The idea of national humour and Americanisation in Australia and Britain
The idea of national humour and Americanisation in Australia and Britain

Summary/Abstract: The widespread notion of a unique national humour involves an impulse to apply thecommonplace assumptions of national identity that demand uniqueness of identity, history,language and culture for a political society. What is deemed true and distinctive of the nationmust be also be true and distinctive of its national humour, goes the thinking.However, such cultural exclusivity has not been reconciled with cultural exchangesbetween nations. Paradoxically, conceptions of national humour have been formulated indynamic tension with such exchanges during the various phases of globalization that havetaken place since the 19th century. The Americanisation of humour, in particular, has been animportant component of such transmissions and resulted from the commercial popular culturedominated by America since the nineteenth century. Australia is a prime example examinedhere along with examples from Britain. To complicate matters of transmission,Americanisation sometimes arrived in Australia via Britain as well as directly from Americaitself.Australians and Britons periodically reacted against American culture, includinghumour, as a threat to national identity. But this was part of a dynamic tension played outbetween modern and traditional, imported and local in their selections and adaptations ofhumour imports from America.There is a huge and historic complexity of cultural anxiety and cultural transfer lyingbehind the apparent cultural comforts of belonging to a nation-state. Moreover, humour hasplayed its part in the continual discursive recreation of the nation in the form of constantsearches for the unique national humour of a people.

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