Intercultural
Political Gelotology

Comedy and politics have intertwined throughout all of human history - from the very first known jokes and ancient Greek performances, through medieval court jesters, to modern late night comedy and news satire. The struggle for power has been and remains a potent topic for many comedians around the world, who use it according to their own comedic needs and warp it in relation to their society's values. Hence, some argue that jokes reflect real political moods and a sense of humour is key for a modern politician’s success. Despite this, the true and exact natures of political humour, comedy and satire have remained largely elusive, mysterious and unknown to scholars. As a result, a growing number of voices in academia are calling for the establishment of a new subfield of research known as political gelotology. My research aims to join and answer these calls by not only exploring, describing, verifying and quantifying the exact characteristics of the relationship of politics and comedy – especially by analyzing the content of hundreds of comedy performances from the world's most popular TV programs – but also by doing so in a cross-cultural perspective with the assist of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory. Thanks to the comparative analysis of the content of English, French and Polish stand-up as well as Chinese Mandarin xiàngsheng I have already described and defined the key characteristics and differences between the various styles of political comedy across cultures. Without doubt, laughter about power deserves to be taken seriously.