Humor and its legal limits

• Autor(a) principal: Rothenburg, Walter Claudius
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Faces da História
• Texto Completo: https://seer.assis.unesp.br/index.php/facesdahistoria/article/view/1768
• topic: Humor; Liberdade de expressão; Discriminação; Discurso de ódio; Democracia; Humor; Freedom of expression; Discrimination; Hate speech; Democracy

This article aims to focus on the ambiguity of Law in protecting humor as freedom of speech and, paradoxically, controlling it due to its subversiveness. The purpose of this paper is to argue that humor, as a critical and artistic manifestation, has a broad scope of protection and that, in situations of conflict with other values, such as privacy, honor and image, there is a favorable predisposition to the legality of humor. We hold that humor is defined by its author, but the perspective of the affected people matters and only they may, in principle, make fun of themselves for the purpose of derision or social criticism. The approach of this study is deductive and normative, based on bibliographic and jurisprudential research. In conclusion, humor is illicit when it downplays and offends and should not be accepted in order to normalize or cover up discrimination. Humor should be inclusive, not discriminatory.