The uses of humor in Native American and Chicano/a culturesan alternative study of their literature, cinema and video games

Abstract

The Uses of Humor in Native American and Chicano/a Cultures: An Alternative Study of Their Literature, Cinema, and Video Games This dissertation studies the role of humor in contemporary Chicano/a and Native American texts individually and comparatively: two narratives by Gordon Henry (1994) and Michele Serros (2000), two books of poems by Natalie Diaz (2012) and David Tomas Martinez (2014), the films Quinceañera (2006) and Smoke Signals (1999), and the video games Never Alone (2014) and Guacamelee! (2013). My goal is to evaluate the importance of comicality in the works of two minoritized communities in the United States to criticize, support resiliency, encourage inter-ethnic relations, and celebrate their own cultures. My main theoretical frame is Humor Studies by Mikhail Bakhtin, Henri Bergson, Sigmund Freud, Linda Hutcheon, and Siro López, amongst others. Furthermore, these case studies are concerned with issues of ethnicity; consequently, I include Multi-Ethnic Studies and Comparative Literature, and a social, cultural, and historical contextualization of the texts for a better understanding. Due to the newness of Video Game Studies, I propose a citation system that could be used in the future for this medium. I hope that a dialogue between humorous texts from different groups in the United States will encourage comparative studies of humor and change the stereotype of ethnic communities as passive victims of assimilation processes.