Professional Documents
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06 - Chapter 5 Gomes 01 04 2013 - BZ - 1 May 2013 - para Daniela 24 Fev 2014
06 - Chapter 5 Gomes 01 04 2013 - BZ - 1 May 2013 - para Daniela 24 Fev 2014
06 - Chapter 5 Gomes 01 04 2013 - BZ - 1 May 2013 - para Daniela 24 Fev 2014
Chapter 5
If you cant play, dont come down to the playground1! Agency in Brazilian humor:
parody and verb-visual remix1
Luiz Fernando Gomes
University of Sorocaba (UNISO)2
The current chapter analyzes two posts from the Brazilian website Zuei Muito,
which contains parodies and remixes organized in several categories, such as: imagens
que falam por si, sem zuao! (images that speak for themselves, no kidding!),
propagandas que zoam muito (ads that tease a lot), etc. and that hold in common the
slapstick humor and satiric view of peoples daily customs. This research is situated in
the field of new literacies studies in Brazil and aims at bringing examples and discussing
contemporary cultural practices of language usage in digital environments.
Remix is hereby understood as a hybrid text produced though the combination
and manipulation of existing authorial cultural artifacts with the objective of creating a
new cultural product (Lankshear & Knobel, 2004, 2007, 2008). As for parody, it is hereby
seen as virtually having the same characteristics of a remix, but with a twist of meaning
that turns against the original piece, instead of paying homage to it. Nevertheless,
remix, a cultural practice that has turned into a routine and current form of writing in
digital culture, may be conceptualized as a sort of expansion of parody. Our specific
objective is to identify and understand which rhetorical resources the authors of two
digital texts, a parody and a remix, used in the production of authorial humorous
discourses (Travaglia, 1990), and which types of agencies (Ahern, 2001 and Emirbayer &
Mische, 1998, Lewis 2006) such posts configure.
We consider agency as one of the salient features of new literacies, and as linked
to the need of understanding codes, conventions and values, of dealing with limits and of
subverting, criticizing and reacting to the world around us. The verbal-visual analyses of
the posts were conducted in accordance to the representational, interactive and
compositional functions proposed by Kress & Van Leeuwen (2000). The posts under
analysis integrate text and static images, and were chosen from among the different
sections that compose the website, according to the initial feelings of the researcher
himself, considering the effectiveness of the products in their own proposed criticism,
1
O texto original foi publicado sem as imagens, por questes de direito autoral. Solicito no divulgar esta
verso, com foto.
that humor depends on social context, thus it is a situated practice. Therefore, identifying
what is funny is not just a matter of identifying a set of linguistic or semiotic properties of
a text, but understanding how these properties generate humor in a contextual setting. In
other words, what is funny, is always funny for someone, situated somewhere (Raskin,
1987, p. 15 cited in Travaglia, 1990, p. 61).
Moreover, making humor is generally an activity of explicit (or implicit) criticism of
customs, society and politics. An interesting element, in the case of this research, is that
this website is maintained by youngsters, thus providing us with youths vision of the
selected topics.
Representational, interactive and compositional meanings
Kress and Van Leeuwens (1996) semiotic proposal for the reading of multimodal texts is
based on the Hallidays metafunctions (1978, 1994) and supports the premise that visual
communication, besides representing the world, also promotes social interaction. The
metafunctions refer to three kinds of meanings that operate simultaneously:
representational, interactive and compositional.
Representational meanings are performed by the represented participants (actors whom
are being talked about) or interactive participants (those who interpret the message, speak
and act around it). Represented participants may be individuals, places or things. These
meanings are constructed in two basic kinds of processes: narrative, when there are
vectors pointing out the actions being carried out (roughly equivalent to verbal
constructions employing action verbs), and the conceptual, that is, when the participants
are being described in their attributes, or related to one another in a conceptual manner
(roughly equivalent to verbal constructions employing a copula or linking verb).
The interactive meanings are represented in the offers and demands, of information or
action, made by the participants, which can be coded, basically, by the gaze of the
represented participant (if it points at the interactive participant, there is a demand;
otherwise, there is an offer). They also reflect the attitude and stance of the interactive
participants towards the content of the message, and towards each other. These meanings
are made by means of four resources, basically: contact (determined by the existence or
not of vector originating in the represented participants eyes and pointing to another
represented or interactive participant; social distance (expressed by the different
possibilities of framing the image and the represented participants, equivalent to
cinematographic shots such as close up, mid-shot and wide-shot); involvement (coded by
the horizontal angle or point of view from which the represented participants are shown:
frontal, oblique, vertical); power relations (coded by the vertical angle or point of view
from which the represented participants are shown: superior, same level, inferior) and,
finally, modality, that is, the level of reality of lifelikeness of the image, given by a
series of variables such as color saturation, depth of field, resolution and so on.
The compositional meanings refer to the organization or combination of representational
and interactional elements in different scales, so that they may produce, together, the
meaning intended by the author. Such meanings are performed through three interrelated
systems: value of the information (place occupied by the represented participant in the
image. In the west, the element on the left of the image is the given or known information
whereas the one to the right is the new or added information about the given. The
elements at the top are usually of an ideal or abstract nature whereas the ones at the
bottom are concrete and down-to-earth); salience (ways of drawing attention to specific
elements of the composition, as one does with word or syllable stress in speech. Usual
resources are: foreground-background, size, color, sharpness, lighting, among others);
and, finally, structure (real or imaginary frames which divide and structure the image as
one does with parts or sections of a written text).
Method
Description of the website Zuei Muito3
Humor websites usually become very popular quite easily. In Brazil, many of them
provide content for television programs, especially sports news. Brazilian radio
broadcasters also have a fixed audience in humor and many of the radio comedy shows
have websites which are widely accessed. There are over 260 million humor websites,
blogs and home pages in Brazil, according to Googles search engine, and such a number
seems to be similar in some other countries, also searched through the same engine. That
may show humors great influence in peoples lives as well as its inherent strength to be
used by the human being as a form of expression used for several functions. Some
categories of humor that were found in the searched websites, blogs and pages (but which
will not be approached in this study) were: intelligent humor, feminine humor, masculine
humor, political humor, sports humor, etc.
The Zuei Muito website has, according to its own statistics, 6,357 readers. At the
foot of the page, the following statements can be read: Guys, relax because this is all just
a joke. The content does not resemble reality. If you got mad with something, contact us
and we will talk about it.4
The site does not contain any information regarding who is responsible for it or who the
authors are. There is only a contact form link available which reads: All contacts must
be made through this form. If necessary, other means of contact will be provided. 5
Apparently, the websites content is entirely composed of contributions. There are some
guidelines under the link send your content: You too can help us make the Zuei Muito!
Send us your mockery and we will review it. If good, it will certainly be published, of
course, with its credits.6
All partnerships are subject to terms of use that, as warned by the website, may change
at any time. Thus, through a series of rules and norms, the website orients possible
contributors on how to become partners. Such guidelines to the contributors highlight the
interactive metafunction in the sense that it establishes the demands for future partners
along with the offer of a service.
The compositional is at work in the website when it informs about the forms of
participation in which a future partner may be fit: adders, top partners and partners. Its
also expressed in the organization of the content into 28 specific sections, mixing
several criteria such as media, genre, theme, intended audience and so on:
(de)motivational; adult; BBB; cinema; sports; I access the zuei muito; facts; fail; partying
hard; flash mobs; futilities; games; gifs; images that speak for themselves; subtitles;
pearls; pqd; offers; commercials that make fun; uncategorized; no kidding!; succeed;
vicarious embarrassment; viral; wtf; wtf; modafoca; joking a lot; eat, pray and love.
This compositional format is congruent to the websites objective (humor) as well as with
the remixing technique, that is, the juxtaposition of heterogeneous elements.
The links provided by contributors, top partners and partners lead to their respective
websites, but there is no return link to Zuei Muitos website. This points to organization,
too, as it disconnects the other websites from Zuei Muito, but touches the interactive
Fig.1 Parody
In this case, the reading is immediate and the reference to the famous fast-food chain is
evident.
It is a linear drawing emulating an ordinary restroom sign. On a black to dark grey
gradient background are two white silhouettes representing a male and a female. A
straight white vertical line is drawn between the silhouettes and along with white
horizontal arrows on each side, pointing towards the left margin of the sign (male) and
right margin (female). Both figures were drawn with big circles representing the bellies
clearly denoting obesity. At the bottom of the sign, to the right, are the notorious golden
arches of the fast-food companys logo, accompanied by the Im loving it slogan. The
logo is about the same size of the circles representing the bellies in the silhouettes above
it.
This is what an analysis of the three kinds of meaning aforementioned shows:
Representational meanings: in the image, they are represented through silhouettes in
which it is possible to clearly distinguish a male and a female participant, whose ages
cannot be easily perceived. They can be thought of as average standard consumers of the
hamburgers provided by the company in question, regardless of age or gender. A narrative
structure is expressed by the arrows men to the left and women to the right. But the
positioning of the figures side to side also suggests a conceptual structure in which both,
male and female, belong to the same class (customers) and share the same attributes (they
are considerably overweight). At the bottom, to the right, is the companys logo which, in
this case, is not involved in either process structure and, thus, represents a circumstance
or context for the aforementioned processes.
Interactive meaning: the interaction between the image and the viewer resembles
the one we have when looking for a restroom in bars or restaurants, or that credits a high
degree of reality to the poster above. The contact vector is, nonetheless, inexistent,
since the participants do not have eyes. There is maximum involvement coded by the
frontal horizontal code, and a mixture of objective (lack of details and depth) and
subjective (the reader is positioned as someone participating in a real interaction with a
sign at the fast-food store). This strategy decreases the reading time and gives more
credibility to the defended argument: eating hamburgers from this restaurant will make
you gain weight (fact). You have been there and you know it (feeling).
Compositional meanings: the information lies exactly in the center, making its viewing
more comfortable and immediate, with the salience of the white silhouettes over the black
background also contributes to a faster reading. A frame separating the male figure from
the female one divides the display into two exact halves, evidencing criticism towards the
fact that junk food makes both men and women gain weight. The fast-food chains logo
in yellow placed at the lower right corner of the poster acts as a secondary element, but
with great salience. The location of the logo draws us to what Kress and Van Leeuwen
accredit to the new + real information value. Therefore, the message may be
understood as: men and women in general, who get fat and look ridiculous (ideal),
correspond to the real and concrete case of whomever eats at the referenced fast-food
chain. Apart from that, the slogan Im loving it, which in Brazil was literally translated
as: Amo muito tudo isso (I love all of this so much), adds a touch of irony to the
reading, for the reader will have to reflect on the possible undesired consequences of
his/her love.
Since the website holds a space for interaction through comments made by the visitors,
we may still have an idea of the impact of the image. Here are translated transcriptions of
two comments that were posted on the day we accessed it:
Now they truly are in accordance with reality hahahahahahahahaha
By the way, going to [fast-food chains name] and ordering a salad is like going to a
whorehouse and asking for a hug.
The presence of humor is set but the figure of irony one of the most commonly used
figures in the production of humorous texts eliciting the consequences of eating a
tasty hamburger: the obesity and ridicule of having exclusive toilets for obese
individuals in restaurants. The ironic humor may still appears in the case that rest-rooms
are not reserved for the obese but, on the contrary, that obesity may be a normal pattern
among the regular customers of the fast-food chain. In this case, the source of fun would
be ridiculing those who do not have the willpower to resist the temptation of having the
meal offered. This kind of humor which holds the other individual as the object of humor
is very common in Brazil and is colloquially known as tirar sarro or, in English, to
make fun of someone.
Yet another interesting aspect can be found in the comments posted by the viewers, which
are also humorous. These comments usually agree with the criticism, as if saying it
serves them right! to consumers who get what they deserve. The second comment is a
simile in which the pleasures of flesh in a brothel are compared to a healthier order.
Such transposition of actors and processes between the brothel and the fast-food store
suggests to the viewer an expansion in the content of the parody towards the argument
that selling fast-food is somehow an immoral exploitation of human desires and
weaknesses for profit. By mixing the images in the simile, the commentator positions
him/herself on a public matter of ideological import and invites other viewers to follow.
Analysis of the construction of the parody
The parody under scope is an appropriation of images and discursive situations relatively
common and routine, which makes it more creative and interesting altogether. It is
composed by three elements: the human shapes of a man and a woman, the arrows
pointing the way to follow (left or right) and the companys logo itself which is the target
of the criticism. There is still another important element for the construction of the
meaning of this text which is the means of circulation of what is identified as a poster or a
door sign indicating where the restrooms are in a restaurant.
FIG.3- Remix
The image is a photo of black granite tombstone, placed on a grave partially covered
with grass, partially with cement. Upon the stone are engraved the fast-food companys
golden arches and, bellow the arches, the epitaph I loved it so much5.The logo is
centered horizontally and about twice as tall and one-third as wide as the slogan
inscription. Part of a second tombstone, gray in color, can be seen on the background
surrounded by more green grass.
4
The epitaph includes the fast-food chain logo and a modified version of the
official company slogan, as it is used in Brazil. The epitaph reads I loved all of this
so much.
Let us remark that unlike the parody in the first post, this remix does not deform or turn
against its original text (a tombstone with a regular epitaph, the fast-food chain slogan),
but generates humor and criticism through a more subtle and probably less painstaking
procedure than in the case of the parody: superimposing the text over the tombstone, that
is, a junction of two different ready-made elements with a little adjustment in the tense
of a verb in order to turn the epitaph it a narrative.
We will now proceed with the analysis of the meanings:
Representational meanings: in the image, there is a representation of a tombstone
containing an inscription in the form of an epitaph referring to the well-known slogan of
the restaurants advertisement: Im loving it (which in Portuguese was translated as: I
love all of this so much), but written in the past tense (I loved all of this so much). The
restaurants logo appears above the text, bigger in size and placed on a central position in
a way that makes it stand out. Differently from the parody analyzed above, here the
represented human participant is implicit, that is, a deceased fast-food consumer from the
same company. While the visual element carries out a conceptual-symbolic process, the
verbal element realized a narrative process with a transitive verb in the past tense I loved
all of this very much. Furthermore, differently from the previous image, there is no
mention to gender distinction here: men and women who eat junk-food are equally
destined to die from it.
Interactive meanings: the image has a subjective orientation as it places the reader
in the position of a visitor at the cemetery in front of the tomb (maximum involvement).
The vertical angle places the eyes of the viewer at the level of the inscription, which
suggests that the viewer is kneeling or, in any case, does not have power over the
represented participants, as a superior angle would suggest. The physical distance
between the viewer and the stone is short, suggesting social closeness between the viewer
and the tomb, and thus, metonymically, between the viewer and the deceased too. The
quality of the image and seamlessness of the montage makes the tombstone look real,
with minimum modalization. As in the parody, this remix combines two processes, the
objectivity of the tombstone and the subjectivity of the viewer, as he/she is placed in front
of the tombstone and becomes the receiver of the message that was emitted by the
deceased person or someone who pretended to be him/her.
Compositional meanings: the composition is simple since the focus is frontal and the
message containing the restaurants logo and a phrase, are both in white over a black
granite background. The logo gets maximum salience and is placed at the upper part of
the picture, closer to the ideal position, in contrast with the grave (and, consequently,
the deceased), which are positioned in the real part of the composition. Once again, a
cause-effect relation is implied between eating fast-food and dying from it.
Final Comments
What encouraged us to develop this research was the assumption that humor is an
element present in Brazilian culture that highlights agency in several ways, performing a
central role in circus performances, radio, television, cinema and, lately, also on the
internet, noticeably through new textual forms and procedures like remix.
Our objective was to identify the rhetorical resources used in the production of humorous
texts and types of agencies that these posts configured. Therefore, we analyzed the multisemiotic group and the relationships of meanings between the elements present in two
posts selected from the section/category Images that speak for themselves from the
website Zuei Muito, as samples of a parody and a remix. This website, of which the
slogan is: If you cant play, dont come down to the playground supports, between the
lines, the constitutional right of citizens to participate in his/her countrys life in
whichever form he/she finds most convenient. In this case, it was through humor. More
often than not, we tell the truth while joking but, even when the truth is told in a
humorous tone, people can feel offended by it, and that is why the website tries to avoid
any legal issues. As far as the stuff of literacy itself is concerned, it is remarkable that the
use of images is an important strategy for making criticism and getting away with it. This
has been the case, in Brazil and elsewhere, of images displayed on the front pages of
some newspapers and magazines during dictatorship or civil rights violation times. If
translated into words, maybe the same messages could not be published at all! Apart from
that, the fact that parodying and remixing resemble the irresponsibility or lack of
commitment stereotype of youth somehow invites readers to be lenient, especially in a
paternalistic culture, and removes the social (and political) weight from the humor
thereby presented, even though the messages are highly political.
As to the intentionality and motivation of the agents when creating the posts, it was
noticeable that in both cases the intention of criticizing and ridiculing the consumers of
fast-food by producing a just-making-fun kind of humor was also extended to criticizing
the hamburger franchise itself. Motivation to enact agency in such a way is probably
connected to the expectation of acknowledgement in the authors communities and
affinity groups for being able to publish a work on a widely visited website.
If, as seen above, parodying and remixing are new literacy practices that interact with the
ideologies and with the institutions that shape them and define them, then the humorous
aforementioned creations are a counter-discourse and represent a form of social
engagement, and not only of inconsequent leisure.
Despite there being posts on the website which are obviously intended and motivated
differently, we do observe that the partaking in these practices and events, whether
through producing the posts or just viewing or commenting, involves socially situated
agents, that is, social actors, in the construction of knowledge and social action.
Parodying and remixing are important means of contouring discursive restrictions and
structures of power which are current in other media to elaborate and circulate complex
and politically cunning counter-discourses.
References
Ahearn, L. (2001) Language and agency. Annual Review of Anthropology, 30, 109-37.
Austin, J.L. (1962) How to do Things With Words. London: Oxford Univ. Press.
Bakhtin, M. Marxismo e Filosofia da Linguagem. So Paulo: Hucitec, 1999.
Davidson, D. 1980 (1971) Agency. In Essays on Actions and Events, ed. D. Davidson,
pp.43-61. Oxford: Calrendon Press.
Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998) "What is agency?" The American Journal of
A literal translation for Se no sabe brincar, no desce para o play, a popular saying roughly
equivalent to if you cant stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen, but focusing situations where one
3
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