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Reading Beyond Humor in Selected Iranian-American Memoirs, Stand-Up Comedy, and Film in the Post-9/11 Era

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Reading Beyond Humor in Selected Iranian-American Memoirs, Stand-Up Comedy, and Film in the Post-9/11 Era Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 2-13-2017 12:00 AM Let Me Tell You What It Means: Reading Beyond Humor in Selected Iranian-American Memoirs, Stand-up Comedy, and Film in the Post-9/11 Era Reza Ashouri Talooki The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Professor Nandi Bhatia The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Comparative Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy ©Follow Reza this Ashouri and additional Talooki works2017 at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, Film and Media Studies Commons, Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Near Eastern Languages and Societies Commons, Other English Language and Literature Commons, and the Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons Recommended Citation Ashouri Talooki, Reza, "Let Me Tell You What It Means: Reading Beyond Humor in Selected Iranian- American Memoirs, Stand-up Comedy, and Film in the Post-9/11 Era" (2017). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 4403. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/4403 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i ABSTRACT Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Muslims in America have continued to remain the subject of cultural and political debates. In their artistic endeavours, Muslim artists have tried to rectify the negative and mediated images attributed to Islam, Muslims, and their cultures. In this dissertation, I look at Iranian works from the diaspora that not only represent Iranian culture and attempt to raise public awareness in America, but are also steeped in humor as their linking theme. It is humor embedded in socio-cultural and political implications along with cultural representations that constitute my analysis in this dissertation. I have benefitted from a wide range of textual materials and visual sources—electronic libraries, media coverages, and Internet talks and interviews—to investigate the rhetoric of Firoozeh Dumas’s selected memoirs entitled Funny in Farsi (2003) and Laughing without an Accent (2005), the stand-up comedian Maz Jobranis’ Axis of Evil (2005-2007), and Ramin Niami’s romantic comedy film entitled Shirin in Love (2014). Critical voices of the Iranian diaspora scholars along with Mikhail Bakhtin’s notions of the carnivalesque, heteroglossia and dialogism, and Linda Hutcheon’s concepts of irony and parody inform the theoretical framework of my study. I suggest that the artworks function as a site where social, cultural, political, and linguistic practices are re-negotiated, re-defined, and re- presented to the reading public and/or audiences. Keywords: Humor, the rhetoric, the Iranian diaspora, the carnivalesque, heteroglossia, dialogism, irony, parody, cultural representations ii AKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express the utmost gratitude to my advisor Prof. Nandi Bhatia for her unstinting support. This dissertation would not have come to fruition without her unparalleled guidance, infinite patience, and unwavering faith in me. Prof. Bhatia instructed me how to approach the works under my study critically and how to carry out an academic research. Words fail to thank her enough, and of that I am fully aware. I am also very much thankful to Professors David Darby, Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu, Vladimir Tumanov, James Miller, and Nima Naghibi (Ryerson University). Prof. David Darby tremendously supported me during the early years of my tenure at Western University, and Prof. Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu taught me how to combine humor and creativity and still deal with a subject academically. Prof. Vladimir Tumanov taught me how to think critically of dominant ideologies we are surrounded by and how to approach them in an concrete and scholarly manner. Prof. James Miller’s and Nima Naghibi’s insightful comments helped me with the revision of some sections in my dissertation. I am much grateful to Prof. Mohammad Marandi at the University of Tehran who, during my Master’s studies, taught me the fundamentals of Postcolonial Theories/Studies and scholarly research. I will always be in his debt and will never be oblivious of his unceasing encouragement. My kind and caring wife, Sherry, has always been supportive of me, and put up with my long hours of absence, not always physically though, and provided me with a peaceful environment at home, so that I could complete my studies and research. Thank you, Sherry! My son, Sepanta. Be sure that every step you take and every word you make give daddy nothing but iii the joy of life. You will read through the pages of this dissertation at some point in your life, and will learn that you gave daddy hope and kept him writing his work more and more. I was writing line by line and I watched you growing up millimeter by millimeter. Very many thanks should go to my friends, Sheena Jary (a doctor-to-be at McMaster University), David Mongor-Lizarrabengoa (a doctor-to-be at Western University), and Phil Sheppard (Western University) whose great sense of humor and comments cheered me up and inspired me to keep working on my dissertation. In the end, I would like to thank Weldon Library and her invaluable dedication to all students and researchers from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Weldon, your bulky belly of textbooks, papers, journals, etc. has significantly helped me complete this project. You do not discriminate against any student, and provide every student with the best you have in stock! iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................ iii TABLE OF CONTENTS . .................................................................................................. v INTRODUCTION: Understanding the Texts and Contexts of Iranian-American Humor After 9/11 ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 1 I. The Iranian Diaspora: Critical Concepts and Voices ……………………………………. 13 II. Irony and Dialogism: From the Modern to the Postmodern ……………………………. 20 III. Irony, the Interpreters, and Interpretations …………………………………………….. 24 IV. Irony and Parody ……………………………………………………………………….. 27 V. Irony in the Texts and Contexts ………………………………………...……………….. 28 VI. Carnival and the Carnivalesque …………………………………………...…………..... 30 VII. Reading Between and Beyond the Texts and Contexts: …………………...…………... 34 VIII. Modes of Humor …………………………………………………………..…………... 36 1. Superiority Theory ……………………………………………………………..…………. 36 2. Tension Release Theory ………………………………………………………..…………. 37 3. Incongruity Theory …………………………………………………………….…………. 39 IX. Reading the Contexts in the Texts …………………………………………….………… 40 v CHAPTER 1: Reading Irony and Humor in Firoozeh Jazayeri Dumas’s Selected Memoirs Funny in Farsi (2003) and Laughing without an Accent (2005) ................................ 47 I. Discursive Communities and Dialogism: Voices from the Critics and in the Texts …. 58 1. Critical Reception: Responses from Inside Iran …………………….………………... 58 Funny in Farsi ..……………………………………………………..….……………….. 58 Laughing without an Accent ..……………………………………...…………………………… 65 2. Critical Reception: Responses from Outside Iran ……...…………………………….. 72 II. Possible or Altering Responses: Ironic Inferences …..………………………………. 76 1. Education Unpacked …………….………………………………………………….... 77 Funny in Farsi ……………………………………………………………………….….. 77 Laughing without an Accent ……...…………………………………………………..…. 83 2. Consumerism ………………..……………………………………………………..…. 85 Funny in Farsi ………………..………………………………………………………..... 85 Laughing without an Accent …………………………………………………………..… 87 3. Copyright, Translation, and Censorship …………………………………………….... 89 4. Reading Hybridity in Humor ………………………………………………………..... 98 III. The Talks and Inferences: The Media, The Public, and the Constructed Images ….. 102 1. The 2004 Television Talk on Funny in Farsi ………………………………………... 103 vi 2. The 2008 Talk in San Jose …………………………………………………………… 111 3. The 2008 Talk in San Francisco …………………………………………………….... 113 4. The 2010 Talk at Florida International University …………………………………… 117 IV. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………... 120 CHAPTER 2: Reading the Carnivalesque and Parody in Maz Jobrani's Axis of Evil (2005-7) ………………………………………………………………………………….. 124 I. The Post-9/11 Environment and the Emergence of the Axis …………………………... 125 II. The Axis, the Carnivalesque, and Parody……………………………………………… 127 III. Sifting through the Social Circumstances ……………………………………………. 132 IV. The Axis in Praxis ……………………………………………………………………. 135 1. Of Stereotypes and Misrepresentations ……….…………………………………...….. 136 2. Of Ethnic Diversities, Differences, and Politics …….………………………………… 139 V. The Talks and Interviews: What Really Mattered in the Axis? ……..………………… 151 1. The Farsi Interview in America………………………………………..……………….. 152 2. The Interview in Bahrain ….……………………………………………..………..…… 156 3. The Interview in Sweden ………………………………………………………..……… 157 4. The Interview in Canada ……………………………………………..………………… 159 vii VI. After the Axis: Further Endeavor ……………………………………..………………. 160 1. Jobrani in Newport
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