{"id":20152,"date":"2010-02-07T10:45:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-07T15:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=20152"},"modified":"2013-12-15T04:15:13","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T09:15:13","slug":"the-politics-of-hurricane-humor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/02\/07\/the-politics-of-hurricane-humor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Hurricane Humor"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina sideswiped New Orleans.\u00a0 The storm surge broke its levees, flooded 80% of the city, and killed almost 2,000 people.<\/p>\n

The city is in recovery and it is emerging with a new identity tied tightly to that hurricane.\u00a0 Though the storms have always played a role in the mythology of the city (consider its most famous drink<\/a>), hurricane imagery increasingly has part of what defines New Orleans.\u00a0 I’ve spent quite a lot of time there recently, and I can attest that the hurricane is everywhere: in jewelry<\/a>, in art<\/a>, and on bodies<\/a>, for example.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In light of this, Casey F. thought it would be interesting to think about who gets to use hurricane humor?\u00a0 Case in point:\u00a0 A flickr stream by Editor B<\/a> includes the following two images.\u00a0 The first uses hurricane imagery to suggest that the New Orleans Saints is going to “attack” the Indianapolis, Colts at the Superbowl (in Miami, FL):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The second also uses hurricane imagery, but this time it’s an Indianapolis Colts fan using it against <\/em>New Orleans:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Casey feels that those who suffered from the hurricane, including New Orleans, “…have reclaimed hurricane imagery for ourselves, because we survived it.”\u00a0 But, she says, “That doesn’t make it acceptable for others to do so yet.”<\/p>\n

For Casey, the use of hurricane imagery to suggest that a team is going to crush its opponent is like the use of the n-word or “queer.”\u00a0 It was a hurtful term that has been reclaimed by those it most\u00a0 hurt.\u00a0 Thus, blacks and gays can use the words (respectively).\u00a0 But, still, when others use them, they still carry a sting.<\/p>\n

For someone who was harmed by a hurricane, using the imagery is a way of reclaiming the hurt they suffered, even appropriating the strength of the force that hurt them.\u00a0 But, for others to use it, it is trivializing that same hurt, re-imagining the destruction they suffered.\u00a0 It is not funny, from this perspective, to imagine that New Orleans could be hit again.<\/p>\n

I sympathize with Casey on this, but think it’s also an interesting topic for conversation.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina sideswiped New Orleans.\u00a0 The storm surge broke its levees, flooded 80% of the city, and killed almost 2,000 people. The city is in recovery and it is emerging with a new identity tied tightly to that hurricane.\u00a0 Though the storms have always played a role in the mythology of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[126,23622],"class_list":["post-20152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-disaster","tag-social-construction-symbols"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20152"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60488,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20152\/revisions\/60488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}