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Beyond the Victim–Perpetrator Paradigm: Overcoming ‘Single Stories’ through Humor?
ABSTRACT In “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie cautions against one-dimensional conceptualizations of identity, namely, “single stories.” While such reductionist portrayals of identity are problematic, they are nevertheless frequently used to classify people along the lines of victims and perpetrators. Even when the status of victimhood is not enforced from the outside as a means to take away agency but self-imposed to gain political power, the consequences of using such reductive labels are potentially disastrous. After all, when showing people in only one way “over and over again, […] that is what they become” (Adichie 2009). The problem with these “stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story” (Adichie 2009). However, identities are manifold and can be influenced by historical circumstances, culture, gender, class, interests, and more. Accordingly, this chapter will focus on how humor, with its inherent transgressiveness, can disrupt and overcome single stories. The analysis will include the play alterNatives, the ethnic comedy The Infidel, and the short film Tribes.
KEYWORDS cultural complexity, humor, identity politics, single stories, stereotypes
