CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by ScholarlyCommons@Penn University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1-1-2014 Pro-Christian Humor and the Online Carnival Timothy William Fallis University of Pennsylvania,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Communication Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Fallis, Timothy William, "Pro-Christian Humor and the Online Carnival" (2014). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 1272. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1272 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/1272 For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Pro-Christian Humor and the Online Carnival Abstract Humor that takes as its comedic object the beliefs, practices, and culture of Christianity has flourished in the digital age via journalistic satire, video sharing, and social network websites. Theory of the comic's use as a moderator between the sacred and the profane provide by Conrad Hyers, and the carnivalesque literary theory of Mikhail Bakhtin, reminds us that humor made at the expense of elements of Christian doctrine and culture can serve to reify and strengthen Christianity in the United States, a conclusion justified by textual analysis of three websites featuring this material. The na alysis supports that an essential rule for successfully blending humor and religion together is to avoid directly leveling the humor at God or at Christianity as a valid religion but rather restricting the ludic treatment to church practices, church culture, and individual behavior. Comments made by readers reveal that a majority approve of the ludic turn, but vehement dissent shows a strong tension between the ludic and the presupposition that religion must remain sacrosanct and solemn.