Political absurdity as a source of jouissance in political humour: a Žižekian reading of Indonesian comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono’s Netflix special Mens Rea

Political humour is commonly understood as a means of exposing political misconduct, challenging authority, and raising public awareness. However, this perspective does not fully explain how humour operates when political absurdities are already familiar to audiences. Drawing on Slavoj Žižek’s concepts of cynical distance, ideological fantasy, and jouissance, this study examines how political absurdity is transformed into comic enjoyment in Indonesian comedian Pandji Pragiwaksono’s Netflix special Mens Rea. Using qualitative content analysis, the study identifies five comic strategies: (1) mobilising shared political knowledge, (2) reversing political logic and amplifying absurdity, (3) reframing political events through everyday experiences, (4) contrasting official narratives with political realities, and (5) constructing cynical complicity. These strategies illustrate how political humour can operate through the recognition of familiar contradictions rather than the revelation of unknown political truths. The study conceptualises this mechanism as the comedy of cynical recognition, in which political absurdity becomes a potential source of comic enjoyment. The findings offer an empirically grounded taxonomy that extends understandings of political stand-up comedy beyond humour as political revelation or resistance.