HUMOR AGAINST HEGEMONY

IRONY, SATIRE AND PARODY AIMED AT THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Abstract

The paper deals with the analysis of the interpretations and “framings” of the Serbian Orthodox Church in publicly shared comic content. The Church in contemporary Serbian society is an organization with a considerable reputation among the citizens, endowed with great trust. It has numerous privileges and utilizes a fair number of resources provided by the political oligarchy. The Church enjoys a prominent public presence, both through the formal involvement of clergy and Church representatives in the work of secular institutions, and through the informal everyday practices of people. The hegemonic position of the Serbian Orthodox Church, as a (self-)proclaimed moral and spiritual leader, makes it a particularly suitable target for mocking and comic treatment using irony, satire and parody. The undertaken analysis conceptually relies on Gramsci’s deliberations on hegemony and Peter Berger’s constructivist approach to humor. Using netnography as the method for data collection and thematic analysis for data interpretation, the study will
demonstrate the delegitimizing potential of ridicule in social struggles. The analysed and interpreted data is comprised of visual and textual content that was created as a reaction to various public appearances of the Church. Most often thematized were “blunders”, “inappropriate” behavior, “problematic” statements and attitudes of Church dignitaries, as well as the practices of the Church representatives seen as opposed to the Christian teachings and the moralities preached by the Church (material opulence, moralizing and interference in the private lives of the people, aggressive outbursts, supporting disavowed politicians, superstition, sex misconduct and other scandals).