UCLA

This dissertation investigates Turkish German ethnic humor in contemporary popular culture. It has been repeatedly noted in the relevant literature that ethnic film and television comedies, which have recently emerged as successful and critically-acclaimed alternatives to the often negativistic representation of (post-)migrants in the news media, have the potential to foster an acceptance of German society that is shaped by immigration. My thesis is that this potential is limited. In looking at the corpus and the development of Turkish German ethnic film and television comedies in parts one of my analyses, I argue that these productions rarely present the ethnically and culturally diverse reality of today’s German society to a broader audience: firstly, because their number is still very small, and secondly, because they are most of the times not successful in terms of audience figures. In my close readings of four comparatively successful comedies in parts two, which are at the center of this dissertation, I examine the subversive potential of (mainstream) ethnic humor whose main characteristics is the use of ethnic and cultural stereotypes from a transcultural perspective. I argue that, while these comedies utilize stereotypes to cast Turkish German characters in a positive light by deconstructing negative stereotypes (e.g., macho men), representing positive ones (e.g., good-natured patriarchs), and refuting prejudices (e.g., suppressed Muslim women) as well as to criticize ethnic Germans mostly based on stereotypes that are portrayed as adverse (e.g., feminist women), their humoristic play with stereotypes tends to reinforce traditional notions of cultures as strictly delineated, homogenous, and mutually exclusive. Hence, these comedies often fail to use humor as a subversive tool to negotiate an understanding of cultural boundaries as porous, dynamic, and blurred.