Abstract

This article traces a cultural shift in ‘consent humour’ by contrasting a Saturday Night Live skit that aired in 1993 mocking affirmative consent with the 2015 ‘Tea and Consent’ video produced by the Thames Valley police, in 2015, which insists that ‘consent is everything’. By reflecting on the cultural contexts and the ‘humour ideologies’ that underlie these examples, the article rejects a simple teleological interpretation of cultural change. It asks who and what is subject to ridicule in these jokes, contrasting the figure of the disruptive ‘victim feminist’ in the 1993 sketch with the ignorant subject who is ‘still struggling’ with consent in the 2015 clip. The article argues that both rely on a class-based politics of cultural capital to defend ideological constructions of ‘appropriate knowledge’ about consent. Where the SNL skit insists that consent is marked by its complexity, the ‘Tea and Consent’ video insists on its simplicity. The humour in both, however, rests on a sexually sophisticated middle-class subject laughing at those who do not possess the appropriate cultural capital in relation to sex and consent. In both cases, the ‘problem’ of consent is deflected away from normative heterosexuality and towards the ignorant other.

摘要

这篇文章通过对比周六夜现场来追溯“同意幽默”的文化转变1993 年播出的短剧嘲笑泰晤士河谷警方于 2015 年制作的 2015 年“茶与同意”视频的肯定同意，该视频坚持认为“同意就是一切”。通过反思这些例子背后的文化背景和“幽默意识形态”，本文拒绝对文化变革进行简单的目的论解释。它询问在这些笑话中谁和什么会受到嘲笑，将 1993 年素描中破坏性的“受害者女权主义者”的形象与 2015 年剪辑中“仍在努力争取”同意的无知主体进行对比。这篇文章认为，两者都依赖于基于阶级的文化资本政治来捍卫关于同意的“适当知识”的意识形态建构。SNL在哪里短剧坚持认为同意以其复杂性为标志，“茶与同意”视频坚持其简单性。然而，两者的幽默都建立在一个性成熟的中产阶级主题上，嘲笑那些在性和同意方面不具备适当文化资本的人。在这两种情况下，同意的“问题”都从规范的异性恋转向无知的他者。