Contextual Humor and Saturday Night Live بلعراي

In his writing, Simon Critchley identifies that it is difficult to translate verbal humour between cultures and therefore has a certain exclusivity (Critchley 68). He explains that many jokes are formulated to be highly contextual, making it difficult to be shared by different cultures. However, while I agree that certain jokes need to be context-specific, there are formulas of comedy, such as structures of TV shows, that are funny across borders. Some styles of comedy are able to be adapted to the culture they are placed within; an example that came to mind was the hit American TV Show Saturday Night Live and its Egyptian partner Saturday Night Live بلعراي translated to Saturday Night Live in Arabic.  

Following the same model of the American SNL, the Egyptian version has the same core cast each week, accompanied by a new famous actor and musical guest each week. Performing different short sketches. both shows have similar intro music and transition images and even features some of the segments that are so popular on SNL, like the recurring “weekend update”. The entire set-up of this segment is almost identical barr the jokes made within it. Here is a clip of the American weekend update in comparison to the Egyptian one. While I am aware that there are no subtitles and not everyone speaks Arabic, just the opening credits to the segment and the almost identical mise-en-scene. 

The dialogue in this segment changes based on the audience demographic,like, making different satirical jokes based on Egyptian politics rather than American ones, or even if it is a gag about global affairs, it will be tailored to the opinions of the Egyptian or broader Arab audience rather than the American one. There have been attempts to apply SNL to other cultures as well, such as in Spain, Japan and, most successfully, Korea where the show has 12 seasons. These examples do agree with Critchley’s argument that context is important in the construction of jokes, it provides evidence that the same ’type’ of comedy can be carried across borders.