Jokes, gender, and discursive distance on the Tamil popular stage

Abstract

In this article, I analyze a sequence of dirty jokes embedded in a monologue performed on the south Indian Tamil popular stage. In this performance I do not find vulgarity but rather a reflection of its practiced, anxious use‐in‐avoidance. I analyze the two separate linguistic footings the performer uses for making moral and immoral comments and the social values that are affirmed by this split. I highlight the narrative connections established in this context between fear of the foreign and fear of the female, consider what such connections index about the remnants of Victorian sexuality in postcolonial Tamilnadu, and discuss the locally reinscriptive effects of such a gendered performance.

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