Serdar Somuncu: Turkish German Comedy as Transnational Intervention

Abstract

is a comedic form that centers on the ethnicity of the performer, where ethnicity and cultural difference provide the substance of the performance. The ethno-cultural identities performed are at once a construct for the stage and a staging of ethnic stereotypes as constructions through exaggeration and parody. This style of performance seeks to ridicule ethno-cultural clichés by enacting them. Ethno-cultural comedy does not actively dismantle cultural and ethnic stereotypes, but instead uses magnification to fix the audience's gaze on their absurdity. Kaya Yanar has made a career out of manipulating ethnic stereotypes of Indians, Italians, Arabs, and Turks, transformed into a set of stock characters whose foibles he repetitively rehearsed on his comedy show. Because of his own heritage-Yanar is of Arab and Turkish descent-he implicitly lends a veneer of authenticity and acceptability to his performances that counterbalances the giddy exaggeration of the ethno-cultural caricatures he plays for laughs. In her study Ethnic Drag, Katrin Sieg has examined the relationship between mimesis and masquerade, disputing the assumption that mimesis is affirmative while masquerade is subversive (Sieg 11). Yanar's performances straddle the divide between mimesis and masquerade and constitute, I would argue, neither affirmation nor subversion, exemplifying Kader Konuk's assertion-as presented in her analysis of staged speech-that mimicry in itself is not subversive, but has subversive potential if it refuses the validity or authority of that which it is imitating (Konuk 68). While Yanar's ostensible aim is to render ethnic stereotypes harmless, his comedy does little to stimulate reflection or encourage dialogue. 2 1 Kaya Yanar's Was guckst du? program on the German channel SAT.1 attracted some three million viewers (see Andrea Kaiser, "Noch 'n Türkenwitz," Zeit Online 8/2001) and garnered Yanar both the German television prize and German comedy prize. 2 In his study of ethnic humor, Leon Rappoport has come out as an advocate for its potential to undercut rather than encourage prejudice. He argues that stand-up comedians have succeeded in weakening the negative effects of ethnic stereotypes by rendering them ridiculous, and also makes the obvious if not trivial point that the purveyors of ethnic In contrast, the Turkish German actor, author, cabaret artist, and comedian Serdar Somuncu utilizes his acting skills and critical insights to create programs designed to subvert the image of the Turkish German performer as a "professional ethnic," and combat the reductiveness inherent in the term "ethno-cultural comedy." Ruth Mandel uses the term "professional ethnic" in her book Cosmopolitan Anxieties to describe Turkish-heritage members of a cultural elite in Germany forced to "reinvent themselves as ethnic elites" in order to gain recognition from the German culture industry (Mandel 186). These "professional ethnics" are "complicit in ethnic stereotyping, a kind of mimetic staging in order to target specific audiences and cater to e...

The problem of common citizenship in Serdar Somuncu’s work “Der Antitürke” and the evaluation of the work in the context of multiculturalism

“…Somuncu, eserinde Almanların ve Türklerin birbirlerine karşı sahip oldukları basmakalıp görüşlerin iki ülke arasındaki duvarlar gibi olduğunu savunmakta ve baskın olarak tasarlanan bir öncü kültürün (Leitkultur) savunucularını eleştirmektedir. Bu noktada ise karşılıklı bir entegrasyon süreci talep etmektedir (Bower, 2011). Bu bağlamda çalışmada entegrasyon sürecinde oluşan problemler dil ve kimlik açısından ele alınacak ve elde edilen bulgular hermeneutik yöntem ile değerlendirilerek, mevcut sorunlara Taylor ve Kymlicka'nın çokkültürcülüğe dair yaklaşımları ile cevap aranmaya çalışılacaktır.…”