C'mon ! it's just a joke ! : discourse, prejudice, and superiority as portrayed in the jokes directed towards the people of Mascara

Abstract EN

Humour is usually investigated in similarity to racism or sexism, but not quite as much about superiority.

the present work intends to investigate prejudice as enacted in humor.

more specifically, it aims to unravel the way one facet of prejudice, namely superiority, plays itself out in the jokes aimed at a given social group in Algeria, in this case, the people of mascara (a northwestern Algerian city).

to this end, twenty jokes were collected from an Algerian blog to carry out the analysis.

a meta-discourse analysis and concepts from the superiority theory were adopted.

it is argued that the underlying motive behind making those jokes is to establish superiority at the expense of the target community by poking fun at their assumed unintelligence, poor decision-making, and backwardness.

the findings confirm that superiority is behind those jokes under the guise of a “just joking” mindset.

the jokes, hence, aimed at the people of mascara, can be categorized as prejudiced and disparaged toward them, aiming to establish superiority over them.