Why Kazakh Comedians Do Not Make Jokes About Women Anymore: A Study of Humorous Monologues About Women

Abstract

Making jokes about women is a common pattern in contemporary male-dominated Kazakh comedy. Kazakh comedians make critical jokes about women, judging women’s behaviour and appearance and ridiculing them for following beauty trends or for going to the gym. This kind of comedy is widely popular in Kazakhstan, with humorous monologues performed in concert halls, then broadcast on TV, and later actively shared on various social media platforms. I link this representation of women as imagined by male Kazakh comedians to the history of Soviet and Soviet Kazakh comedy, where stage comedy developed as a form of social critique. Then, I closely read contemporary humorous monologues applying feminist theories of Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan about the objectification of women by men. In doing so, I apply Irving Goffman’s term ‘footings’ to uncover the ways in which comedians communicate their critiques on women in front of a mixed audience. I reveal that comedians propagate traditional views on gender relations according to which women should be submissive to men in family and society. Male comedians criticize any changes in women that they fear may lead to disfunction in traditional gender roles. In addition, I draw on interviews with audience members in an attempt to learn the social consequences of the ideologies of gender relations propagated in jokes about women. The interviews show that humor’s function as a social critique and as propaganda of national values contribute to positive receptions of jokes about women. Yet there is also a part of the audience who do not agree with these critiques of women. I argue that the reception of the audience depends on whether the viewers support or oppose the nationalistic views that the comedians communicate via their jokes.