The Politics of Humour in Iran

Abstract

Though the genre of political humour is popular across different societies, it is commonly seen as a product of repressive regimes – a mild substitute for free speech and public critique denied to people therein. Moving away from the binary of totalitarian vs. democratic states, this article reads the recent spurt in Ahmadinejad jokes in Iran as a middle class response to fears of a return to the conservative agenda that Ahmadinejad’s victory symbolized.