Abstract
This article examines the role of parodic humour in Boris Johnson’s populist communication. Populist parties and conservative politicians have increasingly drawn humorous connections to films and entertainment in their political communication. But, despite the increasing research on populism, the role of humour in political communication is not yet at the centre of populism research. The article shows how professionally designed humour can dominate discourses and bring immense amounts of media attention to specific details while distracting attention from other political issues. The argument of the article is illustrated by analysing humorous communication of the former British PM Boris Johnson in 2019 and 2020. Among others, Johnson compared himself to Marvel’s Hulk, a parody that echoed through the news media. The article provides a very specific and new insight into the means by which populist strategies make use of parodic humorous elements in their communication.
Introduction
Often, the style of populist communication is described as a ‘simple and even vulgar language’ (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017: 64) or seen as ‘flaunting the low’ (Ostiguy et al., 2021), but this is only one part of their style. Populists try to present themselves as close to the people, and they use certain communicative strategies and techniques to achieve this goal. Contemporary populist leaders also increasingly draw on elaborated and professional strategies of communication, like using humour. The understanding of populism as a style focusses on communication which did not get enough consideration in Political Science so far (Sengul, 2019: 1; Vreese et al., 2018: 426). Many populism scholars insist on a stronger focus on aspects of communication and on communicative appeal (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007; Kefford et al., 2022; Vreese et al., 2018) and see ‘populism as a particular mode of political communication’ (Kefford et al., 2022), which particularly considers ‘non-verbal, stylistic and aesthetic aspects of the phenomenon’ (Kefford et al., 2022). This approach is applied in the article and can be summarised as a ‘discursive‒performative approach’ (Moffit, 2020). It includes the key characteristics of mediated performance which are ‘comprised of an appeal to “the people” versus “the elite” and includes “bad manners” as well as the performance of crisis, breakdown or threat’ (Kefford et al., 2022).
Populist leaders, parties and movements have a certain image which leads to seeing them as angry clowns, primarily due to populist leaders like former US President Trump who used spontaneous and offensive humour. In contrast, Boris Johnson’s communication was quite different from low, clownish standards of communication as it was professionally done while still using an uncomplicated, yet heartfelt, manner of expression in which popular culture played a major role. Parodic humour will be the focus of this article because conservative politicians make frequent use of it in their populist communication and for representing themselves as the popular. This is illustrated by the former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who relied on imitation, spoofing and parodic references in 2019 and 2020. His public appearances have been described as an unpolitical spectacle dominated by ‘gesture, form, personality and humour’ (Brassett and Sutton, 2017: 246). This article shows that the humour employed by Johnson is not simply clownish humour, but is a highly professional performance regarding its creators and content strategies. Therefore, it is emotional, yet still easily understandable, which makes him a specifically interesting politician in the British context, where humour is part of politics and is used by conservative politicians like Farage and others. During Brexit, humour reached a new peak in British politics (Brassett, 2021).
This article is interested in how parodic humour is deployed by populist state actors like Johnson in political communication. Of central interest is how Johnson used humour to be both dismissed as a populist clown and simultaneously taken seriously to be as successful as he was in 2019 and 2020 during the time of the Brexit negotiations and British elections. Furthermore, the political effects and the impact of a well-planned and professional use of parodic humour on the British society with its specific relation humour are relevant.
As a first step, the article introduces the role of humour in politics, and especially the role of parody, in populist communication. As a second step, the article summarises the basics of populism as a style of communication and integrates humour into its characteristics. By applying elements of the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), several humorous performances by Boris Johnson from 2019 to 2020 are analysed for illustrative reasons. The article ‘Britain will break free’ as well as the videos ‘LoFi Boriswave’ (Conservatives, 2019c), ’12 Questions to Boris Johnson’ (Conservatives, 2019b), ‘Love Actually’ (Conservatives, 2019a) and ‘Most Searched Questions’ (Conservatives, 2020) are parodies and will be used to illustrate the impact and effects of his parodies. In a last step, the role of Johnson’s parodic humour in populist communication and its effects will be examined, which is mainly connected to professional performance, emotional content and simplicity in the examples used in the study. Not only was extensive media attention created for Johnson, but also stimulation of the discourse and a specific form of distraction which shifted public attention away from the central political issues and competitors. When intertextual humour in the form of parody is used, the original text and its emotional components as transported via popular culture are often the primary focus of emotional debates rather than current affairs which were in this specific case the issues around the Brexit negotiations. Finally, the conclusion summarises the role of parodic humour in Johnson’s populist communication and the more general effects on politics.
Humour and politics
Humour is used by communicators to enhance audiences’ participation in politics as it can be applied to make content attractive and deceptive. In fact, humour is often seen ‘as an intrinsically positive dimension of social life’ (Billig, 2010). Humour applied by politicians in contemporary public communication allows ‘to promote specific standpoints and values and to persuade the audience on the “reasonableness” of political acts’ (Tsakona and Popa, 2011: 7).
While many strategies and fields of application related to humour are well documented (Sørensen, 2008), the use of humorous communication by state actors, populist leaders and institutions has not been extensively studied. This communication is nevertheless highly relevant to the current forms of state communication that are often summarised as ‘public diplomacy’, in which humour plays a strategic role (Chernobrov, 2022). State actors and institutions, such as armed forces (Beck and Spencer, 2021) or the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom (Kopper, 2021) are making successful use of humour in their public communication and self-representation. As this article will point out, the employment of humour is becoming increasingly professionalised Beck (2022), while many attempts to use humour by politicians, for example, for anxiety management, have led to unsatisfying outcomes (Brassett et al., 2020).
There are three main humour theories which have long traditions and provide different explanations for the emergence of humour. Relief theory explains humour as a way to physically release nervous tension (Buijzen and Valkenburg, 2004: 147). The superiority theory brings a power component into the explanation of humour. People can feel triumphant because they are superior to others which results in humour (Buijzen and Valkenburg, 2004: 148). Incongruity theory is the most widely used theory and explains humour as a result of the violation of expectations. Instead of fulfilling certain patterns, humour has a surprising component and works on a cognitive level because people are amused by the deviation. Incongruity theory in particular is useful for explaining the suitability of humour for populism because humour arises not from power imbalances but because incongruity makes people feel like they are on the same level in an everyday conversation (Kopper, 2021). This is useful for campaigns and political communication in general and for gaining attention via non-traditional media.
It is a specifically British phenomenon that humour and politics are very much connected (Brassett, 2021). It is common for British politicians to use humour in their communication, but the style of Johnson’s humour is due to its parodic and emotional characteristic unique. Research sees a general ‘interaction between populism, incongruity and other humour and comedy tropes’ (Weaver, 2022: 12). Humour and parody have a structural connection to populism because of problems inherent to populism: ‘Populisms are frequently incongruous in structure and thus in need of rhetoric, and humorous rhetoric, as a method for negating the ambiguities, ambivalences and uncertainties that they produce’ (Weaver, 2022: 11).
Humour in populist communication
Scholars have observed that humour in the last years ‘has been put at the service of a global wave of populism’ in countries like Great Britain, Austria and Switzerland (Brantner et al., 2019). 1 Johnson knows how to use the laughter he causes (Coe, 2013). His humour is specifically outstanding because of its professionality and attention-grabbing nature, accomplished through connections to popular culture. It is not the typical offensive online humour which is often ascribed to right-wing populists (Wagner and Schwarzenegger, 2020) but is very well planned. This new way of performances by conservative politicians received much attention (Grobe, 2020). Johnson is media-savvy due to his participation in various formats and is therefore ‘able to play the role of the nasty Tory politician for laughs’ (Brassett, 2021: 124). The spoofing and mocking in his use of humour do not lead to outrage, but to discussion, and they also operate to distract attention, like a diversionary tactic.
The characteristics of parodic humour match with the understanding of populism as style. Humorous parodies have been the object of studies on populism, and very recently, questions have been raised around populists’ self-representation (Brantner et al., 2019; MacMillan, 2017; Mendonça and Caetano, 2021) but not much is known about the role of visuals for ‘the construction of public meanings relevant to popular understandings of populist leaders’ as studies about the former Brazilian President Bolsonaro show (Mendonça and Caetano, 2021). For populism studies there is definitely a need to enlarge the focus and look at ‘the role of satire and political entertainment more broadly’ (Vreese et al., 2018: 433).
As is typical for populists, ‘political humour conveys criticism against the political status quo and recycles and reinforces dominant values and views on politics’ (Tsakona and Popa, 2011: 1). The language of populists is described as ‘a direct, unvarnished, often hearty, but also witty, quick witted way of talking’ (Priester, 2008: 30). 2 In their communication populists often alternate quickly between game and fight (Gadinger and Simon, 2019) and employ a typical calculated ambivalence in their statements. Humour is used to ‘present ideological views in “innocent” ways, or to increase engagement with and shareability of content in social media’ (Brantner et al., 2019: 3). These aspects make humour attractive for the populist logic and explain why humour and populism are connected: humour enables trivialising important issues and facilitates speaking about politics in everyday language (Morreall, 2005: 76, 78). Therefore, it might seem for voters that humorous politicians ‘speak the language of common people’ and are ‘one of them’ (Tsakona and Popa, 2011: 7). The open atmosphere created by humour is ideal for facilitating social outreach, and parodic humorous actions are often covered by the media (Sørensen, 2017: 138–142).
Parodic humour is popular in populist communication because of its connection to everyday artefacts, which are already familiar to people and thereby suitable as a contribution to entertainment becomes possible. Popular culture is the component of the parodic text with which a majority of people are familiar. Suitably, ‘populism-as-style clearly assumes a role for popular culture’ (Nærland, 2020: 300) because artefacts of popular culture matter as a context and background for the communication as well as the staging of politicians and their popularity. Popular culture matters in general for politics because it is ‘an important site where power, ideology and identity are constituted, produced and/or materialised. There are a range of signifying and lived practices such as poetry, film, sculpture, music, television, leisure activities and fashion’ (Grayson et al., 2009: 155) and Johnson himself as ‘comedy politician’ (Brassett, 2021) is part of popular culture. This is highly suitable for populist performances as they are focussed on personalities. Schiller calls these strategies a ‘popification of politics through populism’ (Schiller, 2022: 23) and suggests that populism is (also) the popular (Schiller, 2022: 23).
The specific spotlight then is on parodic humour which imitates other well-known texts. A parody stands out through its spoofing of an original text (Chatman, 2001: 28). Parody is part of the discursive field of political humour and is seen as essential for public culture (Hariman, 2008: 248). In general, ‘a parody entails at least two voices – the speaker and another speaker refracted through the parody’ (Sinclair, 2020: 64). Parody is often described ‘as the comic refunctioning of performed linguistic or artistic material’ (Rose, 2000: 52). It thereby copies the structure and aesthetic elements to transport a message by paying homage to the original text (Chatman, 2001: 33). Parody can be defined as the imitation of a communication style or genre (Buijzen and Valkenburg, 2004: 154). Parodies are the most widespread genre of humour in online communication and require ‘knowledge of the particular media styles or genres that are parodied’ (Buijzen and Valkenburg, 2004: 162). Parody often deals with famous elements of popular culture such as films, comics and music. In comparison to satire, it is not attacking or criticising the original text but uses it more as a way of raising attention than ‘a transparent vehicle for some other message’ (Hariman, 2008: 253). People can usually identify the original text, which then becomes more prominent in the viewers’ minds than the new message.
Parody suits the logic of populist communication by dealing with the known instead of providing anything fundamentally new, or providing simple answers to complex problems. ‘Comedy politicians’ make use of ‘the absence of trust in politicians’ through laughter and self-irony, which enables them – ‘to take ownership of the problem’ (Brassett, 2021: 125). Furthermore, humour helps to deal with the incongruities inherent in populist principles (Weaver, 2022).
Populism as a discursive style
Populism as style can be seen as one of the four main understandings of populism. Furthermore, main approaches understand populism as ideology, discourse or an approach to do politics (Jeffery, 2021). An implication of style is that it frees populism from the puzzle of appearing across the political spectrum because ‘populism does not need to be understood as an ideology to examine it as a political style’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 389). Populism as a discursive style ‘has no political colour; it is colourless and can be of the left and of the right’ (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007: 323).
The specific expression of populism is here a distinctive collection of representational components regarding style (Vreese et al., 2018: 425), and it ‘allows to consider how politicians can slip in and out of the populist style’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 382). Therefore, no discussions or evaluations are necessary to assess if politicians or actors are populist or not. Populism as a style can be selectively observed in certain actions and utterances because it is seen as an attribute and not as an aspect of the person who communicates (Vreese et al., 2018: 426).
As the understanding is that populism ‘is performed and “done”’ (Moffit, 2016: 64) the focus is on the performative elements to establish political connections (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 387), which can also include rhetorical features. The general assumption and credo is that images and performances mean more to the (mediatised) public than do actual policies (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 388). This brings forms of representation and an aesthetic perspective to the centre in discussions of populism (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 387). There are still blind spots and unexplored issues concerning popular culture as a specific part of political campaigns and the communication of populists (Nærland, 2020: 303). Therefore, this article aims to uncover how popular culture in combination with professional parodic humour enables successful communication in political campaigns.
The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is a suitable case for illustrating the role of humour in populism as style because not many would see him as a typical populist concerning his ideology as well as the relatively temperate political agenda he pursues (Mounk, 2019). Johnson profits from his collaborative relationship with humour (Brassett and Sutton, 2017: 246) as he crafts ‘an “anti-establishment”, renegade, bumbling image of himself that both performs and subverts the Etonian elite stereotype of a Tory’ (Brassett, 2021: 125)
Johnson is a performer which helps him to use his ‘clown like persona[s] to disguise the reality of their (neoliberal and/or racist) politics’ (Brassett, 2021: 123) often by using popular culture and a very personalised style of humour.
There are three main characteristics which identify populism as a style: (1) the appeal to people, (2) an emphasis on crisis, breakdown and threat and (3) bad manners (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 391–392). Johnson’s overemphasised leadership and single person focus are part of populist appeals and dominated the Brexit process. Concerning the appeal to the people, the style stands out through the championing of common sense, denial of expert knowledge and claims of being ‘distinct from the elite’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 391). Furthermore, it is ‘based on simple and accessible narrative figures that are emotionally overloaded (for example, the myth of the saviour)’ (Ungureanu and Popartan, 2020: 41) and a ‘logic of intensification of antagonistic emotions’ (Ungureanu and Popartan, 2020: 42). For crisis, breakdown and threat, the ‘tendency towards simple and direct language’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 391), the favouring of ‘short term and swift action rather than the slow politics’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 392) and the ‘demand to act decisively and immediately’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 391) are distinctive. Regarding bad manners, the ‘use of slang, swearing, political incorrectness and being overly demonstrative and colourful’ and ‘forms of expression that involve appeal to emotions, colloquialism and intimacy’ (Mendonça and Caetano, 2021: 5) are typical, as is a ‘disregard for appropriate ways of acting in the political realm’ (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 392).
Discourse Historical Approach
Political humour in the form of parody is part of the narrative genre of satire and irony (Chatman, 2001: 28) that is prevalent in online humour. The analysis of humour will use selected parts of the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), an approach of critical discourse analysis which focusses on various forms of context and communication strategies. This is in highly skilled political humour of special interest because knowledge about the context is needed to understand its meaning, and the creators of the humour need to strategically plan and construct it according to populist goals.
The DHA has a long history in research on populism (Wodak and Meyer, 2007) and sees the terminus discourse as the entireness of all substantial actions related on a content level to the specific topic (Wodak, 2020: 889). The topics in the parodic text were analysed by screening their recontextualisations from the original text in reaction to the parodies as well as in further parodies.
Both the DHA and parodic humour primarily focus on recontextualisations of texts. The framework is used to highlight specific references to emotional artefacts in popular culture and uncover their implicit significations. Here, the DHA focusses on context and two analytical dimensions: the discursive strategies, which include argumentation strategies, and the linguistic and audio-visual means of realisation of the strategies (Wodak, 2020: 890). Strategies can be seen as the ‘style of presentations’ (A’Beckett, 2013: 134) or ‘means of persuasion’ (A’Beckett, 2013: 134) and are defined as text planning in conscious or unconscious ways. The most important strategies concerning humour include referential nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivation and intensification (Wodak and Meyer, 2007: 73). Referential nomination aims at membership categorisations through the creation of in groups and out groups, while predication uses stereotypes and predicates for positive and negative labelling. Argumentation justifies inclusion and exclusion, perspectivation is an expression of entanglements and of speaker’s complicity and intensification increases or mitigates the forcefulness of statements (Wodak, 2020: 891). In the section on linguistic elements, the focus will be on the spoofing of text, sound and visualisation of the original text, which often relies on metaphorical communication and figurative language (Laaksonen et al., 2022: 1915).
Contextualisation of the parodies
The selected illustrative material is based on the time period most important for Johnson’s career as Prime Minister, which was characterised by Johnson winning with an absolute majority at the British elections and achieving a Brexit deal in January 2020. The analysed cases are the Hulk comparison (15 September 2019), ’12 Questions to Boris Johnson’ (12 November 2019), ‘LoFi Boriswave’, (25 November 2019), ‘Love Actually’ (9 December 2019) and ‘Most Searched Questions’ (28 January 2020). The overall context is thus the same for all analysed cases.
The Brexit negotiations in 2019 were shaped by obstacles like debates about a backstop, which would tie the United Kingdom or Northern Ireland to European Union (EU) rules. Boris Johnson said that in case of a ‘no deal’, he would never ask for a Brexit extension, while a Scottish court declared Johnson’s suspension of the parliament illegal.
For more specific context of Johnson’s parodies and his style, knowledge about the original texts and Johnson as a figure is needed, and it can be assumed that this knowledge was sufficiently present in British society.
Hulk comparison
In an interview with the English tabloid Mail on Sunday on 15 September 2019, Boris Johnson compared himself to Marvel’s green Hulk when referring to the ongoing Brexit negotiations: ‘[. . .] the Prime Minister says that if negotiations break down, he will ignore the Commons vote ordering him to delay the UK’s departure’; he then added, ‘The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets’ (Owen, 2019). Johnson went on: ‘Banner 3 might be bound in manacles, but when provoked, he would explode out of them’; he then concluded, ‘Hulk always escaped, no matter how tightly bound in he seemed to be – and that is the case for this country. We will come out on October 31 and we will get it done’ (Owen, 2019).
The title page of the Mail on Sunday was illustrated with a big headline: ‘PM’s extraordinary rallying cry. We will break free from the EU like the incredible Hulk’ combined with an image illustration of the green Hulk (Owen, 2019).
Hulk is one of the most iconic characters in popular culture, and he first appeared in 1962. In the comics and films, the scientist Bruce Banner turns into a ‘green-skinned, hulking and muscular humanoid possessing a vast degree of physical strength’ (Wordisk, 2022). The core characteristic is becoming stronger when he gets angry. He generally works in a team with many supporting characters. The actor Mark Ruffalo performed as Hulk in several films from 2015 onwards (Wordisk, 2022).
‘lo fi boriswave beats to relax/get brexit done to’
The parodic clip entitled ‘lo fi boriswave beats to relax/get brexit done to’ (Conservatives, 2019c) was published on 25 November 2019. The self-ironic clip contained scraps of speeches by Johnson, underlined by soft hip-hop beats. The video is about 72-minute long and consists of electronic music with soft beats and images of Johnson on a train with the landscape passing by. Repetitive parts of his speeches can be heard, such as his central message, ‘We gonna get Brexit done’ and ‘than we can get on with all the things I think the people of this country really want to focus on’ (Conservatives, 2019c).
The beats are a very popular genre within the last decade, especially for young people. In 2019, there were at least 31 million Lofi beat videos available on YouTube (Stokel-Walker, 2019). As a consequence, the self-ironic imitation of a typical LoFi-video attracted a disproportionately high number of 18- to 24-year-olds and quickly achieved hundreds of thousands of views (almost 1.3 million up to today (February 2023)) (Conservatives, 2019c). With this clip, Johnson was successful in reaching out to young people by presenting political content in virtual spaces which are quite difficult to reach for political parties (Heinrich, 2021).
The ironic video was a new and effective way to be in the spotlight due to its special aesthetic and form which moves between self-ironic spoofing of the sound and image of typical LoFi-videos and seriousness. The strategy works when the parody spoofs a well-known person who usually polarises. The original structure was copied but the video had a different aim and therefore, appears incongruous. This technique uses humour to surprise the viewers and to spread political content. The feedback by the audience seems to be quite positive as shown by the comments on YouTube (Heinrich, 2021).
‘Boris Johnson’s hilarious election advert| 12 Questions to Boris Johnson’
The video ‘Boris Johnson’s hilarious election advert| 12 Questions to Boris Johnson’ was published on 12 November 2019 and mimics the 73 Questions-format of The Vogue. In the Vogue-format, celebrities are visited at home and interviews are filmed in a single shot from a subjective camera angle.
People also associated the clip, along with the 73 Questions-format, with the famous British mockumentary The Office, because Johnson walks through a similarly styled office while answering the questions. The main character in the sitcom is David Brent. Brent overestimates his leadership-qualities and comicality as entertainer. Some see high similarities to Brent’s communication in the self-satisfied style of Johnson’s gregarious communication in the video (Lyons, 2019) because of controversial or offensive remarks. One can think that Johnson embraces being compared to Brent, which was not a new idea, even if Johnson’s humour is much more professional. The parody shows the ambiguity of Johnson: only celebrities get interviewed in The Vogue-format, while Johnson uses a mix of personal preferences and political questions to appear like a man of the people which brings some incongruous tension.
Furthermore, it is an example for Johnson’s inevitable connection to British humour and popular entertainment in a relatively subtle way. By saying ‘fish and chips on a cold night at the beach, you can’t beat it’ or complaining about not being allowed to get a Thai Curry delivered to his residence, Johnson plays with popular assumptions and provides a hilarious performance of how he imagines the British everyman.
‘Love Actually’
A bit more than 2 weeks before Christmas, the Conservatives YouTube account published another parodic clip, titled ‘Boris Johnson’s funny Love Actually parody| Our final election broadcast’ (Conservatives, 2019a). The clip is a parody of the highly successful British romantic comedy Love Actually (2003). 4
Johnson spoofs the scene in which the character of Mark visits Juliet to tell her that he loves her by holding up written statements on cards in front of her house, which her husband does not see (Nicol, 2019). Johnson imitates the scene and inserts his campaign messages on the cards: Johnson criticises Parliament by blaming it for the current situation, stating ‘with any luck, by next year, Brexit will be done if Parliament doesn’t block it again. But for now let me say, Your vote has never been more important’ (Conservatives, 2019a). Then Johnson walks away and says ‘Enough, let’s get this done’ (Conservatives, 2019a). The parody stands out because of its direct address and ambiguous language. Humour was used to escape the situation by showing his leadership and simple solutions with a mischievous smile and the spoofing of the original text.
‘Boris Johnson Answers the Web’s Most Searched Questions’
A further example for humour through imitation is ‘Boris Johnson Answers the Web’s Most Searched Questions’, published on YouTube in January 2020. Here Johnson pretends to answer the Web’s most googled questions which mimics the Wired Magazine’s ‘Autocomplete Interview’ series. Wired made numerous videos where celebrities are asked the most googled questions about themselves. The videos receive millions of views and are supposed to give a humorous look into how people view celebrities.
Instead of only answering questions about himself, Johnson also answers questions about Brexit. He adjusted the most searched questions for his means and only three real questions made it into his clip (Chaplain, 2020). Johnson seems to be approachable as he pretends to answer some critical questions which are of high interest for the public. The format enables him to belittle the worries of the British population and to joke about their fears, like ‘Does Brexit effect my holidays’ or ‘does it happen on a Friday?’.
The video was published after the Brexit deal and is visually a clear imitation of Wired’s interviews, evident due to the mockery of a Google search on a printed poster.
Discursive strategies
The parodies provoked reactions and recontextualisations by working with discursive strategies that are uncovered through the DHA and are often used by populists (Wodak, 2020: 891). The first strategy was the referential strategy, also called nomination, and it is visible through linguistic elements like ‘metaphors and metonymies and synecdoches’ (Wodak and Meyer, 2007: 27) which can be identified in the spoofing of the original pop cultural texts like films and video interview formats. Especially for media appearances, populist politicians use the typical strategy of drawing ‘upon features of popular culture, such as film, music or wrestling’ (Nærland, 2020: 300). This shows the close linkage between politics, entertainment and the fictional when addressing voters (Nærland, 2020: 293) by referring ironically to the style.
Second, predication, which classifies actors positively or negatively, is visible as a strategy (Wodak and Meyer, 2007). Johnson wants to get media attention by referring to popular narratives which characterise himself in an easily understandable and likeable way (’12 Questions’). Politicians can use the popularity of certain stories to positively label their own personal brand, and some observe in Johnson’s ‘Love Actually’ parody a willingness ‘to sweep up even negative perceptions of Johnson into a portrait of someone who could be relied on’ (Nicol, 2019).
Johnson seems like a normal person who is approachable and honest about his weaknesses and, thereby, uses ambiguous humour and appears self-ironic. By comparing himself to Hulk, he induces humour through the violation of expectations and thereby creates incongruity. He presents himself positively as a superhero who is suppressed by the EU and thus gets angry. He also constructs himself as an outsider against his opponents, the anti-Brexit politicians.
The two interview-examples show the ‘self-centred populist approach’ (Bonnet, 2020: 5) which has been typical for the Brexit. At the same time, populists try to present themselves as one of the people by pretending to like fish and chips. Instead of complex problems and political ideas, people consume the simple and humorous content that is focussed on a single personality (Bonnet, 2020: 5) which ‘reinforced the government of the people versus Parliament approach’ (Bonnet, 2020: 6).
Johnson wants to convince viewers of certain perspectives on the situation and his behaviour. Therefore, another visible strategy is argumentation which is used to support justifications of actors and their actions (Wodak and Meyer, 2007). For example, the Hulk parody contributes to an inversion of hierarchies and tries to provide a political space for ‘the people’ while being critical towards the elite of which Johnson himself definitely is part of (Brassett, 2021: 125). Through the Hulk comparison, Johnson depicts himself as a liberating hero ‘leading the people out of the supposedly crushing monologic totalitarianism represented by the EU and the political opposition’ (MacMillan, 2020: 69). In ‘Love Actually’, he is the personification of Britishness which he connects to the decision on Brexit. In the ‘lo fi boriswave’ video, he appears very controlled and focussed, as if people can just trust him and relax. It has an unagitated touch and could be seen as an ironic strategy to describe Johnson ‘as a relaxed figure, though his public clowning already tries to do this’ (Stokel-Walker, 2019).
Furthermore, the strategy of intensification makes statements more forceful (Wodak and Meyer, 2007) and the cases draw on a very intense and emotional type of communication. The Conservative’s campaign used ‘the power that comes from using some of the most emotive associations of popular culture’ (Nicol, 2019). The ‘Love Actually’ case, for example, plays with love as the strongest emotion and relates it to the election and Brexit context. In the interview with the Mail on Sunday, Johnson used emotional expressions and carnivalesque attacks on the dominant political elite.
Linguistic realisations
Linguistic realisations enable people to finally recognise the parodies because of a characteristic linguistic, iconic visual appearance or just spoken words or sounds which are imitated. These include visual, performative and aesthetic elements that are essential for populism as a certain communicative style and performance. The particular elements matter greatly for the extension of affection and passion in populism (Moffitt and Tormey, 2014: 386).
Johnson’s typical visual and humorous parody works in the Hulk case as a shortcut: it simplifies a complex matter and contributes to a trivialisation of politics (Howley, 2016) through transferring Hulk’s situation onto his own political problems. This combines humour and simplification, and this style of simple solutions is visible in all the cases as a strategy behind the humour. The same is the case with the ‘Most Searched Questions’, where Johnson answers complex questions with yes or no.
A linguistic examination shows how the Hulk comparisons were realised and carried by the media. Johnson’s wording, the headline and the general rhetoric are especially of interest. The form of communication can be seen as a parody because Johnson repeats the original text from the Hulk and refers directly to him. The described visual argument by Johnson was due to the memetic quality which blended popular culture and politics in an entertaining way picked up by the Mail on Sunday and other actors (Howley, 2016).
The ‘lo fi’ video is recognisable as parody because of the incongruous spoofing of the popular music style and its specific aesthetic which many young people use to relax and concentrate. The video tries to balance Johnson’s message as being between earnest and ironic. The repetition and the echo work which is in an (self-)ironic way resemble ‘almost a meditative mantra’ (Stokel-Walker, 2019). The bright colours of the landscape appear as if they were ‘drawn from anime or Japanese RPGs, which have characteristically emotive aesthetics’ (Stokel-Walker, 2019).
In ‘Love Actually’, Johnson visually copied the original text and almost paid homage to Britain in the times of Tony Blair. This is evident because the film is typical of the nostalgia for the Tony Blair times. Johnson also plays with being compared to David Brent by paying visual homage to The Office which is famous for British humour and is internationally popular.
Political Effects
As major consequences, all the parodies were widely regarded and this led to a positive reception, enormous attention and a distraction from daily political business. The number of views was extraordinary for the Conservatives’ new manner of circulating their content to new audiences. Some criticism was voiced against Johnson’s comparisons and analogies, but these did not last long. In the end, Johnson achieved a majority at the elections and made a Brexit deal before being forced to resign in September 2022.
Overall, the key characteristics of the populist style are immediacy (‘Love Actually’. ’12 Questions’), emotional states like anger and love (‘Hulk’) and relaxation (‘lo fi’), all of which are clearly visible in the parodies. All the identified effects are connected to populism as a style: media attention is related to populism because the media enables the success of populism; ambiguity is part of populists’ general wording between fun and fight; and the emotional expressions in the parodies are core characteristics of the style. Distraction from the inherent problems of the populist logic is essential (Weaver, 2022).
Stimulation
Johnson employed well-known narratives and self-ironic stereotypes in his parodies and used interactions with popular culture within his populist style of communication. The reinforcement of dominant mainstream values and narratives (Tsakona and Popa, 2011), such as the popularity of superheroes and, specifically, British texts make parody for both the media and populist politics very convenient and suitable for stimulating a debate. The recontextualisation of Hulk into the Brexit debate, and thereby into various different media genres, inflamed the media, political commentators, politicians and diplomats alike, and it brought up ‘a variety of fictionalised and mythologised historical references against the backdrop of Brexit’ (Schmid, 2019). The parody connected the intertextual knowledge of the audience about Hulkor David Brent, with Johnson as a character.
Topham & Guerin, who were responsible for the Conservatives’ video parodies, started their PR-careers as meme makers. Producing humorous viral content had previously been a successful strategy for the PR duo in an Australian election campaign (Elsom, 2019) and in other prior campaigns. Therefore, they knew that they would reach people outside the Conservative’s demographic through using iconic texts of popular culture, which would reach out to the broadest possible audience in all social classes. This was made possible because their specific content circulates, through its provocative nature, beyond the intended audiences. The content was so well designed that its success was able to be anticipated. Even if Johnson’s opponents would never support him, they ensured that more attention would be given to him by criticising him on social media (Lyons, 2019), which kept his content at the centre of attention for longer. Already in 2016, tendencies like these had been visible when Dominic Cummings was responsible as strategist.
Parodies are likely to be parodied again (Elsom, 2019) because they are easy to recognise by their structure and easy to replicate, as the ‘lo fi boriswave’ and ‘12 Questions’ showed. The ‘Love Actually’ parody works because it spoofs one of the most iconic scenes of the film. The scene has been imitated and very often referenced. Johnson was after Gordon Brown and David Cameron already the third PM who had referred to the scene in the film about UK/US relations when stressing the British significance in relation to other countries (Nicol, 2019).
In general, there was no explicit and fundamental critique of Johnson’s political performance but only comparisons to Hulk, the dubious historical background of ‘lo fi Boriswave’ originating from Vaporwave (Ritchie, 2022) and questions as to the reason there is different text on the cards in ‘Love Actually’ and why he is lying on Christmas or changing the interview questions. Because of their roles in the original movies, Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Grant, criticised minor details of the parodies but not the spoofing or Johnson in general. Thereby they further stimulated the debates due to their discursive power. This was crucial to dynamise the discourse, and leading to international attention.
Shift and distraction of (media) attention
The humour in Johnson’s parodies is also a good illustration of how ’by chuckling at him, we are not likely to be thinking too hard about his doggedly neoliberal [agenda]’ (Coe, 2013). while doing nothing against it. The ways in which parodies can side track and thereby influence ongoing conversations (Laaksonen et al., 2022: 1925) become visible in Johnson’s parodies, which undermined a serious discourse about the developments and political strategies in the Brexit negotiations by instead stimulating a discussion about the original texts and making the politics of it into a joke. Most of the recontextualisations only referred to the headline of the texts, not to the interview content or political situation. The debate was not about the political content, but instead about the performance and side issues like Johnson’s similarity to pop cultural figures (’12 Questions’).
Only a very limited number of reactions, such as the cartoon ‘Stalled by Party Vote’ by Zapiro (2019) referred to Johnson’s problematic political situation while he had to negotiate a deal. Interestingly, discussions were often about the suitability of Johnson’s comparison of himself to Hulk. Mark Ruffalo, who portrayed Hulk in the most recent films, complained and criticised Johnson’s analogy to the Hulk character for having focussed only on selected parts of Hulk’s characterisation (Rufallo, 2019).
Other commentators compared the situation of Hulk waking up with post-Brexit and recognised similarities because of Johnson and Hulk being ‘naked, cold, confused and not really sure what happened, while hoping no one died’ (Hawkes, 2019). The Brexit Coordinator of the EU accused Johnson of being ‘infantile’ (Verhofstadt, 2019).
Furthermore, the simple, memetic and humorous communication took attention away from the Labour party and other politicians. The Conservatives focussed on Facebook and YouTube as platforms which each have different audiences and combined this with their tactic ‘to produce viral content which would suck the oxygen of publicity from Jeremy Corbyn’s burgeoning social media presence’ (Elsom, 2019).
Ambiguity
It has been said that parodic humour combines characteristics, so that it is like wrapping politicians’ ‘statements in layers of ambiguity, irony and playfulness’ (Mendonça and Caetano, 2021: 8). The playfulness is highly appreciated by the British public and has, according to Jonathan Coe, problematic effects: ‘Something has gone a bit wrong in the relationship between our famous British sense of humour and our politics. They have become too entangled and our politics has become unserious’ (Mesure, 2022). Johnson and his clownish aura differ from the general expectations of politicians, but, his specific populist communication is hardly leading to any scandalisation, as humour and comedy are meanwhile an integrated part of British politics (Brassett, 2021).
Humour in political communication can even be employed as a strategy of ‘calculated ambivalence’ (Engel and Wodak, 2009). The ambiguity basically provides the speaker with the possibility of calling his or her message ‘just a bit of fun’. It also provides the ability ‘to express multi-layered messages – to combine, for example, threats with teasing and friendly ribbing’ (Kopper, 2021: 2) in a constructive and diplomatic way. The humour in the Hulk example provided a perfect ambiguity: it could be perceived as a mix of threat and a chance for dialogue because of its humorous connotation (Kopper, 2021: 320). Furthermore, it included a way of defending against critique due to the ambiguity of Hulk and his very opposite characteristics of anger and reason.
The ‘Love Actually’ parody playfully referred to Johnson’s dishonesty by blaming Parliament: ‘It subtly referred to his reputation as a man who is not necessarily as good as his word’ (Nicol, 2019). It shows how populists can use humour to camouflage the incongruities in their politics and characters (Weaver, 2022).
Emotional aspects
As a further effect, humour is connected to emotional communication in many ways because populist messaging is often ‘simple, emotive and repetitive and barely let the focus slip from the personality of their leader’ (Nicol, 2019). All five parodies deal with emotional issues. This trend of pop cultural emotional references goes together with the fictionalisation of politics because it blurs boundaries in politics (Brantner et al., 2019: 4). Research also suggests that entertainment and humour are lowering the degree of care in checking the plausibility of arguments (Brantner et al., 2019: 3).
The emotional reference to ‘Love Actually’ ‘affirms that love is the force uniting people in the UK, both as human beings and as British people’ (Nicol, 2019). Johnson was able to use ‘the film’s overall connotations of warm, humorous, reasonable Britishness. It was an association which lent itself to promoting an approach to Brexit’ (Nicol, 2019). Johnson suggests that a choice about Brexit has to be made from the heart. ‘Love Actually’ ‘signifies Britishness, or at least one particular variety of Britishness’ (Nicol, 2019). The same can be said about Johnson’s references in the interviews where he talks about fish and chips and spoofs the typically British mockumentary The Office (’12 Questions’), which all use humour that resonates well with conservative thinking.
Conclusion
Populism as a style of communication is, in the case of Johnson, much more than ‘flaunting the low’ (Ostiguy et al., 2021). As has been shown, it is remarkable how effective and attractive parodic humour in the populist communication style of Johnson can be, since already ‘larger parts of the population are susceptible to Johnson’s variant of populism’ (Mounk, 2019) and to humour of conservative politicians as well. Even if the political agenda of Johnson is from an ideological perspective not typically populist, the style of his communication is populist and can lead to a deeper realisation of the logic of populists in an environment in which political communication is increasingly exercised on social media. The provocative nature kept the content at the centre of attention for longer.
Parodies are insightful for Johnson’s strategic use of humorous communication and they emphasise the populist style in a new way. All cases have in common to show simple solutions, to directly address the viewers in a chummy and rude way while using an emotional style of speaking.
The examples illustrated an integration of humour into politics and the use of emotions and calculated ambivalence, which often lead to the plausibility of easy solutions, perceivably close to the people and focussed on the leader who is a comedy politician in the centre of a crisis. As the analysis and the theoretical sections have demonstrated, popular culture is a useful component of style and performance. The parodies were successful in terms of challenging established structures of power and presenting Johnson’s closeness to the people. Johnson, on one hand, the relaxed manager in the ironic ‘lo fi’ video seemed to be, on the other hand, angry against the political elite who acted against him as the one who has to get Brexit done for the people. As a populist leader, Johnson is part of the elite but appears to be complaining about the elite, pretending to be one of the common people, like in ’12 Questions’.
The observations concerning his performance in the parodies do not fit with the rude humour of other populists, but instead are well-planned performances to reach out to new audiences. He still uses the clownish aura as a basis for his performance, something to which people are accustomed. However, he is not just doing clownish humour, but combining his yearlong cultivated aura with self-satirising humour created by professional PR strategists and professional meme-creators.
Parodies can distract and camouflage current political problems. The most influential effect of the humorous parodies was a shift and distraction of the public attention towards the performances and unimportant emotional details and other topics outside of political competition. The central issues of Johnson were, at the time, to get a Brexit deal which ended up outside the public focus. Instead, the complex political conflict was simplified. After the Hulk comparison, for example, there was a broad debate, but it was not as focussed the current politics of Brexit. Even on an international level, the parodic communication of Johnson led to high resonance due to its use of popular culture.
The public debates which followed the parodies were more about qualities and characterisations of the prominent figures compared with the original text, which had been spoofed. This shows how humorous politicians are problematic for society through distracted attention from the core issues.
Finally, spoofing other texts can only be successful for a certain time period because no real personal (political) motivation becomes visible, as evidenced by the end of Johnson’s career in September 2022. Similar to David Brent, his motto could be ‘rather popular than stirring the ship in the right direction’, which Brent says when he loses his job in The Office. For Brent and Johnson, laughter is the most important, and they prefer having a show instead of doing their work.
