University of Fort Hare, South Africa donian. South Africa's transition to a democratic state inwith its liberalised freespeech policies and race-based reforms, had an immediate and transformative effect on comedy. There was a massive increase in the establishment of comedy clubs and festivals, the production of comic media-like sitcoms and films, and more recently, the expansion of new forms of online and digital humour via YouTube channels and podcastsas well as the racial diversification of comic talent.
Amid this comic revolution, this article identifies the specific, distinctive character of post-apartheid comedy in South Africa, exploring the ways in which the content, style and delivery of humour produced by Black comics differ from those constructed by White comics.
It contends that, while the former increasingly engage with issues of race, culture and politics with unprecedented candour, such taboo-breaking moratorium is antithetical to most contemporary White comics, whose performances-across various platforms-are marked by jocund humour and political albeit not always socio-cultural disavowal.
Furthermore, it explores the extent to which these race-based comic trends are influenced by, respond to and negotiate both the vestiges of the past and current racial-social-political discourses. Albeit in a vastly distinct way, this article concludes that the humour produced by these comics- irreverent and subversive versus conservative and facetious-nevertheless allows them and by extension society to negotiate the vestiges of the past and the disquiets of the present in order to serve the overarching drive of promoting social cohesion and healing.
Keywords: comedy; humour; post-apartheid; race; South Africa. Comedy during apartheid was constrained by several swingeing state apparatuses that served to censor Blandat och Aktuellt content, such as the Publications Act ofwhich censored or banned media or artwork considered to be obscene, sacrilegious, injurious to social relations, or pejorative towards Afrikaners or the State Hachten and Giffard; McMurtry Relatedly, the "State of Emergency" in further allowed the government to mediate and control press coverage on anti-apartheid opinion and news South African History Online Additionally, comedy in its various manifestations largely performed an explicitly ideological function by personifying the values, mores and viewpoints of the apartheid regime and Afrikanerdom Afrikaner Nationalism.
Performances were mainly presented by Whites, articulated in the Afrikaans vernacular and to a lesser degree, English and characterised by an idealised conservative and Calvinist worldview Karam In addition to indoctrination, mediated comedy also largely functioned as a form of escapist pacification; that is, a means of distracting society from the brutality of the apartheid regime and the socio-political tumult of the country.
Amid this repressive and exclusionary autocratic system, non-Whites were largely discounted from representation and expression within the mainstream media paradigm. Furthermore, the comedy scene was limited to the radio, a small number of performance spaces, some theatrical plays, and a few television programmes and films.
The move towards a democratic South Africa in had an immediate and transformative effect on comedy. There was a massive increase in comedic performance spaces such as comedy clubs, festivals, sitcoms, TV sketch shows, films, and more recently, the expansion of new forms of online and digital humour via YouTube channels and podcasts, as well as the racial diversification of comic talent.
The dramatic reconfiguration of the social, political and ideological order in the country-from White minority to Black majority rule-also gave rise to a variety of comedic trends and discourses beyond the bounds of any singular race, ethnicity or worldview as in the apartheid past.
The texts selected for analysis are by no means representative of the entirety of comic expression vis-à-vis Black and White comedians, but are taken to be evocative exemplars of the kind of comedic fare characteristic of Black and White comics.
The fast-growing comedic infrastructure in post-apartheid South Africa paved the way for an explosion of comic talent. In particular, the removal of apartheid censorship, media restrictions and racial-segregationist machinations led to a growing number of Black comics such as Tumi Morake, Loyiso Gola, David Blandat och Aktuellt, Kagiso Lediga and Trevor Noah, among others.
As local entertainment manager Takunda Bimha notes: "For a long time, a large section of this population was suppressed in terms of expression, in terms of the arts It is awakening a sleeping giant" Conway-Smith Indeed, following years of tyrannical marginalisation and exclusion within the realm of public discourse, these previously marginalised individuals were capitalising on their new-found political freedom by provocatively stretching the limits of what could be laughed about in the country, pushing the boundaries on contemporary and quintessentially South African issues such as apartheid, race, the AIDS epidemic, social inequality, class, politics and governance, and corruption and crime.
The Monty-Python-inspired sketch series first aired on local television stations in and represented a rawer, vulgar and unfiltered style of comedy like nothing previously seen in the country. For instance, one episode featured a parodic skit of the Boeremag Afrikaans Force -a small South African right-wing activist group with White separatist aims that was charged with treason in and their pathetic attempts at political destabilisation.