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Key points
- Humor relies on breaking social rules.
- Is there a line that shouldn't be crossed?
- If there is, it may be when the target of the humor is a vulnerable person or group.
Two of the funniest jokes I know I can’t repeat in public. Both are so crude that rarely have I told them to friends. The first joke served as the basis of the documentary movie The Aristocrats. In the movie, several comedians riff on the joke, which begins, “A man walks into a talent agent’s office.” I first heard this joke from my musician brother more than 50 years ago. The joke, in endless variations, has never gone out of fashion as an insiders’ joke amongst entertainers. The movie, in fact, is dedicated to Johnny Carson who said that it was his favorite joke.
I still find the version I heard a half-century ago very funny. And I found some of the variations of the joke in The Aristocrats funny. But throughout the movie I found myself getting uncomfortable, as the jokes got edgier, increasingly gross and vile. In the final iteration of the joke, while holding a baby, the comedian tells a joke so unsettling that I questioned if there is line that even a comedian shouldn’t cross.
In one sense, by their nature, funny things are socially subversive. As Mark Twain quipped, there is no humor in heaven. Dave Chappelle, responding to his controversial appearance on SNL, said it isn’t the job of a comedian to reinforce the status quo, rather to challenge it.
A professor of law at the University of San Diego, Steven Hartwell observed, “Humor entails the breach of some value. The humor-teller relates an incident that involves an absurdity, a broken rule of speech (puns and such), a context rule (like irony, exaggeration or minimalization), or involves a breach of social propriety regarding the content (jokes about sex, race, death, religion, scatology, etc.).” Hartwell continues, “Humor signals the recognition and simultaneously condoning the breach of a value.”
There are social rules that are so strong that to violate them, even in humor, is a step too far. To joke about another’s religion, race, or ethnicity is largely off limits, though telling the same joke about one’s own social identity is permissible. A joke about a vulnerable person or group by an outsider is threatening because at the same time that it breaches the social rule the joke also signals that it is a line that is legitimate to breach. This is why in The Aristocrats each iteration of the joke became more vulgar. A new baseline had been established with every telling; each telling made greater vulgarity acceptable. It may be funny to see an athlete slip on a banana peel; it isn’t funny to see a blind person slip on one.
The second joke I find hilariously funny involves a Jew who is stopped on the street by Hitler. If this joke were told by a gentile, most Jews would find it antisemitic. The context in which a joke is told matters. To me, it’s funny because the tables are turned on Hitler; for a non-Jew, the joke might be funny because the Jew is humiliated. In the same way, many Jews didn’t find Chapelle’s joke about two words that cannot be uttered funny while many non-Jews thought Jews were overly sensitive in their reaction. Context matters, as illustrated in fact I used Chappelle’s two words together in the previous sentence and it didn’t provoke offense by referring to “the Jew” because the sentence was not aimed at a target. In the terminology of linguist John McWhorter, I didn’t "use" the derogatory phraseology but "mentioned" it. Chappelle’s joke, however, came closer to "use" than "mention."
Breaking social or lexical rules in sudden and unexpected ways lays the groundwork of humor. The broken rule may be mild (e.g., scatological) or strong (e.g., hate speech), a gentle ribbing or a vicious punch. Most comedy uses speech (and perhaps visual cues, as well) to challenge established ways of understanding. Because the joke pokes fun at accepted social rules, someone is bound to be offended—it’s too vulgar, too profane, etc. Comedy has to make the audience uncomfortable to some degree. This is why, for example, comedy clubs don’t provide lush seats.
Psychologist A. Peter McGraw, of the University of Colorado, and colleagues examined “two factors that jointly influence perceptions of humor: the degree to which a stimulus is a violation (tragedy vs. mishap) and one’s perceived distance from the stimulus (far vs. close). Five studies show that tragedies (which feature severe violations) are more humorous when temporally, socially, hypothetically, or spatially distant, but that mishaps (which feature mild violations) are more humorous when psychologically close.”
The movie The Producers illustrates the point: the film, released in 1967, a generation after the Holocaust, was written and directed by a Jewish comedian. In addition, the four leading actors were Jewish. If the movie had been done earlier and by non-Jews, the reception would have been very different. No one could mistake the movie for ridiculing jews; it was Nazis who were made fools. The movie was a satire, much like Charlie Chaplin’s The Dictator.
The further removed from a tragedy, the easier it is to make jokes about the event. To this day, however, humor about slavery remains taboo. The pain and consequences of more than two centuries of enslavement is still too present to be funny.
Comedian and actor Kristina Wong, whose themes are often about sex, race, and privilege, has rethought the targets of her humor. She says, “The line I won’t cross now is making work that creates permanent damage to the communities that I see as already facing injustice. But I will make work that challenges oppressive systems.”
Asked about the limits of speech, playwright Tom Stoppard said, “I’m sure there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed, but like all such lines, there’s no one person whom you know whom you would want to draw it, and I’m not sure that any two people would ever draw it in the same place. I would prefer to meet hate speech with derision and better arguments.”
Stoppard’s advice is right: don’t patronize comedians you object to; turn off the TV, walk out of the club, don’t stream their work; write letters to advertisers and newspapers voicing your concern; use social media to raise your voice; tell others why it is loathsome. Contempt, scorn and ridicule are powerful tools to counter vile comics. Better still is working to overcome bigotry by acting in your own way that is life-affirming and tolerant.
