I write this post having just found myself laughing out loud at a hilarious French Canadian video on youtube protesting the 2008 move by Stephen Harper (Canada's Prime Minister) to cut funding of cultural events, which greatly concerned the Quebecer people. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFbbwEtrsa8&feature=related. For reasons I'll explain shortly, I cannot upload the video. In addition, I found a very compelling home video from Lebanon, entitled "Being a Domestic Worker: Sri Lankiete Lebanieh." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dtxEO3GjA&feature=player_embedded. These two videos have an interesting link: they use humorous language as a way to counter discrimination.
I discovered the video about Sri Lankan Domestic Workers in a France24 "observer" article. In French, the video is entitled (translated) "My Sri-Lankan is Lebanese." This tries to bring to light and confront the publicly known and, in many cases, accepted, racist views against domestic workers in Lebanon, who are predominantly Sri-Lankan (in addition to many Ethiopians and Filipinos). So enfonced has the idea of domestic worker-as-Sri-Lankan been in the Lebanese mind, as the Lebanese directors of the film would argue, that in many circles, the two words have come to mean the same thing. A domestic worker is "automatically" a "Sri-Lankan", regardless of his or her origin. The video thus attempts to turn the stereotype on its head: the role of maitresse of the house is played by a woman, who, "coincidentally," is Sri-Lankan, while her Sri-Lankan is actually Lebanese. throughout the film, the trials and travails of a "Sri-Lankan" are depicted, and our Libyan "Sri-Lankan" actually escapes, almost as if from bondage, to remove herself from the discriminatory, derogatory treatment of her maitresse. The directors had hoped, as they describe in the article (which isn't available in English, sorry :[), that the juxtaposition of roles would raise awareness to the maltreatment of domestic workers by the hands of the Lebanese. And they hope that this willl at least begin a cycle of change in the minds of their neighbors. To any effect? It's too soon to tell, but I hope so.
My second video, as I mentioned before, cannot be displayed. I have to be able to say that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is no innappropriate content in the video. The problem is--and the the video makes apparent--that with ignorance come misunderstandings and conflict. The ignorance called out by the video is that of Stephen Harper (the Prime Minister of Canada), who, in 2008, announced a legislation that would cut 45 million dollars from the government funding of arts in Canada. The innappropriate nature of the video is displayed through the the language misunderstanding of Anglophone board members as they inspect a Quebecer man's guitar/concert business, and whether or not it deserves the Canadian government's money. They misunderstand both the lyric of one of his songs, "phoque" (seal), for an incredibly vulgar English swear-word, and his use of the word "p'tite" (which in Quebecer quotidian French mostly deletes the "p" sound) for the vulgar English word for breasts. The Quebecer man is virtually silenced under a curtain of ignorance of language--the only bilingual member of the board is too limited in his comprehension to adequately translate his sentiment in French, and his pronunciation is overtly stereotypical and offensive--and serves as an example of culture being destroyed by people who cannot and would not appreciate the depth of its value to a society. By example, then, this video tries to demonstrate that judgment and prejudice against the fine arts is ignorant, using a theme of satire much more evident in this video than the Lebanese one.
What about you, readers? Do you have examples of humor successfully changing the minds of prejudicial others throughout the world, or even your own community? Is humor and media as criticism a weak resistance to the discriminating elements of society? And, if so, does that void this method of value?
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