Chapter 11
A rich sauce of comedy
Talking and laughing about Italian food in digital
spaces
Food has been a traditional source of humour since the
beginning of time but nowadays it would appear that the way we joke
about food has changed as comedians have begun to target food fads
and dietary choices in new online formats such as YouTube videos and
memes. In this chapter, I explore traditional food jokes, that now occur online in multimodal formats such as memes
and gifs, that target Italians. I also discuss how Italians themselves use humour to
defend traditional dishes that they believe are corrupted by people
outside Italy who manipulate and localize original recipes.
Providing examples from Twitter and online newspaper fora, I will
argue that Italians adopt humour to make serious points.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Food and humour, humour and food
- 2.1Italian food memes
- 2.1.1Italians and abundance
- 2.1.2Italian food and military incompetence
- 3.Food, identity and cultural appropriation
- 3.1Italians mad at food
- 3.1.1Grandmothers
- 3.1.2Don’t call me by that name
- 4.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
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