Abstract
The populist radical right (PRR), or far right, frequently resorts to jokes, irony, and humour, particularly in relation to major markers of ideology and identity such as gender/sexuality. Despite the empirical factuality of such humour—from the sexist outbursts of Trump to the homophobic jokes of Bolsonaro—few contributions have analysed the humoristic performances of this political family. The article aims to fill this gap by focusing on the Italian League (former Northern League). Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a local branch, I identify two main humorous codes, corresponding to two different socio-political functions: ‘humour as male-inflicted punishment’ and ‘humour as virility battle’. The paper illuminates the intertwinement of power and gender hierarchies, reproduced through sexist humour in the branch. It also shows how humoristic codes employed by national leaders circulate in the branch, in a process of remodulation of gender, ideology, and sexism between micro and macro levels of politics.
Introduction
Humour is one of the most fascinating, complex, and ambiguous forms of human communication. Conceptually and linguistically, its power arises from the sudden appearance of an incongruous element that violates expected scripts, meanings, and cognitive structures, thus producing a form of enjoyment (Tsakona & Popa, 2011). One of humour's deepest and oldest relationships is with politics: from ancient Greece to our contemporary era, humour has always played a crucial role in the representation of power and institutions (Wedderburn, 2021).
Nowadays, humour is increasingly used in political communication (Brassett et al., 2021), especially by the populist radical right (PRR) (Mudde, 2007), or far right (Pirro, 2023), in relation to two classic ingroup–outgroup and ideological markers: gender/sexuality and race/ethnicity (Brassett et al., 2021). From the numerous sexist outbursts of Trump1 to the anti-homosexual and/or anti-feminist jokes of Putin2 and Bolsonaro,3 the political use of sexist (and racist) jokes is becoming a habit in the contemporary political debate. However, despite its relevance, the topic seems to have been largely ignored in current research. With this paper, I contribute to filling this gap by focusing on the interplay between humour, gender, and sexuality in an Italian far-right party. The Italian right has been a political laboratory for the propagandistic, sexist, and/or racist use of humour (Molé, 2013)—particularly in relation to the key role played by prominent populist leaders such as Silvio Berlusconi (Belpoliti, 2009) and Umberto Bossi (Belpoliti, 2012; Dematteo, 2011).
More specifically, I analyse the (Northern) League, one of the oldest and most voted-for formations of the European PRR, based on a qualitative case study of a local branch where I conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork. During my presence in the field, I started observing frequent recourse to the humorous register in interactions among militants, with strong sexual and gender connotations. The recurrence of such incidents led me to scrutinise these ‘incidental’ findings in an effort to answer the following questions: Why was humour so recurrent in everyday interactions? What were its main contents and social functions? How were these humorous performances connected to the broader ideology, identity, and communicative style of the party?
In this paper, first, I connect the bodies of literature on the far right, humour, gender, and organisational settings by exploring the interdisciplinary linkages between these research fields. I then focus on the eminent role played by the (Northern) League in Italy's shift to populist, post-ideological, and post-truth forms of political communication. In the empirical sections, I illustrate the two main humoristic codes employed in the local branch: humour as male-inflicted punishment and humour as virility battle. In the final section, I reflect more broadly on the connections between humour, gender, and populist and far-right politics. I also propose new lines of research.
1. Humour, gender, and the far right: A missing link
Humour constitutes a temporary break, an ambiguous suspension of the flow of information that gives form to our social interactions (Tsakona & Popa, 2011)—like a bug in the system that sheds light on the system itself, including its rules, social norms, values, and beliefs that are usually taken for granted. The use of humoristic codes in social interactions appears to be a constant marker of human cultures (Radcliffe-Brown, 1949): from the reproduction of bonds (sharing the same ironic codes as a form of collective belonging) to the production of ingroup–outgroup boundaries and hierarchies (laughing at someone who is different from ‘us’) (Goffman, 1961, 1963), and from the affective symbolisation of a wide range of emotions (humour as catharsis) to the expression of conflict (humour as canalisation of aggressivity) (Freud, 1905/1991).
Therefore, we should not be surprised that politics resorts to humour and ironic codes:
Who people laugh with, and what (or whom) they laugh about, discloses important information both about their identities as subjects and about the affinities, alliances, and antagonisms through which these subjectivities find meaning. … In addition to these interpersonal exchanges, many states and state leaders have begun to cultivate a sense of humour as part of their diplomatic communications and broadcasts. (Brassett et al., 2021, pp. 1–2)
A new debate has started to develop regarding humour in extreme-right groups (Billig, 2001; Breazu & Machin, 2019) and their use of racist jokes, especially on social networks (Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Malmqvist, 2015; Nagle, 2017), which is understood as a way to mainstream ideological contents (Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018). However, studies on the use of humour within far-right parties are still quite rare and concentrate mainly on racism rather than gender (Richardson & Wodak, 2009; Sakki & Martikainen, 2021).
Nevertheless, the populist radical right (Mudde, 2007), or far right (Pirro, 2023),4 seems to resort to hyperbole, as well as to racist, misogynist, and homo-bi-transphobic contents (Malmqvist, 2015)—a practice understood as a classic we–them counter-positioning with respect to social categories identified as threatening and/or deviant. Humour plays a crucial role in this communicative strategy (Gil & Brea, 2021), as its ambiguous character allows ‘the unsayable’ to be said, using the ironic tone as justification, according to three classic rhetorical registers: provocation, calculated ambivalence, and denial (Wodack, 2021, p. 348). Moreover, humour allows leaders to communicate the ‘right’ ideological message to their internal audiences (Tsakona & Popa, 2011) without making the ideology explicit. Thus, the violence that may be disguised by humorous attacks (Billig, 2001; Fine & Corte, 2021) pushes the boundaries of what is publicly sayable a step further in a process of progressive loss of collective taboos (Billig, 2001; Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947/2002). This use of humour also constitutes a mise en scène of proximity (Wedderburn, 2021) between leaders and ‘the people’, as well as an exhibition of an anti-elitist attitude towards ‘political correctness’ (Nagle, 2017).
Moreover, in a time of intense personalisation of politics, humour promotes forms of affective and emotional identification that link the sympathisers to the leaders, who thus become ‘one of us’. Emotions and affect have long been overlooked in social movement studies and political science (Gould, 2009). However, they may play a significant role in the formation and transmission of political identities, cultures, and ideological frameworks (not necessarily in opposition to rationality), especially in far-right and populist discourses (Kisić Merino et al., 2021; Salmela & von Scheve, 2017; Schwarzenegger & Wagner, 2018). The humorous code proves particularly effective in uniting cultural, identity-based, and ideological aspects. It conveys them simultaneously by relying on affective channels, which are, by definition, liminally conscious, fluid, and bodily rooted (Massumi, 2002)—precisely like the act of laughing.
Finally, sex- and gender-based humour is a fundamental ingredient in the construction of far-right and populist male leaderships, which in turn are often based on the exhibition of virility and homoerotic camaraderie (Mosse, 1996).
If the linkages between humour, far-right parties, and gender/sexuality remain largely under-researched, this gap can be partially filled by referring to the field of gender and organisation studies, which has extensively analysed the role of humour in the life of organisations (Duncan & Feisal, 1989), particularly in relation to gender (Frosh et al., 2002). The practice of humour has been linked to the display of authority (Goffman, 1961), where it is used to affirm and reinforce power structures within organisations (Collinson, 2002, 2003; Gabriel, 1998; Smeltzer & Leap, 1988). Collinson and Hearn (1996) have shown how managerial joking is linked to power and gender in organisational contexts, as well as how masculine identities in the workplace are frequently constructed through hostile and intimidating jokes (Collinson, 2002), often with sexual connotations (Cockburn, 1991; Pollert, 1981). These humorous repertoires tend to confirm established hierarchies of both gender and power (Collinson & Collinson, 1996) while also reaffirming representations of sexually dominant masculinities (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947/2002).
Cockburn (1991) observes how the use of oppressive humour may produce a ‘silencing effect’ on minority groups, keeping them firmly ‘in their place’. However, given its ambiguous and context-dependent characteristics, humour may also represent a form of resistance to power because of its desecrating character (Watts, 2007).
Other contributions have identified humour as an organising principle of masculinity (Kehily, 2007). The act of laughing together then becomes a key element in ‘mobilising masculinity’ (Martin, 2001), and in the (re)production of male esprit de corps (Frosh et al., 2002), hegemonic masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005), and male power and hierarchies (Kehily & Nayak, 1997).
2. The (Northern) League as a populist, post-ideological, and post-truth entrepreneur
The Northern League (NL)5 was born towards the end of the 1980s as a federalist/ethno-regionalist aggregation of several small regional parties known as the leghe (Diamanti, 1993).
Since its first appearance in the public arena, the party imposed a radical change in the communicative codes of Italian politics (Biorcio, 1997): a direct, simplified, deliberately rough style of communication, understood as an anti-elitist revenge of the ‘ordinary people’ against the institutional politicians ‘in suits and ties’ (Dematteo, 2011). In this communicative subversion, the founder and charismatic leader, Umberto Bossi, played a crucial role. He presented himself as a simple man, with a deep and thunderous voice, coarse manners, vulgar gestures and modest clothes, and thus became the personification of the NL's anti-political and anti-elitist attitudes (Belpoliti, 2012; Dematteo, 2011).
In this regard, focusing specifically on gender and humour, it is important to mention a famous joke performed by Bossi in the first half of the ’90s. In one of his most celebrated speeches, broadcast on national television, the secretary spoke about the party's intention to overcome all obstacles and achieve the independence of the North, exclaiming, ‘La Lega Nord ce l'ha duro, duro, duro!’ (‘The Northern League is having it hard, hard, hard!’). Celodurismo became the neologism of the year, resounding throughout the media to the point that in 1995, it was included in one of the most eminent Italian dictionaries, the Devoto-Oli. The term is still used in political jargon as a synonym for a stubborn and proud attitude.
In recent years, decades of unsuccessful attempts to obtain a federalist reform of the state and a series of internal and judicial problems triggered a dramatic crisis of image and confidence for the party. This led to Bossi's resignation; he was succeeded by the young Matteo Salvini, who transformed the old federalist party into a nationalist force (Barcella, 2022). After almost 30 years of federalism, this shift probably constitutes one of the most daring post-ideological and post-truth operations ever carried out in Italian politics. The new League changed the definition of ‘the people’ while keeping the inner mechanism of its populist discourse intact. The new ‘we’ has become a nativist, more overtly xenophobic, and welfare-chauvinist national community; anti-elitism is now mobilised to emphasise Euroscepticism and criticism of the EU's neoliberal elites (Brunazzo & Gilbert, 2017). Moreover, gender and sexual diversity are increasingly identified as new threats to moral order, and the new party has mobilised a reactionary vision of religion as symbolic glue for the new national identity (Bellè & Donà, 2022).
This change in identity and ideology also implied an extensive and often aggressive use of social networks. Salvini rapidly became the most followed political leader online in Italy; he created a veritable virtual empire that was nicknamed ‘the beast’ (Zulianello, 2021). His huge online popularity was nurtured by frequent recourse to an aggressive tone, often masked by sexist and/or racist jokes. One of the party's main targets in recent years was the Speaker of the Lower House, Laura Boldrini, who had been elected in 2013 from the ranks of the party Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (Left, Ecology, and Liberty). The violence of such attacks, mostly related to Boldrini's support for immigrants’ rights, reached its peak during a rally in 2016, when Salvini displayed an inflatable doll on stage, proclaiming, ‘There is a Boldrini lookalike here on stage. I don't know if she has already been exhibited …’; he then launched the hashtag ‘#sgonfialaboldrini’ (#deflatetheboldrini).6
Another essential element of the nationalist turn was the marked shift to the far right of the ideological spectrum. Starting in 2013, the party began flirting with various organisations in the Italian post- and neo-fascist firmament (Castelli Gattinara, 2018); it used some of their watchwords and language and included exponents of these groups in electoral lists, especially local ones (Mancosu & Ladini, 2019).
Finally, the party, which had formerly maintained a conservative line but without particular religious connotations, allied itself with the Italian anti-gender movement (Kuhar & Paternotte, 2017)—composed of multiple formations of conservative-reactionary Catholicism—and supported some of its campaigns (Bellè & Donà, 2022).
This overall strategy of transformation was consistently based on post-ideological and post-truth traits (McIntyre, 2018). These comprised (1) the assemblage of heterogeneous ideological elements, which were mostly far removed from the party's history (the neo-fascism and the religion) and mostly performed rather than elaborated through proper political discourse; (2) the blurring of the boundary between the leader's institutional role and private life, above all due to his over-exposure online; and (3) the personalisation and hyper-simplification of the political message, frequently using aggressive tones (again, facilitated by the extensive use of social networks).
3. Research context and methodology
This contribution draws from ethnographic and locally based research conducted on the NL party. In epistemological terms, I propose a shift from approaches examining macro dimensions (electoral trends, far-right parties in inter/national scenarios, etc.) that are currently prevalent to a focus on situated and micro aspects (militantism and the internal life of the organisation) (Avanza, 2007; Bellè, 2014; Dematteo, 2011; Scrinzi, 2024).
My selected case is a local branch located in a small town (with over 5,000 inhabitants) in Veneto, to which I have given the pseudonym Contrada. Veneto is a region of northeastern Italy where the party has one of its most stable and oldest constituencies, in sociocultural as well as electoral terms (Diamanti, 1993; Passarelli & Tuorto, 2018).
The initial research goal was to analyse the internal processes of grassroots participation, the construction of collective identity, and the ideology and culture of the party by giving voice to the activists themselves. To this end, I conducted a one-year participant-observation of the branch's life. I took part in the weekly meetings of the local party board, which included the leadership team (the branch secretary, the two deputy secretaries, and those elected to the town council) as well as a group of the keenest militants (between 10 and 25 people). I also participated in all main public initiatives organised by the branch (the annual social dinner, the aperitivo dei soci [member's cocktail], occasional gatherings organised by the branch, and major party demonstrations). To complement the participant-observation, I conducted 15 in-depth interviews with the most prominent local leaders and assiduous militants.
The branch was composed of about 50 official members, and it was characterised by a certain dynamism: the militants met once a week, which is unusually frequent for such a small branch. The vast majority of the party members were aged from 45 to 65, except for a few young militants: two women and three men, aged from 23 to 28. It also had multiple gender imbalances: most of the militants were men, which is consistent with the party's general tendency (Passarelli & Tuorto, 2012).7 Moreover, the internal leadership remained completely male-dominated (the secretary and the two deputies), and women were also absent at the municipal level.
Concerning the data analysis, given the interpretative nature of my research, I opted for the grounded theory method (Charmaz, 2014). I conducted a first descriptive codification of the data set; I then ran a second, more theoretical one. A third and last run enabled the construction of theoretically driven analytical categories.
It is important to note that humour was not part of my initial research questions, which, as already mentioned, focused on the construction of collective identity, political culture, militantism, and political careers. Hence, humour appeared ‘surprisingly’ as an interactional code that was employed so often as to merit systematic examination. This paper is therefore based on a data analysis specifically devoted to all humorous content in my data set, realised after the general data analysis. Nonetheless, the data on humour are not analysed as isolated, single performative actions but inserted into a larger interpretative frame.
The data analysed in the following paragraphs are not only based on the ethnographic notes taken during the participant-observation sessions but also on my so-called emotional notes (Agic, 2020). These are more personal writings concerning my feelings, moods, and the sense of emotional fatigue during my fieldwork, as well as some of the affective and atmospheric aspects I observed around me. This part of my ethnographic diary proved crucial for my analytical purposes (Blee, 1998), given the ambiguous, performative, and context-dependent character of humour.
Before proceeding to the empirical section of the paper, two final methodological clarifications are necessary. As we have seen, humour in politics can assume a huge variety of meanings and features: the performance of a leader, a semiotic artefact posted online, an explicit joke, or an ironic nuance, among other forms. In this paper, I refer to humour in relation to the nature of my collected data—specifically as an everyday, interactional code that is often employed to convey conflict and draw informal lines of power.
Concerning crucial ethnographic issues such as positioning and reflexivity, it is worth mentioning that during the fieldwork, my identity and goals as a researcher were always declared. My first contact with the branch was mediated by a colleague from a nearby town who introduced me to the local leaders. After a first meeting with them, I was allowed to start participating in the life of the branch, which accepted my presence quite well. This easy access and my ongoing presence in the field may seem inconsistent with the literature on the ethnography of far- and extreme-right formations (specifically on the party, see Avanza, 2008; Bellè, 2016). However, some contextual factors help explain this ‘friendly’ environment. On the one hand, my personal characteristics as a relatively young female researcher helped convey a harmless image, which was paradoxically (and precisely by force of gender stereotypes themselves) related to the intersectional effect of gender and age. Moreover, my identity as a white researcher coming from the North of Italy certainly contributed to making my presence ‘acceptable’ in a racist and anti-South organisation. On the other hand, some organisational traits of the selected case helped me navigate the field: as this was a small local branch, quite peripheral in terms of internal party prestige, it welcomed the ‘flattering effect’ of being placed at the centre of scientific attention. Furthermore, hospitality is rooted in the local social fabric as a legacy of the rural past.
4. Humour as male-inflicted punishment
Before focusing on the analysis of humour, it is important to give some background information about the everyday life of the branch to better understand the internal dynamics in which humour takes place there. The collective life appears to be highly ritualised and symbolically constructed as an extension of the domestic sphere in a sort of reenactment of family rituals, which are in turn related to the local culture and social habits. For instance, the passing of time is marked by events related to the religious and civic calendar: during the Christmas period, the branch is decorated with a big manger (a widespread tradition in the region) and Christmas lights; for Easter, the party organises a party with a lottery and food and drinks; and when a Carnival arrives, families gather at parties with children wearing costumes.
The branch exhibits dichotomous and stereotypical repertoires for ‘doing gender’ (West & Zimmerman, 2009). In everyday interactions, men play the ‘husband's role’, dealing with stereotypically masculine tasks (maintenance of the branch premises, transport of material, the so-called heavy work), while the few women play the ‘wife's role’, related to housekeeping chores (cleaning and decorating, distributing food and drinks, etc.). A crucial element in maintaining this gender order and family rituality is the middle-aged ‘royal couple’, composed of Bruno8 the branch secretary and his wife Rita. Bruno is the main source of political authority and prestige, whereas Rita is in charge of the ‘backstage’: she updates the militants, involves them in the party's activities, and coordinates the small group of middle-aged women in preparing for these events. These preparatory activities are always of a practical nature and related to the extension of the domestic sphere (cleaning, furnishing, preparing food and drink). According to this gendered division of work, women are also excluded from official political tasks such as giving public speeches or taking on formalised roles of responsibility.
Another important aspect to clarify preliminarily is that the use of sex/gender-based humour, in the context of the branch, seems to be an exclusive prerogative of male militants in addressing women or other men (as will be shown in the next section). Among the numerous humorous performances present in my data, there are no cases of reversal of this gender relationship and hierarchy. This asymmetry is, per se, already a sign of the oppressive and punitive nature of humour with respect to both gender and power hierarchies, as we will see now in detail.
Below I present a selection of several similar jokes I observed, along with some relevant contextual elements helpful for their interpretation. In all cases, the group has reunited at the long rectangular table of the branch during the weekly meeting. The jokes follow a constant pattern: they interrupt a woman who is speaking about relevant organisational or political aspects in front of the group and shift the general attention to a humorous gag, always nuanced by sexual allusions.
[Weekly meeting of the branch] The group is talking about a commemorative plaque that they are planning to hang on the wall to honour the memory of the founder of the branch, one of Contrada's well-known entrepreneurs. Rita asks where exactly they planned to hang it up. Mario, the deputy secretary, answers ironically, ‘Rita, you should already know it. You have to talk with your husband [who is Bruno, the branch's secretary] and not just have sex with him!’ Bruno says sarcastically, ‘If only!!!’ Rita pretends that nothing has happened and ignores the joke but is evidently uncomfortable. Bruno repeats, ‘If only!!’ complaining that he never has the time to stay peacefully at home, as he is always so busy with his political duties. [Ethnographic diary]
The reference to her sexual life with her husband, who is also the branch's secretary, seems to constitute the peak of embarrassment for Rita. She blushes and protests weakly, in a low voice, without any effect on the two men. Her discomfort at the sexual allusion is not surprising, and should, again, be related to the specific context—that of a small town in a traditionally conservative and religious area. Moreover, as already pointed out, the branch is a male-dominated context in which legitimation of the female presence is already scarce. In this milieu, sexuality is the object of carnivalesque humour and the exhibition of virile appetites, which are rigorously male-only but never treated as a ‘serious’ topic of conversation or as a humorous subject by women. Precisely by virtue of this deeply gendered taboo, the silencing effect of the joke (Cockburn, 1991) is particularly effective and aggressive.
The attention Rita has been gaining from the group is clearly diverted by the joke, which also stresses Rita's role as the ‘wife of the boss’. In the concluding part of the male interaction, Bruno takes the opportunity to underline his spirit of sacrifice for the party, which in turn is a relevant aspect of the party's political culture that celebrates grassroots militantism and loyalty (Passarelli & Tuorto, 2018). Thus, the final effect of the joke is to restore the secretary to the top of the internal hierarchy in terms of both gender and power—thereby reassembling the gender order threatened by Rita's ‘excess’ of agency.
[Weekly meeting of the branch] The group discusses the impending annual social dinner and the cake that should be ordered for the occasion. Monica, a young militant (aged 24), gives details of the order. Antonio, a veteran militant of the branch (in his 60s), intervenes, interrupting Monica, ‘But can this cake be eaten on the tray, or how is it fashionable to eat it now?’ [he adds a gesture with his hand, drawing in the air the imaginary profile of a female body lying on its side]. Monica looks at him and, smiling, replies, ‘On the tray.’ Giorgio, another militant (around 45), joins in: ‘It depends on what the tray is made of.’ Monica remains silent. At this point, Rita (57), a militant with a primary role in the branch, and wife of the secretary, intervenes: ‘Keep going Monica, keep going. …’ [Ethnographic diary]
It is also worth highlighting how the joke relates to a well-known sexual scandal and a consequent trial involving former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.9 The affair, which caused a sensation in national and international media, returned to the centre of Italian debate during my fieldwork because of some new developments in the trial. Antonio's joke is clearly inspired by the scandal, evoking the image of a lascivious erotic game associated with the trial.
Although the humorous dynamic is initially similar to the previous one (a woman showing agency, the interruption with a sexual joke, and complicity between two men), in this case Monica tries to resist her delegitimisation by responding directly to the joke, implicitly rejecting the sexual allusion. Compared to Rita's reaction, seen in the previous excerpt, in this partially different management of the interaction, we can see a generational shift that orients young militants towards more equal gender scripts. Monica's answer, however measured, also seems to have a sort of contagious effect, since it is immediately followed by Rita's intervention, in which one can discern an intention of solidarity, and probably also of intergenerational protection.
[Weekly meeting of the branch] The meeting has begun, and Rita is explaining to me how important it is to increase the involvement of women in the party's activities. The entire group is listening. She tells me that her main goal is to increase the participation of women, especially young ones. Gianni, a middle-aged militant, enters ironically into the conversation: ‘We need to have an all-women managerial board because we are slaves of women.’ Bruno, the secretary, sarcastically remarks, ‘OK, if we do so, we are done!’ Rita ignores the provocative jokes, regains the group's attention and continues her reasoning: ‘Today we are few, but you will see. Usually, we have several young girls, and they're very good. You'll see, we'll do great work, and we'll renew the party!’ [Ethnographic diary]
Precisely by virtue of this enthusiasm, the sex joke sounds even more brutal. In this case, too, some nonverbal elements are crucial to frame the interaction. After interrupting Rita with the joke, Gianni smiles and looks around, picking up the giggles of other male militants. Moreover, in a party blatantly affected by gender imbalances on all levels—internal division of labour, gender composition of leaders and militants, language and communication (Avanza, 2007; Bellè, 2014; Scrinzi, 2024)—the mention of a board composed exclusively of women appears paradoxical, with a sharply ridiculing effect directed towards Rita (and by extension, the female members of the group). Through a sarcastic celebration of femininity (‘we are slaves of women’), the militant succeeds in the dual purpose of diverting attention from a fundamental political problem and reaffirming the virility and sexual appetites of his male colleague.
Also in this third case, as in the second, the silencing and punitive effect of the joke is only partial. Although Rita appears to be in difficulty—again, she pauses for a long time, fidgets in her chair, looks around tiredly—she eventually resumes her speech and concludes it. Her final sentence, in which she again affirms her project, is uttered while looking me straight in the eye, as if to physically exclude the militant and again seek complicity and support from the ‘young researcher’. The concluding part of the interaction can also be read as an explicit stance of resistance in the face of yet another ‘humorous delegitimisation’. Unlike in the first case, Rita insists here on her point and fully vindicates it despite her embarrassment.
5. Humour as a virility battle
The use of humour among the group not only seems to be linked to the necessity of restabilising the compromised male–female hierarchy. It also becomes a discursive repertoire, mobilised in the competition between men—and in this case, too, mostly draws from the domain of a sexualised virility:
Roughly halfway through the weekly meeting, Riccardo, an activist from a nearby city, arrives. He introduces himself and describes the new political group that is being created in his hometown and their political hopes, including the candidacy of a woman as mayor in the next local elections. The branch secretary, who gave clear signs of impatience during the lengthy presentation, interrupts him and states that if they want a woman candidate, ‘they won't give them their women’ [referring to the female activists from Contrada]. In saying that, he smiles with complicity at Claudia—a young militant who, despite coming from the same city as Riccardo, frequents the branch at Contrada, as it is more active than that in her hometown. This fact is known to Riccardo, since he and Claudia know each other. Claudia, sitting next to the secretary, returns the smile, seemingly flattered by the joke. [Ethnographic diary]
The denied ‘women of the group’, who are at the core of the joke, become the metaphor and the symbolic medium through which the leader imposes a limit and a distance upon the newcomer. The safeguard of a collective order and internal hierarchy coincides with the reaffirmation of ownership of the female component, enacted by the secretary/paterfamilias. Through this strategy, the secretary emphasises, in a subtly polemic way, how the young Claudia, despite coming from the same city as the guest, prefers to attend party meetings in Contrada, which indirectly underlines the prestige of the branch. In doing so, he reaffirms his authority and internal role, which was threatened by the excessive agency of the guest. Claudia seems not to be bothered by the joke; rather, she seems flattered by the ratification of her group membership, directly proclaimed by the ultimate authority of the secretary.
An important aspect to note is the intertwining of three different levels in the interaction. There is the political one, which is the formal object of the conversation (the candidature of a woman for mayor); then there is the informal power and internal hierarchy, expressed through the joke about ‘the women of the group’ (and the control over them); finally, we see at play a veiled but present dimension of sexual flirting, which the secretary directs at Claudia.
It is also interesting to observe how this symbolic and semantic contiguity between the political and sexual dimensions is reconfirmed and returns, with different nuances, in the two excerpts that follow.
[After dinner with the young militants] I am with the youth formation of the party. I go out with a group of around 10 persons, some of whom have come from the nearby towns for the annual social dinner of the branch. We are at a cocktail bar, outside, smoking cigarettes. Two young men start a sort of fake ‘fight’, shoving and making fun of each other in front of the group. After a while, a certain sexual tension directed at the female part of the group becomes evident; they in turn look silently at the performance. The exchange of jokes reaches a climax, which ends with one man saying to the other ‘Comunista, terrone,10frocio!’ [‘Communist, Southerner, fag’!] [Ethnographic diary]
In this second joke, the action is projected outside the branch and implies a generational shift. The interaction takes place among a group of young militants, and here, the boundaries between militancy and group dynamics are extremely blurred. On the one hand, I am clearly facing a male game of rivalry and virility, aimed at acquiring centrality in the group and sex appeal in front of the women. On the other hand, the scripts of this virility battle become political by means of the insults chosen by the militant to mock his friend. The first two—comunista and terrone—mobilise two historical alterities in the party's ideology, corresponding to its first ideological core of the ’90s (Barcella, 2022): anti-communism and anti-meridionalism. The third refers to the quintessential manifestation of ‘deviant’ masculinity in the branch's hyper-virilist gender culture: homosexuality. This also echoes the widespread literature on the use of the word ‘fag’ as an insult aimed at disciplining sexual and gender codes within groups of young people (Pascoe, 2005). The joke also testifies to the circulation in the party of conservative and traditionalist values regarding sexual and gender issues; these were exacerbated from 2013 onwards under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, the nationalist turn, and the alliance that the new leader established with the Italian anti-gender firmament (Bellè & Donà, 2022).
[Weekly meeting of the branch] There is a palpable tension in the group: they are speaking about the very difficult moment the party is facing at the national level. The League is being strongly criticised by its internal base for being ineffective in implementing its historical project, a federalist reform of the Italian system. Giuseppe, a very devoted militant, is particularly angry and depicts the situation as a disaster. Bruno, the secretary, remains quiet, listening to his complaints. Then, after a prolonged pause, he replies, ‘The League is trying to bring about federalism by making several small changes in a lot of different laws. If we fail this time, we can go home and stop trying. But in order to make it, we also have to make some compromises. I know that we want everything right now, but it is like having a young, pretty woman with no experience. You have to go slowly, slowly, with Vaseline.’ The militant comments, ‘Then the man is not acting as a man,’ and the secretary answers: ‘Yes, I know, in a football game you would be an attacker who breaks through …’ [Ethnographic diary]
In the last excerpt, the sexual metaphor of anal defloration is used to symbolise the party's political struggles. In the conversation, two different ideas of virility are in tension: that of the secretary, Bruno, based on calculation and patience, and that of Giuseppe, the polemic militant, who complains that the party is not acting ‘as a real man’. The echo of celodurismo is more than evident here: the secretary reprises the famous speech of Umberto Bossi on a double level. On a more explicit one, he uses virility as a metaphor for the Lega's political identity. Implicitly, he denies the political failure of the party and evokes the same virile endurance, capable of overcoming every obstacle, that is exalted in Bossi's speeches. In Bruno's metaphorical discourse, Giuseppe thus becomes the embodiment of another kind of ‘political sexuality’: direct, uncalculated, rejecting all mediation and strategy, brutally deflowering the coveted object of desire, the ‘woman/federalism’. Interestingly, the conversation can be seen as the summation of multiple archetypical elements of the masculinity that is hegemonic in this context. The two men refer to sexuality—again, in a hyper-virilised, patriarchal, objectifying representation—and football, with both being understood as metaphors for politics.
6. Discussion and conclusion: Taking political humour seriously
This ethnographic research, conducted in a local branch of the Italian (Northern) League, has revealed the relevance of humour as a code employed in everyday interactions among militants.
More precisely, the data analysis highlighted two main typologies of humorous codes, fulfilling different functions. The first is the ‘humour as male-inflicted punishment’, consisting of sexually based jokes enacted by men and directed to women. They serve as male punishment towards those women who show an ‘excessive’ spirit of initiative when they trespass on the ancillary role assigned by the gender-symbolic order that is dominant in the branch, based on prescriptive productive/reproductive, public/private dichotomies. This first type of humorous code has nuanced consequences, ranging from a complete silencing effect (Cockburn, 1991) to micro-attempts at opposition and solidarity between women subjected to humorous ridicule. The second typology is ‘humour as virility battle’. Here, again, humour allows the management of internal conflicts without making the conflictuality explicit. And, again, the intertwining of humour, gender, and power is inextricable; but in this second case, we are faced with a male-only conflict, enacted in dynamics of redistribution of power and prestige (internal and external). In both types of humour, the common register is that of a hyper-virilised sexuality, regulated by a cultural repertoire of heterosexual voracity. These elements serve, alternately, to celebrate male power over women or to devirilise the opponent—and, by extension, undermine his political credibility—in an ongoing game of bouncing back and forth between politics and sexuality.
The data on humorous repertoires show an entrenched relationship between three different registers that are simultaneously channelled through the performative, fluid, in-action character of humour. The first dimension concerns the specific organisational culture of the party, which, as we have seen, is characterised by conservative/reactionary gender codes, a gender-stereotyped division of labour (Avanza, 2007; Bellè, 2014; Scrinzi, 2024), and a limited presence of women in apical roles (Passarelli & Tuorto, 2018). In territorial terms, coherent with the (Northern) League's localism (Dematteo, 2011), we can find some traces of the specific local culture in the humorous codes employed. This is an explicit, rough kind of humour, rooted in the old rural habits of the area; it has been codified through the years (also) as a way of coping with the people's poverty and struggle for life, with a Pantagruelist, fun-loving, carnivalesque irony. Thus, the research results, on the one hand, give empirical substance to already-known gender inequalities typical of the party at an aggregate level (Avanza, 2007; Bellè, 2014; Scrinzi, 2024). On the other hand, they also shed light on the everyday situated dynamics that give shape to this discrimination within the specific context. This aspect is particularly noteworthy as it allows for the isolation of both transversal and contextual elements, which together contribute to the reproduction of a political culture composed of multi-scalar levels.
Interwoven with the two aforementioned dimensions, we find the ideological. Even in the apparently less political cases, the humorous repertoires employed by the militants always have some ideological implications, such as defining a (traditional and stereotyped) gender order that cannot be infringed upon; performing forms of virility intertwined with ideological statements; and using sexual metaphors that are intrinsically political in connecting politics to a certain ideal of sexuality (aggressively heterosexual and heteropatriarchal).
Interestingly, in some cases, the humorous repertoires employed are an echo and remodulation of famous national leaders’ performances. Thus, humorous usages appear, once again, to be multi-scalar: they comprise transversal elements—i.e. echoing national male leaders (notably Bossi and Berlusconi)—while also being rooted in specific aspects of local culture. In this multi-scalar perspective, humour is situated at the crossroads of the global and the local in a process of circulation, reconfiguration, and readaptation that fits the specific context and its culture.
Extending this reflection from the case to the broader debate, I am convinced that there is an urgent need to start considering the performative code of humour not as incidental but as a structural element of contemporary political communication, strictly related to the growth of populist and far-right phenomena across the world. More concretely, I point to at least three major empirical fields of research, which are interrelated: namely, communication by leaders through the mass media; the internal and organisational lives of parties and groups; and their use of social media.
To achieve this agenda, I also propose an epistemological shift aimed at finally granting full scientific legitimacy to the emotional and affective dimensions of politics (Blee, 1998; Gould, 2009); this involves moving beyond a long-standing research tradition that has constructed these dimensions as anecdotal and/or opposed to rationality towards an approach that recognises their dialectic continuity with it.
To conclude, in our post-truth-driven era (McIntyre, 2018), where political reasoning is becoming increasingly less accountable and the manipulation of words is endemic to the public debate (Ylä-Anttila, 2018), what ways are left to convey political belonging? The performance of gendered, sexualised, and racialised humour (while often intertwining them) is becoming an answer (Gil & Brea, 2021). This is a way to express domination, authoritarianism, hierarchy, a cult of virilism, and exclusionist values without declaring them in an explicit ideological plan. It is also a way to ‘speak the unspeakable’ and interpret the profound change (and crisis) affecting political representation and communication.
Notes
Among possible examples, consider the ‘locker room banter’ that came to define the 2016 US presidential election (Wedderburn, 2021). See: Fahrenthold, D. A. (2016, October 8). Trump recorded having extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html.
For a partial overview of the various sexist jokes of Putin, see Bankoff, C. (2014, June 6). Some other gross things Vladimir Putin has said to and about women. New York Magazine. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2014/06/gross-things-putin-has-said-to-and-about-women.html.
For a partial overview, see Watson, K. (2018, October 23). “Feminism is sexist”: The women backing Brazil's Bolsonaro. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-45944164.
Among the numerous definitions proposed for this political family, I will use two, covering different theoretical aspects. Cas Mudde's (2007) widely used Populist Radical Right (PRR) effectively synthesizes three core ideological elements of the League: nativism, authoritarianism, and populism. In a recent contribution, Pirro (2023) proposes the umbrella concept of ‘far right’ to stress the overlaps between radical right and extreme right actors, which is precisely the current trend of Salvini's party.
The original name of the party, Lega Nord, was changed in 2017 to Lega per Salvini Premier (LSP) [League for Salvini Premier], commonly known simply as Lega. This name change reflected a shift in the party's ideological orientation, from a federalist, Northern-centred position to a nationalist one. Since the article analyses the party both before and after the name change, the term (Northern) League will be used to refer to both phases and denominations.
Reuters (2016, June 25). Italy party head under fire for likening Chamber speaker to sex doll. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-politics-sexdoll-idUSKCN10524S.
The composition of the Northern League's nationwide membership in 2012 was 74.4% male and 26.6% female (Passarelli & Tuorto, 2012). To my knowledge, there are no more recent statistics for comparison.
In order to guarantee the anonymity of the militants, all the persons have been pseudonymized.
The sexual scandal concerned some parties at Berlusconi's villa, which involved several escorts. In addition, Berlusconi was allegedly paying a 17-year-old for sex at some of his parties. After it emerged in 2009, the scandal was followed by a long trial. The parties occupied the public debate for months, accompanied by reports, confessions, and public statements by several of the protagonists. Various erotic details became well known in Italy and abroad. See: BBC (2011, September 1). Italian businessman arrested over Berlusconi blackmail. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14751432.
Terrone is an insulting expression widely used in the North of Italy to refer to people from the South. The word has become very common and has lost some of its offensive nuance, but it can still be an insult, depending on the context and the intention, as in this case.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Silvia Gherardi for her critical insights and suggestions, which constituted a precious resource in the long journey of this paper. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the ECPR General Conference (12–15 August 2024, University College Dublin) at the session ‘The Women of the Radical Right’. I would like to thank the convenors, Kathleen M. Blee and Francesca Scrinzi, and all the participants for their perceptive comments.
Declaration of conflict of interest
None.
Data availability statement
Due to the qualitative nature of the research, and in accordance with the advice of the Ethics Committee of my host institution, research data are not available, as they would compromise the non-recognizability and privacy standards of the research.
Ethical statement
The paper meets the EU and national legal and ethical requirements of the countries where the data collection was carried out. I am also aware that data protection is a fundamental right, guaranteed by European law and enshrined in Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In consideration of both these legal obligations, and my deontological duties as researcher, I declare that the protection of the physical and moral integrity of individuals involved in the research has been respected at every stage of the research. The data presented have been fully pseudonymized (including geographical locations), thereby assuring the non-recognizability of all the persons involved.