‘Why They Laugh At Us?’: the functions and ethics of humour in Singaporean theatrical depictions of stigmatised illness

Abstract

While humour in the context of illness might be perceived to be insensitive or inappropriate, it is used frequently in the medical setting and discussions of illness. This paper strives to answer why humour is used despite these feelings it might elicit, and attempts to outline conditions that inform the ethics of humour in an illness context.This paper analyses two Singaporean theatrical depictions of chronic and stigmatised illnesses: Haresh Sharma’sOff Centre(1993), which is about schizophrenia and depression, and Paddy Chew’s monologueCompletely With/Out Character(1999), on HIV and AIDS. In these plays, humour functions to: first, dispense information on stigmatised illnesses through mediation; second, implicate audiences in stigma-making through defamiliarisation; and third, to exert discursive control for feelings of empowerment. Furthermore, analysing these plays within their contexts demonstrate that humour is crucial for providing a more nuanced understanding of the stigmatised illness experience, since humour can illuminate culturally held notions of sickness and health.While humour is necessary for patients who are routinely misunderstood and alienated, it must be used with discretion to prevent abuse. As this paper demonstrates, the ethics of humour is more nuanced than simply possessing certain identity markers that provide the illusion of exoneration or inclusion. It is also affected by multiple axes of privilege and discrimination. In my conclusion, I argue that the ethics of humour in the illness context is contingent on whether imbalanced power relations and systems of oppression were employed and/or reproduced under the guise of non-seriousness.