ETHNIC HUMOR
See also “African American English”
“Cultural Diversity”
“Indian- American Humor”
“Jewish Humor”
and “Spanish-American Contrasts”
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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ETHNIC HUMOR AS SWORD OR SHIELD
Depending on its context, humor
can be offensive (aimed at
ridicule of an ethnic group),
 Or it can be defensive (aimed at
protecting a group from ridicule),
 Or it can be both at the same
time.
 (Rappoport 2)

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ETHNIC STEREOTYPES


HEAVEN is the place where the cooks
are French, the police are English, the
mechanics are German, the lovers are
Italian, and everything is organized
by the Swiss.
HELL is where the cooks are English,
the police are German, the mechanics
are French, the lovers are Swiss, and
everything is organized by the
Italians.
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 162)
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

Many jokes contain ethnic
stereotypes.
Christie Davies says, “To become
angry about such jokes and to
seek to censor them because
they impinge on sensitive issues
is about as sensible as smashing
a thermometer because it reveals
how hot it is.”
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 116)
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ETHNIC VS. POLITICAL JOKES



Alan Dundes says that Americans have more
ethnic than political jokes because America
has a free press where politicians and
politics are lambasted on a daily basis.
Americans therefore have little need for oral
political jokes.
But because people are often uncomfortable
discussing such subjects as sexuality or
racism, these tend to become the hidden
subjects of joke cycles.
 (Nilsen & Nilsen)
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INSIDERS VS. OUTSIDERS


“Why aren’t Jews concerned
about the abortion controversy?
Because they don’t consider a
fetus viable until after it
graduates from medical school.”
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

If the tellers or listeners of this
joke are gentiles, it may be antisemitic, criticizing Jews as being
overly ambitious and arrogant.
But if the tellers or listeners are
Jews, it may be an expression of
Jewish pride and the
extraordinarily high standards of
child rearing.
 (Rappoport 2)
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


When a group member tells an ethnic
or religious joke, it opens the door for
inner-group communication and
invites group members to examine
their attitudes and behavior.
But if outsiders tell the same joke, the
effect is the opposite, because the
outsider focuses on the group’s most
obvious characteristics and implies
that these characteristics belong to
everyone in the group.
Because outsiders have little power to
bring about internal change, the effect
is to stereotype the group, and this
lessens the chances
for change.
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JOKE TARGETS





Americans consider Poles, Italians, and Portuguese
stupid, and Jews, Scots, New Englanders and Iowans
as canny.
Canadians consider Newfies as stupid and Jews,
Scots and Nova Scotians as canny.
Mexicans consider people from Yucatan as stupid and
people from Monterey as canny.
Nigerians consider Hausas as stupid and the Ibos as
canny.
The English, Welsh and French consider the Irish,
Belgians and Swiss as stupid, and the Scots and Jews
as canny.
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 (Davies 8)
M.I.C.H.




Robert Priest, a psychologist at West Point
Military Academy, has proposed what he
calls the MICH Theory of Moderate
Intergroup Conflict Humor.
He says that people will not use humor with
each other unless there is some kind of
tension or strong feeling.
However, when feelings go beyond the
moderate level then humor exacerbates,
rather than helps a negative situation.
Therefore, the most amusing jokes are
usually found in the middle ranges, because
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this is where the hostility
does not
LARRY MINTZ’S STAGES OF ETHNIC HUMOR
1.
2.
3.
4.
Critical Humor Targeting the Ethnic
Group (e.g. Harpo Marx)
Self-Deprecatory Humor about the
Ethnic Group (e.g. Chico Marx)
Realistic Humor Accepting
Integration (e.g. Groucho Marx)
Critical Humor Targeting Mainstream
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Culture (e.g. Woody
Allen, Lenny
RADIO ETHNICITY



During the “golden age” of radio, ethnic
voices were fun to hear.
One radio which ran during the 1940s was
entitled “Allen’s Alley,” and featured Fred
Allen.
There was a loudmouth Irishman named
Ajax Cassidy, a farmer named Titus Moody,
and a pompous Southerner named Senator
Beauregard Claghorn, whose signature line
was “that’s a joke, son!”
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

Kenny Delmar modeled the
Claghorn character after a Texas
rancher who had given Delmar a
ride in his Model-T ford.
Even today there is a Warner
Brothers’ cartoon character by
the name of Foghorn Leghorn
who is modeled after Beauregard
Claghorn.
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 102)
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TARGETS OF ETHNIC HUMOR

The most common targets of ethnic
humor, “live on the geographical,
economic, or linguistic edge of the
society or culture where the jokes are
told, live in small communities, or
rural areas on the periphery of a
nation, are immigrants concentrated
in blue-collar occupations. There is
no evidence that the targets are
stupid, but they occupy stupid
locations.”
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 (Davies 10)
AFRICAN-AMERICAN ETHNICITY

See PowerPoint on “AfricanAmerican Humor.”
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CHINESE ETHNICITY


Chinese writer Frank Chin has
criticized Maxine Hong Kingston
for Woman Warrior, Amy Tan for
The Joy Luck Club, and David
Henry Hwang for his plays F.O.B.,
and M. Butterfly.
He accuses these writers of
“boldly faking” Chinese fairy
tales and childhood literature.
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



Kingston responded, “Sociologists
have criticized me for not knowing
myths and for distorting them.”
In China, pirates illegally translate
her books for publication in Taiwan
and China.
These pirates “correct” her myths,
and revise them to make them
conform to traditional Chinese
versions.
“They don’t understand that myths
have to change, be useful or be
forgotten.”
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GERMAN ETHNICITY


Between 1931 and 1936 The Jack
Pearl Show was on radio. Baron
von Munchausen was the central
figure in a running skit.
The Baron spoke with a strong
German accent that contrasted
with the ordinary language of
Charlie.
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


BARON: Und dere in frundt off
me wuz a green elephant.
SHARLIE: Now wait a minute,
Baron; do you mean to tell me
you actuallyl saw a green
elephant?
BARON: (with great indignation)
Vas you dere, Sharlie?
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 102)
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INDIAN ETHNICITY

See PowerPoint on “Indian
Humor.”
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IRISH ETHNICITY


“Since Irish humor developed
out of the oral tradition (the
telling of jokes and stories in
Irish pubs), it is very epiphenal
in nature.”
“Like Jewish humor, Irish humor
developed out of pain and
tragedy that resulted in a
diaspora.”
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
“Irish humor, like Jewish humor,
contains much wordplay, and like
Jewish humor, much of Irish
wordplay is bilingual and/or
bicultural, relating to both the
Gaelic/Celtic and to the English
language and culture.”
Many Irish, like many Jews, “are
trying to reestablish their roots,
and it is the humor in Irish
written and oral literature that is
helping them to do so.”
 (Nilsen Humor in Irish Literature

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ITALIAN ETHNICITY


In the late 1970s, comedian Don
Novello spoke with an Italian accent
and dressed in clerical garb when
doing comedy skits about Father
Guido Sarducci.
He was a hit on Saturday Night Live
and on The Smothers Brothers
Comedy Hour, but when he went to
the Vatican to pose for publicity
photos he was arrested for
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JEWISH ETHNICITY

See PowerPoint on “Jewish
Humor.”
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RUSSIAN ETHNICITY



Russian immigrant Yakov Smirnoff
entertained Americans through the
cold war and beyond with such jokes
as,
“I have a Russian Express Card. It
says, `Don’t Leave Home!’” and
“One of the biggest differences
between America and Russia is that in
America you can always find a party,
but in Russia, the 29party always finds 25
SCANDINAVIAN ETHNICITY


Garrison Keillor exploits
Scandinavian stereotypes in his
“Lake Wobegon.”
“Swedish flu is the usual flu with
chills, fever, diarrhea, vomiting,
achiness, but it’s accompanied by
an overpowering urge to put
things in order.”
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 116)
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SCOTTISH HUMOR




What’s the difference between a poor
Scotsman, a rich Scotsman and an old
Scotsman?
A poor Scotsman has a can o’ pee
under the bed.
A rich scotsman has a canopy over
the bed.
And an old Scotsman can na’ pee at
all.
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SPANISH-AMERICAN ETHNICITY

See PowerPoint on “SpanishAmerican Humor.”
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CONCLUSION



We must keep some basic principles
in mind as we look at ethnic humor:
Someone else’s ethnic identification
does not seem as important as does
our own.
The appreciation of ethnic humor
correlates with how much we know
about, and identify with, the joke
target.
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!
 Humor is a tool that can be used
either for building up or tearing
down relationships.


A joke told by a member of the
targeted group is quite different
from the same joke when it is
told by an outsider.
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 118)
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!!
 We must also be aware that
ethnic humor now has an edge it
didn’t used to have. Toward the
end of his career, Groucho Marx
began to worry about some of
the most talented comedians he
knew who would soon be out of
work because dialect humor was
falling out of fashion.

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



!!!
“The inscrutable Charlie Chan’s pidgin
English disappeared from the airwaves and
so did Tonto’s manly grunting.
Children no longer read El Gordo comic
strips, and both Beulah and Amos ‘n’ Andy
disappeared.
In 1970, Bill Dana gave up telling jokes
through the voice of his popular Jose
Jimenez character, and Frito-Lay
discontinued its Frito Bandito commercials.
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 103)
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Web Site:
Encyclopedia of 20th
Century American Humor.
http://www.greenwood.co
m/catalog/OXHUMOR.aspx
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References # 1:
Belois, Nathan. “The Evolution and Function of Ethnic
Humor.” Tempe, AZ: ASU LIN 515 Research Paper,
May 1, 2006.
Boskin, Joseph, ed. The Humor Prism in TwentiethCentury America Detroit, MI: Wayne State University
Press, 1997.
Boskin, Joseph, and Joseph Dorinson. “Racial and Ethnic
Humor” (Mintz 163-193).
Davies, Christie. Ethnic Humor around the World: A
Comparative Analysis. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ
Press, 1990.
Dundes, Alan. Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor
Cycles and Stereotypes. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed
Press, 1987.
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References # 2:
Mintz, Lawrence E. ed. Humor in America: A Research Guide to
Genres and Topics. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th
Century American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000.
Nilsen, Don L. F. Humor in Irish Literature: A Reference Guide.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Rappoport, Leon. Punchlines: The Case for Racial, Ethnic, and
Gender Humor. Westport, CT: Prager, 2005.
Rogin, Michael. Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in
the Hollywood Melting Pot Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1996.
Winokur, Mark. American Laughter: Immigrants, Ethnicity, and
1930s Hollywood Film Comedy New York, NY: St. Martin’s
Press, 1996.
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