Jorge Cremades: simplistic humor or trivialization of machismo?

This Spanish humorist has become a viral phenomenon persecuted by critics.

Among young Spanish-speaking people accustomed to using the Internet, there are few people who do not know Jorge Cremades, there are few people who are not familiar with Jorge Cremades.. This 28-year-old comedian has become famous thanks to his Vine and Facebook videos, which have helped his fan page on the latter social network to accumulate more than 5 million followers. more than 5 million followers.

But Cremades is more than just a viral phenomenon; he has also become, for many people, one of the greatest representatives of machismo. one of the greatest representatives of socially accepted machismo in Spain and, consequently, in one of the and, consequently, one of the most criticized comedians.

To what extent is what Jorge Cremades does just humor, and is the criticism of him justified? Let's try to answer these questions through a psychological concept: the Cultivation Theory.

The controversy of Jorge Cremades

Jorge Cremades' videos have been criticized since they began to go viral, although the event that turned the Internet into a battlefield between defenders and detractors of his work was the publication of one of his articles in the magazine Cosmopolitan magazine a few months ago.

In that text, the humorist gave a series of "tips for men" about how they should face the vacations as a couple so that everything goes well. However, neither the content of this text nor the type of humor on which it was based were different from those that Cremades uses in all his videos.

In other words, everything basically consisted of a caricature of the differences between men and women (embodied in gender roles). (embodied in gender roles) and the way in which these are reflected in the way the two sexes relate to each other. For example, he stresses the importance of going to a restaurant where they serve "fresh salads" for them while they can "eat and mix all kinds of dishes".

At the same time, his videos show situations such as a group of men arguing about who should accompany a drunk woman home or a friend who rescues Cremades when his girlfriend asks for his cell phone because it has run out of battery.

A role model or a comedian?

In a world in which it was taken for granted that everything that is expressed in humorous gags has no effect on social reality or its collectives, Jorge Cremades' videos would not have generated controversy. In his dialogues there are no phrases that are directly offensive with clear insults to groups, in the style of the speeches of xenophobic and racist political parties.

But that is normal, because Jorge Cremades is not dedicated to professional politics, but to humor. Criticism of his work focuses on the implicit message of his videos, not on the literal content of the dialogues.not on the literal content of the dialogues. The situations he depicts may seem ridiculous, but they are not sufficiently different from real gender roles to seem totally outlandish.

There is a part of reality that can be fed and legitimized by these humor videos, unlike what happens, for example, with the brutal acts we see in series like Game of Thrones, set in something far removed from our everyday lives. That part of humor videos that is perceived as something similar to what really happens can come to feed the latter, downplaying its importance.

And if we add to this the fact that Cremades' majority audience is very young.The root of the rejection of these gags appears: the possibility that they continue to inoculate harmful social and psychological phenomena, such as implicit biases about gender roles and sexual orientations, division of labor, objectification of women's bodies, etc.

Politics clashes with humor?

Criticism of Cremades does not arise because he produces ideas that would not be acceptable in any context, as happens when religious fundamentalism clamors to destroy heretical representations. Criticism occurs because it is understood that in the current context certain implicit messages can have a negative social impact. That is where ideology comes into contact (or rather into collision) with humor, something that is supposedly beyond any political thinking.

For certain ideologies, the impact that Jorge Cremades can generate is totally undesirable and that is why we will try to include this comedian within the framework of representatives of machismo; not because he personally has to be one, but because in practice his work can feed a sexist ideology. can feed a sexist ideology.

For other ideologies, what can be seen in these videos is, beyond humor, how society should function, and from this position Cremades' work can be claimed as a reflection of how men and women, heterosexuals and homosexuals, are, beyond "the complexes of political correctness".

Finally, a third group of people limit themselves to pointing out that humor is humor and that it has no political or propagandistic effect. Only the latter will act as if politics and humor never come into contact with each other.However, this is an assumption that does not necessarily hold true, as Cultivation Theory points out.

The Cultivation Theory

Thus, what really generates criticism is the possibility that each of Jorge Cremades' gags is not a joke about a particular man reacting to a particular woman (since after all they are both fictional characters) but an unwritten rule about how the figure of the man interacts with the figure of the woman. Ultimately, history has shown that implicit discourses based on "this is so" can easily be transformed into an alternative version: "this must be so".

This ties in with a theory of communication known as Cultivation Theory, based on a relatively simple idea: the more we are exposed to fictional and non-fictional content transmitted by television, the Internet and digital media in general, the more we assume the belief that society is as it is depicted in what is seen on the screen..

If we assume that this principle of Cultivation Theory always holds true, Jorge Cremades' videos would have a direct effect on the way his audience conceives of gender roles and how they are embodied in society. The assumption that "it's just humor" would no longer hold true, because Cultivation Theory breaks with the idea that what happens on a screen stays on the screen..... But that doesn't mean that all viewers have to mimic those behaviors. In fact, the opposite may be true.

The distinction between person and character

Believe it or not, Jorge Cremades' videos are still the work of an author, in the same way that certain cult films can be. That does not mean that they have quality; it means, among other things, that it is impossible to know for sure what the author is trying to tell us with his work and, in fact, that does not matter much either. What does matter is the way in which we as viewers interpret these videos.What do we learn from them?

The easy answer to this question is also the most disappointing: it depends. Each individual can extract a totally different message by watching the same 6-second Vine. But when it comes to judging the social impact that Jorge Cremades' videos can have, what is of interest is if when watching them and interpreting them we put ourselves in the shoes of one of the protagonists or if, on the contrary, we never leave our position as a spectator who laughs (or not) at fictitious characters.

In the first case, we can we can internalize the biases and behaviors of a fictitious character.In the second case, by watching many of these videos, we can assume that what is shown is representative of what is happening in society. In the second case, by dint of watching many of these videos, we can come to assume that what is shown is representative of what is happening in society, and embrace a totally contrary and critical attitude towards it..

Concluding

It is not unreasonable to think that many of the people who criticize the humor of Jorge Cremades, paradoxically, have been influenced by these multimedia contents, although in a sense contrary to what one would expect. Instead of coming to believe that these kinds of actions are normal and therefore morally acceptable, they may believe that these kinds of behaviors are more normal than they really are and that the struggle for equality between men and women deserves more respect and attention.

Neither of these two cases seems far-fetched, although the danger of the first possibility is probably greater than the positives of the second. In addition, the way Jorge Cremades' videos are presented makes it easy to identify with the characters.. In fact, they are often titled something like "when you go to such and such a place and your girlfriend tells you such and such a thing".

The humorous potential of some videos may consist in showing totally surrealistic scenes that do not fit with these titles, but it is usually easy to see a caricatured version of the video. it's easy to see a caricatured version of socially normalized behaviorsjealous girlfriends of other women, men pretending to be interested in what their girlfriend is telling them, etc. Regardless of whether or not you are looking for the audience to feel identified, it is very easy for that to happen; therein lies a good part of the problem, and the reason why it is assumed that instead of questioning what is being seen, an important part of the audience will see it as something normal.