At the London Zoo in 1872, Charles Darwin observed chimpanzees and gorillas laughing: Our closest biological relatives possess virtually the same facial muscles that we do to create the same expressions of delight. And this is how humor works: A set of words, gestures, intonations, inflections and/or images enters the mind and registers almost instantaneously as either thigh-slappingly hilarious or amusing or so-so or silly or offensive or tantamount to a hate crime. Depending on the listener, the exact same stimulus lands at wildly disparate points on the spectrum, as evinced by recent events -- such as when cartoons drawn by Danish artists for a Danish newspaper feauturing the Muslim prophet Muhammed spawned furious riots in the Middle East in 2005 with death threats against the artists and the their publisher.
We react to humor-fodder so very personally and so very quickly, requiring virtually no time to "think about it" as the elements of said fodder -- a drawl here, a flourish there -- race through eyes and ears into brains, plugging into pre-existing value systems, aesthetics, intelligence, culture and context. The body, especially the face, transmits the result. Sometimes we can't control it: I'll never forget the elementary-school nurse who got the giggles at a square dance and couldn't stop, finally wetting her skirt as an auditorium full of children stood aghast. Sometimes our bodies seem to betray us when they respond with shaking shoulders and tears of mirth to stimuli that "aren't supposed to be funny" -- at all, or at the moment, or to our particular demographic. How dare my friend Nina titter at the faux-maudlin shpiel delivered to her family by a seller of funeral urns the day after her father's death?
Our bodies tell us that no topic is off-limits for laughter, but laws disagree: Hate-crime legislation, that is, and "speech codes," those chilling lists by which many American universities mandate exactly which subjects students are and are not allowed to laugh about. I'll blog more soon about speech codes, which are often enforced via expulsion -- but, to offer two examples, the University of Connecticut's speech code bans' "inconsiderate jokes" and Bowdoin College's speech code outlaws "unwanted jokes or comments about sex aimed at ridiculing or demeaning another individual." When public figures are fired for joshing about highly sensitive topics -- such as ethnic groups not their own -- the notion of humor as a psychological process with biological results enters fascinating if slippery ground. How many observers have to be offended -- and how offended must they be -- in order for official action to be taken? Who gets to determine which humor-fodder is illegal?
"Breakfast radio presenter Chris Moyles is being investigated by BBC managers after making a joke about the Auschwitz concentration camp," reads today's Telegraph. Referring to his forthcoming appearance on a genealogy TV show, Moyles riffed: "I went off to Ireland and other places to film and unlike a lot of the [previous guests on the show] I didn't go to Auschwitz. Pretty much everyone goes there whether or not they're Jewish. They just seem to pass through there on their way to Florida." Offensive? Thigh-slappingly hilarious? As a Jew, I call it stupid, but I've heard a lot worse. The BBC, we learn, is "looking into the remarks."
Heads of state tend to be prime humor-fodder, and now we have a new one. Will Barack Obama be grist for the mill? Throughout his campaign, comedians and cartoonists steered almost completely clear of him. Why was that, and how long will it last? On the Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart mused that Obama's inaugural address bore strong similarities to rhetoric used in speeches by George W. Bush. Broadcasting clips of both men to reveal these similarities, Stewart proved himself correct -- but the point of his riff, the joke itself, was that he wished he was wrong. At one point, Stewart recited a portion of Obama's speech using Bush's accent and inflections. "That was me reading the Obama quote ... in Bush's voice," Stewart spluttered afterward in mock horror -- as if, in fact, he couldn't control himself. "I don't know ... what am i supposed to do?" the comedian moaned. "I don't like doing this."
Will a new administration shape public expressions of humor? And, if so, who will laugh -- and how hard -- and who won't?
