While early moves towards the Peace Process (such as the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-37278304/talkback-at-30-john-hume-on-the-hume-adams-talks-of-1993">Hume Adams talks</a>) were ongoing during this period, it is still one marked by army patrols and the possibility of violence. Derry Girls’ protagonist, Erin, has been to enough cross-community workshops to ironically describe herself as a “child of the crossfire, surrounded by the conflict”.</p>
<p>A teenage girl’s modesty must be protected in the conservative faith traditions of Northern Ireland. The politician Bernadette Devlin’s age was often used against her, as she was given the moniker “<a href="http://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/fidel-castro-in-a-miniskirt-bernadette-devlins-first-us-tour/">Fidel Castro in a miniskirt</a>”. Novels and films based on The Troubles often foreground teenage male protagonists, due to the drama of their potential involvement as paramilitary foot soldiers and the possibility of their refusing to take part in the conflict.</p>
<p>This is perhaps most potently realised in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/31/bernard-maclaverty-interview-new-novel-midwinter-break">Bernard MacLaverty’s book Cal</a> in which the eponymous protagonist grapples with sectarian violence, Catholic guilt and his attraction to a taboo widow. Even accounts of transgression, such as the joyous film <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilms/film/good_vibrations">Good Vibrations</a>, focus on “teenage kicks” which are, almost exclusively, male.</p>
<p>Recent novels such as Glenn Patterson’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/12/the-rest-just-follows-glenn-patterson-review-friendship-troubles">The Rest Just Follows</a> and Tara West’s <a href="http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/features/literature/my-cultural-life-tara-west">Fodder</a> seek to redress the gender imbalance of these portrayals of punk’s adolescents in the same way that Derry Girls does.</p>
<h2>Teenage girls in Northern Irish culture</h2>
<p>Previous representations of teenage girls in Northern Irish texts include Sadie in Joan Lingard’s <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/31782/across-the-barricades/">Across the Barricades</a> series, which were mandatory reading in schools during the 1990s and presumably inspired Derry Girls’ “friends across the barricades” – a cross community initiative for teenagers. </p>
<p>Some films have also dealt with how young women have been erased from the popular canon of Northern Irish culture, such as Margo Harkin’s film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102080/">Hush-a-Bye Baby</a> and <a href="http://www.troublesarchive.com/artforms/theatre/piece/the-venus-de-milo-instead-screenplay-">The Venus de Milo Instead</a>, written by Anne Devlin and directed by Danny Boyle. And the 21st century has seen an upswing in texts which deal with Northern Irish teenage girls, such as the novels of Shirley Anne McMillan, the viral twitter account <a href="https://twitter.com/NrnIrnGirl1981?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Norn Iron Girl 1981</a> and Anna Burns’ devastating <a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/anna-burns/no-bones/">No Bones</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201789/original/file-20180112-101483-s3nop0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Erin Quinn, played by Saoirse Jackson, in Derry Girls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.channel4.com/info/press/images/list?week=201802&channel=all&freetext=">Channel4/Aidan Monaghan/Hat Trick</a></span>
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<p>The closest comparison to Derry Girls (although noticeably less profane) is Lucy Caldwell’s collection <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/multitudes-by-lucy-caldwell-review-gritty-teenage-tales-of-the-troubles-1.2637842">Multitudes</a>, which is dense with 1990s teen ephemera (“strawberry lip balm from The Body Shop or Take That keyring from Athena”) and the small traumas of adolescence set against the wider context of the Troubles. Her short story <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/poison-a-short-story-by-lucy-caldwell-1.2779966">Poison</a> looks at the dark side of adolescent sexual obsession.</p>
<p>The vital thing about Lisa McGee’s writing is just how funny she allows her young, female protagonists to be, particularly in the final scenes with Sister Declan. She also allows them to have potentially transgressive desires, such as Michelle commenting on the soldiers: “Some of them are rides”. </p>
<p>To see young Northern Irish women pulling faces, making popular cultural references and deciding who gets to be “a ride” is refreshing and much more interesting than traditional representations of an adolescence marked by violence and sexual repression. During the Troubles, girls laughed, piled their hair high and had rampant crushes. Derry Girls, not a minute too soon, drags that back into the light.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89997/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Magennis receives funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Government of Ireland for her forthcoming academic project on the legacy of the Good Friday Agreement. She is the Chair of the Council of the British Association for Irish Studies. </span></em></p>Derry Girls is nostalgic but it’s also a truthful and funny representation of teenage girls growing up during The Troubles.Caroline Magennis, Lecturer in 20th and 21st Century Literature, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/856982017-10-16T13:24:38Z2017-10-16T13:24:38ZAssassinating Katie Hopkins may be bad taste but theatre-goers may just love it<p>Katie Hopkins, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/katie-hopkins-and-the-sun-when-the-unreadable-prints-the-unspeakable-40505">controversial British media commentator</a>, has become the subject of a new stage play guaranteed to inflame the public as much has her <a href="https://theconversation.com/katie-hopkins-proclaims-herself-the-jesus-of-the-outspoken-its-a-very-dangerous-message-78544">own extreme columns</a> do.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/oct/11/theatre-to-stage-musical-based-on-imaginary-death-of-katie-hopkins">Assassination of Katie Hopkins</a> musical is due to open in spring 2018 at Theatr Clywd in north Wales. Tucked away in the market town of Mold, Flintshire, one may not expect it to be the venue for such a topic, and yet Theatr Clwyd has <a href="http://www.dailypost.co.uk/whats-on/theatre-news/rhyl-murderer-ruth-ellis-story-12644097">long held a reputation</a> for excellent, thoughtful, and entertaining stage productions, often attracting <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/jul/08/toby-robertson">luminaries of British Theatre</a> to tread the boards there. </p>
<p>One can already hear the knives of public opinion being sharpened. The Twitterverse went into spontaneous combustion as those both for and against the controversial celebrity mouth piece etched the lines of battle into virtual sand. Of course, whether any of them will look up from their smartphones long enough to actually go see the musical in spring, is another matter. </p>
<p>I for one applaud writer Chris Bush, director James Grieve and artistic director Tamara Harvey for daring to provoke. This is part of theatre’s rich history – theatre is an art and art should provoke. In the late 1820s and early 1830s Daniel Auber’s opera <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/04/30/opera-on-the-barricades">La Muette de Portici</a> inspired not only the July Revolution in 1830s France, but also the establishment of an independent Belgian nation, from under the yoke of King William I’s Dutch kingdom. </p>
<p>Closer to home, on the streets of Dublin in 1907, there were riots after a performance of <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/1010/">The Playboy of the Western World</a> by John Millington Synge. The play’s plot centred around Christy Mahon who, on the run after murdering his father, is ironically turned into a local celebrity. The play was attacked at the time for a lack of moral decency – Arthur Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin and later president of Ireland, called it a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2003/apr/16/theatre.samanthaellis">vile and inhuman story told in the foulest language</a>”. Yet The Playboy went on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/sep/23/playboy-western-world-old-vic">to be performed globally</a>, and is now studied by Irish school children as the master work of a major writer.</p>
<p>Moving forward to 1960s London, playwright Joe Orton, a working class, gay man had his breakout play, <a href="http://www.joeorton.org/Pages/Joe_Orton_Plays3.html">Entertaining Mr Sloane</a>, which also used patricide as a theme. In it, Sloane murders Kemp, the elderly father of Kath and Ed, who are both sexually attracted to Sloane. The play of course was extremely controversial. One Telegraph reader complained “I myself was nauseated by this endless parade of mental and physical perversion”. The reader, one Edna Welthorpe, was actually an <a href="http://www.joeorton.org/Pages/Joe_Orton_Life9.html">alter ego character invented by Orton</a>, a master of social and transmedia before such things existed. </p>
<p>Orton was a playwright with his finger on the pulse of British Society. He knew how to press buttons and get a reaction. Orton, who was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/from-the-archive-blog/2017/aug/09/joe-orton-death-archive-1967">brutally murdered</a> by his lover Kenneth Halliwell in 1967, has inspired many a writer since. It is hard to imagine that there would be a <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/mark-ravenhill">Mark Ravenhill</a> without a Joe Orton. Ravenhill first came onto the scene with a play entitled <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-shopping-and-fucking-royal-court-london-1356460.html">Shopping and Fucking</a>, directed by Max Stafford-Clark in 1996, in which there were portrayals of male rape and perhaps the first use of the word “rimming” on the British stage. Outrage followed, but the play had a serious message about consumerism, and indeed the state of the nation. </p>
<p>Another controversial playwright at this time was Sarah Kane, whose play Blasted <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/young-playwright-blasted-for-brutalist-debut-work-1568794.html">was so controversial</a> it was debated on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Newsnight. A middle-aged, bigoted, male journalist rapes an innocent young girl in a hotel room, a soldier then appears in the hotel room with a sniper rifle and we are transported into a different reality that is of war and inhumanity as jogtrot. Jack Tinker of the Daily Mail called it a “disgusting feast of filth”. Today it is considered as an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2015/jan/12/sarah-kane-blasted-was-dismissed-by-critics">incredibly important play</a> by a playwright who sadly left this world too soon. </p>
<p>I was also writing controversial plays in the 1990s: <a href="https://carolinefarrellwriter.com/2015/08/24/doing-it-with-passion-writers-in-ireland-series-len-collin/">Box</a> looked at two London runaways who find the diary of a British soldier who fell in love with a German soldier in the trenches of the World War I. It challenged male sexuality and, though it did attract some criticism, it was also named critics’ choice in Time Out and City Limits – a rare thing at the time.</p>
<p>Despite each of these plays causing a stir, the performances were well attended, and several have been revived in more recent years. While assassinating Katie Hopkins may seem like the perfect type of clickbait headline to encourage a new young audience to go to the theatre, the fact of the matter is that the stage has been home to this kind of content for centuries. Closed off from the world for a few hours, one can delve into the depths of the human psyche. It is one of the last places where a watcher is forced to form their own views of the performance before heading to the social media platforms beloved by the likes of Hopkins to praise or complain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Len Collin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The stage is the perfect place to explore dark thoughts.Len Collin, Senior Lecturer in Screenwriting and Media Production, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.