Everybody Is a Fool: Rural Life, Social Order and Carnivalesque Marginalisation in a Hungarian Television Series

The chapter provides a case study on A mi kis falunk (Our Little Village), a popular Hungarian comedy series. The analysis highlights the interplay between emphatic and disciplinary humour, ridicule, satire and moral assessment. It claims that in Eastern Europe, due to the weakness of the middle class and the legacy of socialism, village communities and rural life are targets of internal othering. The ambivalent portrayal of the village articulates the feeling of anomie. This is specific to the region in that, due to the post-socialist condition, nostalgia for community is fused with the ambivalent acceptance of neoliberal values.