| What happens when someone makes a joke whose comic value is based on ethnic difference? Must laughter at such jokes necessarily be the cynical affirmation of current perceptions of ethnic differences, or can comedy offer more? In a close reading of the comedy routines of Serdar Somuncu, and building on the theories of comedy from Arthur Koestler and Henri Bergson, this essay takes the position that certain jokes offer an alternative. These jokes are what the essay calls disruptive critical ethnic comedy Using Jacques Ranciere's conception of the distribution of the sensible, this essay investigates the potential for standup comedy, as an aesthetic creation, to alter the perceptual coordinates of Turkish German ethnicity and enact politics. Mobilizing Ranciere's understanding of the relationship between aesthetics and politics, this essay intervenes in the current discourse surrounding Turkish German cultural production. The essay explores new possibilities of thought in relation to the works of Leslie Adelson, Tom Cheesman, and B. Venkat Mani while building on their conceptual models. |
