One day this frog was bored, so he decided to call the psychic hotline.The psychic asked the frog, "what do you want to know." "Tell me something about my love life," said the frog. "In the very near future you are going to meet a very beautiful young woman," said the psychic. "Cool, where? at a disco or a party?" said the frog."No," the psychic replied,"next month in her biology class!"
"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it." - E.B. White
"Almost all the jokes that I have found touch on a certain social boundary, susceptibility or 'threshold of embarrassment.' The most popular joke categories deal with sensitive questions like sex, gender relationships, foreigners, aggression, religion, money, sicknesses, death, disasters and scandals. Much of the pleasure of humor lies in the short-lived, playful, light-hearted overstepping of a social boundary."
"...the most widespread jokes are without a doubt jokes about sex and gender relationships..."
"...I can easily distinguish elements crucial to the understanding of all categories of jokes: the distinction between jokes in which a boundary is transgressed and jokes that themselves transgress a social boundary." - from "Good humor, bad taste: a sociology of the joke" by Giselinde Kuipers
"Joking entails a dynamic process where the characteristics of the joke teller and the audience interact with the embedded meaning of the joke. It is the interactions among these factors that determine whether efforts to be funny are acceptable or not."
"Freud argues for the cathartic effect of joking, especially in areas of unconscious turmoil about human sexuality and aggression. Humour is seen as a safe outlet that prevents the teller from expressing his hostilities in more destructive ways." - from "No Laughing Matter: Boundaries of Gender-Based Humour in the Classroom" by Aysan Sev'er and Sheldon Ungar
"We know that when we verbally depreciate the humanity of people it is much easier to treat them in inhumane ways." - from "An Anatomy of Humor" by Arthur Asa Berger
Boundary-pushing jokes and sacred cows.
Do sacred cows make the best hamburger?
Is it so wrong it's right?
Do you sometimes laugh against your better judgment?
How do you maintain the balance between funny and offensive?
How far is too far? When and how does a joke become a boundary transgression?
Bad taste or much needed levity?
Where's the line, how is it determined, how do you know it, who sets it, why and who polices it?
Are older people more easily offended than younger people? Are women more easily offended than men? Are Americans more easily offended than Europeans? And if so, why? And does it matter?
Do jokes based on tropes of discrimination and bigotry like race, gender and sexual orientation let the hot air out of the balloon and tweak the destructive accepted conventional wisdom of the time and place or only add to the destructiveness and propagate hate and ignorance? Do ethnic jokes, for example, "reinforce stereotypes and hostile feelings" or do they help people "deal with hostility verbally instead of physically"?
Is "politically correct" a worthy and achievable ideal? Useless or overused?
Are some of our greatest modern social commentators and philosophers comedians?
Do people just need to lighten the fuck up?
Links:
http://www.froggyville.com/jokes.htm
http://www.bookbrowse.com/quotes/detail/index.cfm?quote_number=228
http://books.google.com/books?id=uk_WHTCTN9YC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=boundaries+of+humor+and+jokes&source=bl&ots=uDr0R__FjJ&sig=Ifxovpm2HrShoakZxnXI7i3mLTA&h
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2959937
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=aZkRJJnc6BUC&pg=PA57&dq=Davies,+Christie.+Ethnic+Humor&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=0_0#v=onepage&q=Davies%2C%20Christie.%20Ethnic%20Humor&f=false
There's physical humour (which I hate - laughing at someone slipping on a banana skin just makes my teeth grate) and then there's verbal humour, which I am much more enamoured of, as you may realise. Verbal humour depends upon the ability of the participants to communicate in a sophisticated fashion, however, since it largely depends on multiple meanings, or shades of meanigs of words, or misleading grammatical constructions, or the ability to fabricate unlikely or impossible concepts within someone else's mind - usually to demolish that construct and replace it with something unexpected.
ReplyDeletePep (Which is why stupid people laugh at stupid jokes, and you have to ask explicitly for examples of my "humour" which actually permeates my every sentence.)
I do enjoy some physical humor. I laughed my ass off at "The Money Pit."
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Money_Pit
I think my passion for verbal humor is evident to anybody who *does* get some of my posts, particularly the ones in which I play with ambiguity and multiple meaning. Or my constant references to certain humorists could give it away. Or my choice of Peppian humor quotes for my "Pserendipitous Wit" blog post. Or the fact that I call Pserendipity Daniels, "Psvengali." Or...well, you get the idea. Or you don't.
ReplyDeletehttp://leeherevw.blogspot.com/2011/07/pserendipitous-wit.html
@Lee: For clarity, I was NOT suggesting that YOU weren't enlightened.
ReplyDeletePep (Can do visual humour, too, if pushed - qv the retaliatory Sus anvil illustration.)
LOL
ReplyDeletea. I did not take that personally, and you have appeared to appreciate my humor and my appreciation of your humor (getting recursive yet?), but thank you.
b. I remember the anvil illustration fondly.
;-)
I meant the universal "you" earlier, not the royal Pep "you," btw.
ReplyDeleteDo sacred cows make the best hamburger?
ReplyDeleteA: Only in India.
Is it so wrong it's right?
A: Can be. The Catholic jokes I quoted by Leno & Letterman are examples of that...when humor is used to spotlight a particular social wrong. I think the effects of the jokes can go a long way to create a necessary change. Political cartoons, Jon Stewart (oy, I have such a crush on him!), etc. all fall into that range.
However, sometimes it is just "wrong"...and there you get into the tricky world of intent, delivery, audience...
Do you sometimes laugh against your better judgment?
A: Always! There is so much insanity in the world that just about everything is funny in a way.
How do you maintain the balance between funny and offensive?
A: Intelligence is a good tool. Erring on the side of caution. Soft shoes and 10 foot long staff (think, tight rope walker).
How far is too far? When and how does a joke become a boundary transgression?
A: There's no one size fits all, of course. As I stated in the Yale thread, just about anything can be funny...but the craft of the joke is important. Slinging out a sarcastic remark with the intent to hurt and putting a smiley emoticon afterwards does not elevate a crap remark into humor. Delivery, intent, audience...
Bad taste or much needed levity?
A: Yes please! You say that like they are mutually exclusive!
Where's the line, how is it determined, how do you know it, who sets it, why and who polices it?
A: The line is right...over...there!
I think it is one of those "you know it when you see it" things, which makes it tough. Again, intent & delivery!
Are older people more easily offended than younger people?
A: Interesting question! On the one hand a lot of "older" (ergh, define "older"!) people have lived enough to have mellowed out a bit. On the other hand a lot of older people are further entrenched in the habits of a life time. I do see that there is a difference between "what is right and acceptable" between the people I know in their 50s (my age group) and people in their 60s. We're pretty on par with people in their 40s, but there is a change at 30s and 20s. Younger than that, meh! :)
Are women more easily offended than men?
A: Hm. Don't think so, but I think our triggers and responses are different.
Are Americans more easily offended than Europeans? And if so, why?
A: Again, I don't think it is a matter of "more easily" but rather we have different triggers and responses. Humo(u)r isn't universal and a lot of the nuances don't travel well. Subtleties in the different usages in common words can make US/UK things a mess (I know this from personal experience).
And does it matter?
A: Yes! You have to account for the audience. If communication is about translating ideas from one person to another, then both the pitcher and the catcher need to be in sync!
Do jokes based on tropes of discrimination and bigotry like race, gender and sexual orientation let the hot air out of the balloon and tweak the destructive accepted conventional wisdom of the time and place or only add to the destructiveness and propagate hate and ignorance? Do ethnic jokes, for example, "reinforce stereotypes and hostile feelings" or do they help people "deal with hostility verbally instead of physically"?
A: Both, as mentioned above, with humor serving to be a potent tool for societal change.
Is "politically correct" a worthy and achievable ideal? Useless or overused?
A. No & Over-used. I prefer "common sense".
Are some of our greatest modern social commentators and philosophers comedians?
A: Jon Stewart! Colbert! Chris Rock!
Do people just need to lighten the fuck up?
A: Sometimes. Sometimes people need to STFU. Not everything is funny, not everything is sacred.
Indelibly etched in my brain for grins would be Pep's "axis of weevil" and the classic anvil drop. Miss Piggy didn't stand a chance, if ever there was a person without a concept of humor, it is "she", which made Pep's barbs all the funnier.
ReplyDeletePep had excellent, longer, classic humoUr bits but my poor brain can only recall three letter phrases and a pictoor.
Here are a couple of Jimmy Carr One liners.
ReplyDeleteMy girlfriend said tease me...so I said...Ok.....Fatty.
Ad Placed in a Lonely Hearts Column.
"Incurable Romantic, seeks Filthy Whore"
If you wear the cap and bells...you are allowed to mock anything.
Anything ( idea or person) that cannot withstand mockery, seems highly suspicious to me.
Part of the test of any idea...should be its ability to withstand mockery.
Not a universally shared idea ( ask Salman Rushdie).
Nice quip from an Iranian Female Stand-up ( working the London Circuit)
"The problem with women in Iran is they are not allowed......well...umm...yeah...they are just not allowed."
@L: I am delighted that my "humour" is "in the moment" and ephemeral.
ReplyDeletePep (That way I can reuse the jokes.)
PS I agree with most of the opinions expressed here.
PPS Which I guess is why my contributions have probably been pretty boring; my humour tends to arise from - and thrive on - conflict.
@Pep: What a wonderful way to say, "You're getting senile and can't remember more than three words and pictures!" Mwah!
ReplyDelete("I am delighted that my "humour" is "in the moment" and ephemeral.")
Out of left field and yet totally on point. A couple of quotes from Roger Ebert's review of the movie "Wild Things":
ReplyDelete"Movies such as this either entertain or offend audiences; there's no neutral ground. Either you're a connoisseur of melodramatic comic vulgarity, or you're not. You know who you are. I don't want to get any postcards telling me this movie is in bad taste. I'm warning you: It is in bad taste. Bad taste elevated to the level of demented sleaze."
"The director is John McNaughton, whose work includes two inspired films, ``Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer'' and ``Normal Life.'' He likes to show audiences how wrong their expectations are, by upsetting them. That worked in ``Henry'' as grim tragedy, and it works here as satire."
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19980320/REVIEWS/803200305
I know who I am. ;-)
ReplyDelete