Subversive satire
- Maria Sole Pacini
- Mar 16
- 8 min read
Have we put our anger to sleep?
There is something profoundly serious about knowing how to laugh with the right kind of humor. While mass entertainment feeds us daily doses of a seemingly-harmless cynicism, true subversive laughter is an act of courage and anger that restores dignity.
The point of this article is not to demonize humor in its entirety. What I want to demonstrate is that intelligent humor is possible once we understand that all interactions carry a political message—laughter included. The key lies in understanding what—and who—we are winking at.
I will begin by discussing patriarchy, but only as a starting point. My aim is to analyze how power systems reaffirm themselves through discursive practices and how humor can act as both an ally and a saboteur.
Before diving into the heart of the matter, it feels appropriate to take a step back and return to the basics. How do power structures work? How do they actually maintain hegemony? It is bold—perhaps even a bit cheeky—of me to think I can define the mechanisms of something that has permeated me (and us) so deeply. How can one define something in its totality if we are neck-deep in that very totality? I do not believe that what I am about to write captures the true "essence" of power structures, but I do believe that at least a small part of them works exactly like this.
Take patriarchy as a case study. From my studies and personal experience, the idea I have developed is that, in line with the theoretical perspective of Connell and Messerschmidt, patriarchy can be interpreted not just as a system of dominance, but as a specific declination of Gramscian hegemony. To avoid excessive formalism: what we truly need to understand for the purpose of this article is that patriarchy is a system that renews and reaffirms itself through discursive practices and the way subjects relate to one another. Patriarchy does not reside intrinsically in the subjectivity of "alpha males," sexist CEOs, or OnlyFans models. Patriarchy exists in the way these individuals position themselves regarding gender, how they situate themselves in discursive practices, and how they relate to other subjects. An OnlyFans model "performs" patriarchy and builds it through how she positions herself with her own gender and her own body—for example, through a commodification hidden behind the slogan "feminism is doing what I want with my body"—and how she relates to the opposite gender. We can broaden the scope even further: masculinity, and gender as a whole, is a political practice, not a natural fact. Gender is socially and culturally determined: a "male" has no intrinsic qualities derived from his sex, and neither does a "female." I do not have a heightened emotionality because I am a woman; I am simply a crybaby, without the discourse being flattened onto some faded and inconsistent Platonic idea of "femininity."
Therefore, patriarchy is that internalized ideal—held by the entire social body—of a "patriarchal man" with specific attributes, which regulates the social position and the vision of other subjects in relation to it. It is a set of social practices that guarantees the power position of subjects socialized as men. It is important to note that, as an ideal, even subjects socialized as males feel the oppression—not from other subjects, but from the system. This is why a sense of inferiority and frustration can arise toward other individuals who seem to embody the patriarchal ideal more closely.
This applies to all other power structures as well. Racism is situated (also) in discursive practices: how a white person positions themselves toward a Black person and toward the culturally inherited ideal of a "white person" with certain attributes. It is nothing new to state that racism also lives in the person who asks where Mario—twenty-three years old, born and raised in Italy—is really from. Through this question, the interrogator places themselves a step above Mario, normalizing a type of discourse that is intrinsically racist. Power systems are situated in the relations between individuals; for this reason, they need to be continually recreated, renewed, propagated, and internalized. So, what role does humor play in all this?
In sociology, the specific interaction represented by humor is explained through the theory of role distance—the idea that when we joke, a transposition of "frames of meaning" occurs. Subjects cross the threshold into a humorous microcosm accompanied by both physical and verbal cues—the pitch of the voice rises, colloquialisms are used—marking a transition to a new mental disposition where the rules of common sense are no longer applied. It is precisely for this reason that submissive humor is often accepted: it is embedded within a different frame of meaning that renders the submission interpretable as unrealistic. Conversely, non-humorous denigration activates the recipient's critical skills and the common sense prescribed by a non-prejudicial attitude.
This may not seem problematic until we notice the relationship this suspension of meaning has with power systems. As previously stated, these systems creep into the cracks of connections between subjects: they exist in the way we position ourselves relative to others and, above all, how we relate to the ideals manufactured by the power system itself. All of this occurs through discursive practices, of which humor is a part. The relevant effect of submissive jokes is not on the mind—in how we perceive a social group—but on the political norm. By hearing or making a joke, we do not necessarily become more or less sexist, but we become convinced that denigrating a collective is socially acceptable.
Therefore, we can say that submissive jokes do not change or expand the power system, but rather normalize it, becoming "propagandistic" tools. This stems from the fact that the recipient uses this acceptance of transposed meaning as a form of self-regulation for greater personal tolerance of discrimination; the latter influences the reaction to submissive humor, which in turn affects normative tolerance. In other words, a circularity emerges: the more I hear and engage in submissive humor—be it sexist, racist, ableist, etc.—the more I am inclined to tolerate such attitudes, normalizing the hegemonic system. My anger becomes less sharp, domesticated in the face of injustice. The suspension of normal critical judgment within the linguistic microcosm of submissive humor communicates an implicit injunctive norm of tolerance toward discrimination.
The underlying idea of this entire theory is that our thoughts are never born free, candid, or neutral. The English term "shaped" perfectly illustrates what I mean: our inner life is like a ductile dough, "informed" by a star-shaped cookie cutter that determines its boundaries and physiognomy. Our mind is a direct consequence of our culture, our language, and everything that surrounds us. External influences—whatever they may be—inform our way of thinking, precisely in the sense of conferring a "form" through some type of information, whether qualitative or quantitative.
But what if the premises change? Suppose the recipient declines the invitation and chooses not to enter the humorous microcosm. At that point, the agent is forced to reveal themselves. They are forced to say "it’s just a joke" and "you should laugh once in a while": They are trapped! Through these responses, the agent is also forced back into the everyday context—the frame of meaning where denigration is to be condemned. By declaring the construction of the humorous microcosm, the subject drops the mask, revealing that the content of the joke is not truly their belief. In declining the invitation, the recipient shatters the frame of meaning, suggesting that the sharing of the meta-message is not happening. By rejecting submissive humor, the latent discrimination is criticized based on normal social standards, placing a barrier against hegemony.
Humor is a powerful weapon against (and with) power. It helps us accept parts of ourselves and the system that we struggle to reconcile. Think of fascist satirical cartoons or Epstein memes; these are communication methods that normalize a theme, re-orienting our vision imperceptibly. Normalizing a "dark" joke leads us to approach that theme with less gravity. The idea I wish to propose here is to rethink the power we grant to humor and to re-conceptualize it as something extremely intense. The point is not to stop joking about certain topics, but to joke well. We must always keep in mind to whom we are conferring power when we speak. So, what is the true power of humor? The turning point lies in anger. The submissive humor we have discussed so far does not look away; it re-centers the gaze, but it strips the "irate charge" from our positions, making us docile to power. But anger is the only thing in this entire discourse that is entirely in our hands: it is up to us to decide whether to let it sleep or to wake it up and let it play for our team.
Conscious humor feeds anger; it makes it flourish against power structures. Ricky Gervais' monologue at the Golden Globes represents this well. The comedian attacks the system and rides the latent anger of the people against power structures, adopting a deliberately provocative language that frontally challenges dominant narratives. Gervais is aware that he is challenging power; he opens his speech by saying, "You’ll be pleased to know this is the last time I’m hosting these awards." By pointing out the hypocrisy of a giant like Apple making films about dignity while managing sweatshops in China, the joke acts as an antidote to the ideological structure. It reaffirms anger, legitimizes it, and shares it with the audience, challenging colonialism, plutocracy, and racism.
Why is it so hard to popularize this type of humor? Why is submissive humor more prevalent than critical humor? The answer lies in the power structures themselves. Following these systems brings popularity and acceptance; going against the grain requires effort, self-criticism, and determination. This is why "black humor" today is often no longer satire, but merely a reaffirmation of hegemony.
Why is it so difficult to popularize this type of humor? Why is submissive humor more widespread than the critical kind? The answer, once again, lies within power structures. In fact, these structures—as previously mentioned—shape our minds, leading us to believe that humor (underestimated in its transformative potential) is merely a ludic exercise, devoid of any real efficacy in reconfiguring an individual's thought patterns. Walking in step with systems of power brings popularity and acceptance into new (and old) social groups; going against the grain requires, as always, effort, self-criticism, determination, and information. I believe these are the true reasons why black humor is no longer satire, but merely a reaffirmation of hegemony; this is why we struggle so much to reshape our way of joking, even when we all claim to want to dismantle the existing power structures. Submissive irony brings acceptance, popularity (in the case of stand-up comedians), and agreement with the majority of those around us—all things that we, as political animals, deeply crave.
In this scenario, memetics emerges as a possible expression of subversive humor, a carrier of this new paradigm; however, its effectiveness is compromised by the communication channel itself. Transmission through social media acts as a filter that anesthetizes the content: rage loses its real force to become pure entertainment, eventually re-ontologizing itself around haste and virality. The "meme" is not structurally weak; on the contrary, I believe it can effectively convey important, subversive themes, and most of the time, it utilizes the very humorous structure we have outlined here. The problem lies in how we approach this type of content—specifically through social media, which by its very nature is fast-paced, random, and saturated with information. This leads to a reformulation of the meme’s nature, based no longer on structured social critique, but on engagement.
This new ontology of memetics does not eliminate the rage that springs from and is reborn within the joke, but it smothers it. I do not believe there is anything "mindless" about what we call scrolling: every piece of content we see or read triggers an emotion, more or less intense, but always present. The rage mixed with laughter triggered by a meme—one that carries politically and socially important messages—is immediately replaced by other emotions with the speed of a swipe: sadness, anger, joy, envy. We play roulette with our emotions, which more often than not leaves us in emotional quicksand that manifests as symptoms of anxiety. For this reason, even if memetics could function as a subversive humorous practice in its original structure, it remains ineffective due to the communication channel used. The medium modifies its nature, effectively nullifying any type of emotion—including rage—as it blends into everything else.
Satire uses laughter as its shield and rage as its sword: when one of the two is missing or becomes blurred within the edges of the frame, all that remains is entertainment for prisoners. Let us restore humor's angry charge, starting from our daily interactions, so that it is no longer the lubricant for the gears of power, but the nail driven in sideways that changes everything.
Subversive satire
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