Daniel Wickberg, in his book, The Sense of Humor, talks about the importance of having one. In Western culture, it has only been since the mid-eighteen hundreds that having a sense of humor has been considered the height of virtue. However, now if people think you don’t have one, it suggests that you are “literally an incomplete person” (85). Humorlessness has been linked to:
egotism, fanaticism, superstition, mental inflexibility, and even mental illness (Smith, 158).
We regularly cast our opponents as humorless to demonize them. The Germans are still considered humorless, and Hitler was thought to be a case in point. Nowadays, Moira Smith, in her essay on “Humor, Unlaughter and Boundary Maintenance,” points to the reaction to Muhammad cartoons as a means to display that Muslims have no sense of humor, and we could say the same about Kim Jong Un.
Pervasive
The concept of sense of humor is everywhere. It tops the list of things people seek in a mate. If we speak out against a joke, we have to assure people that we definitely have a sense of humor – it’s not us, it’s the joke. It even shows up when people who speak or write about humor have to apologize if their work is not funny [sorry about this, BTW].
Laugh at thyself
Further, the call to have a sense of humor has become codified in the command to “Laugh at thyself,” and thus we seek to test those around us. It can be a sign of inclusion – the common thought is that if your sense of humor is tested with pranks and jokes, it’s because you are either already a member or are being considered for membership.
Moira Smith argues,
In these situations, the humor response of salient audience members [the targets] becomes the focus of special attention–reversing the usual state of affairs in performance, where it is the activities of the performer that are scrutinized. Instead, the person who initiates the joke and the joke itself becomes secondary to the targets’ responses, as these are read to gauge suitability for full membership in the group.
This is the basis of roasts, including the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. People in powerful positions have to be able to show that they can take jokes at their expense. They must at least guffaw. It plays a role in those recirculating “roast me” memes. It is also the basis for insult comedy.
Insult comedy
This is also the basis for comics like Don Rickles, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, Lisa Lampanelli, etc., who claim that they “hit all sides,” and “take no prisoners.” Audience members pay to be insulted, and may feel slighted if they’re passed over. It’s similar to the effect John Limon talks about in the case of Lenny Bruce: people pay to be outraged, but paradoxically, because they asked for it, they cannot truly be outraged.
In the case of roasts, it is punching up, and usually the jokes don’t cut too deep. In the case of insult comedy, it may punch down, but again, not too hard. However, we can also viciously punch down.
Punching down
Testing people’s sense of humor can have a dark side. Wickberg points out that humor was not associated with sympathy until the nineteenth century. Smith argues that while good humor is sympathetic now, “sympathy is not a defining characteristic of humor” (162).
She points out that although Americans regularly test each other’s sense of humor by making our friends the butts of our pranks and jokes, people we dislike and marginalized people are more frequently tested, and often by jokes that aren’t even meant to be funny, but to provoke the targets to dare to “not laugh,” and thus confirm our feelings that they are bad people, who can be further ostracized.
Aside from a couple of case studies, Smith cites a 1977 study, in which Rosabeth Kanter found that in predominantly male work groups, men told sexist and sexual jokes more frequently in the presence of women than when they were absent. She also cites numerous studies on teenager’s engaging in “adult-baiting,” or trying to get a rise.
However, more than this, it just rings true. Maybe I’m falling prey to a salient exemplar; however, I have often felt myself to be the victim of such attempts, even by “friends,” and family.
Such pranks and jokes should probably be labeled harassment or bullying, rather than humor, but to do so would be to wrongly constrain the latter term, and Smith recommends putting such acts in both categories (humor and harassment).
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
