by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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1.
Meaning Making
2.
Hierarchy Building
3.
Cohesion Building
4.
Tension Relief
(Kuipers 367)
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 Humor “‘breaks the ice’ between strangers,
unites people in different hierarchical
positions, and creates a sense of shared
‘conspiracy’ in the context of illicit activities
like gossiping or joking about superiors.”
 “The flip side of this inclusive function of
humor is exclusion. Those who do not join in
the laughter, because they do not get the joke,
or even worse, because the joke targets them,
will feel left out, shamed, or ridiculed.”
 (Kuipers 366)
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 “Very recently, social control theory has been
revived by Michael Billig, who in Laughter and
Ridicule (2005) puts forward a theory of
humor as a social correctie, closelyl lilnked
with embarrassment, arguing that “ridicule,
far from being a detachable negative, lies at
the heart of humor.”
 (Billig (2005): 190)
 (Kuipers (2008) 365)
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 Mahadev Apte said, “joking
relationships…manifest a consciousness of
group identity or solidarity” (1985, 66).
 David Viktoroff said, “One never laughs
alone—laughter is always the laughter of a
particular social group” (1953, 14).
 Henri Bergson called humor a “social
corrective..intended to humiliate.” There is no
interaction for Bergson; humor is one-sided:
those who laugh and those who are lauged at.
(Carroll in Raskin [2008] 305).
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 Thomas and Inger Burns worked with 11
informants who encountered the same joke:
 “A newlywed couple agrees to refer to sexual
intercourse as ‘doing the wash.’ One night the
man turns to his wife in bed and suggests they
‘do the wash.’ The wife refuses. Later she
reconsiders and consents to ‘do the wash,”
whereupon the husband replies: ‘Oh, it’s all
right. It was a small load and I did it by hand’”
(Oring [2008] 201).
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 Informants were asked to comment on the
actions in the joke, viz., the use of a
euphemism for sex, the husband’s request for
sex, the wife’s refusal, the wife’s subsequent
acquiescence, and the husband’s recourse to
masturbation.
 The point of the study was to explore the ways
that these individual tellers related to the
various aspects of the joke and to ascertain the
joke’s psychological and social functions.
 The responses told a great deal about the
listeners’ personalities. (Oring [2008] 201)
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 1. Never target an attribute that cannot be changed.
(But this can be used as a manipulation device)
 2. Target yourself (this is called self-depricating
humor)
 3. Target your own ethnic group or gender, but no
other ethnic group or gender (Consider
“Embodiment”)
 3. Never target the victim
 4. Always target a strength (NOTE: Teasing and Verbal
Competition are empowering devices)
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 The Scots became “the people of the joke” at
about the same time as or slightly earlier than
the Jews.
 These Scottish jokes were about the canny
Scotsman who was covetous, argumentative,
and obsessed with keeping the Sabbath.
 But in fact these jokes were told by Scots about
Scots. They are therefore self-mocking in
tone.
(Davies [2008]: 175)
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 What the Jews and the Scots have in common
is a sense of double identity.
 They are both grounded in their religious
tradition, and love to argue for the sake of
argument.
 “From this arose the Jewish and Scottish pre-
eminence in physics, philosophy and
economics and in jokes that no other small
nation can match” (Davies [2008]: 176).
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 43 out of the 500 entries in Ronald L. Smith’s
Who’s Who in Comedy are about comedy teams.
There are many reasons for this high number:
 Teams are often more recognized and more
memorable than are the individuals who make up
the teams.
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 Good “chemistry” enhances creativity and
enjoyment.
 Through interacting with each other, team
members can revitalize old gags.
 Differing appearances, personalities and
voices provide for contrast and for the efficient
creation of stock characters.
 With teams, audiences can enjoy both surprise
and anticipation because while teams do new
material they usually have a style that carries
over from one performance to another.
 (Nilsen & Nilsen 82)
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 This is a term coined by Elliott Oring to refer
to the special joking relationship enjoyed by
couples, siblings or close friends.
 “Dyadic traditions are largely humorous and
much of that humor involves insult, abuse, or
references to re-creations of shared,
unpleasant experiences” (Oring [2008] 188).
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 A. J. M. Sykes noted that obscene joking was
acceptable between the sexes when the jokers
are not danger of a real sexual relationship as
with old men and very young women, or old
women and much younger men.
 “The sexually possible relationships between
men and women of the same age group were
marked by modesty and restraint” (Oring
(2008) 186)
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 “The Brothers Grimm included comic tales in their
famous collection of Kinder- und Hausmärchen
(Children’s and Household Tales).”
 “Jokes and anecdotes comprised approximately a third
of the tale type in Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson’s
index The Types of the Folktale.”
 “Since the early 1960s, folklorists have been
documenting, analyzing, and interpreting the jokes
and joke cycles that have come to dominate oral
expression in contemporary society.”
 (Oring [2008] 192-193)
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 Elephant Jokes
 How do you know if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?
 There are footprints on the marshmallows.
 Dead Baby Jokes
 What is red and sits in the corner?
 A baby chewing on razor blades.
 Alan Dundes says that such jokes show a hostility and
resentment against babies that resulted in the
contraception and abortions from the 1960s to the
1980s, when the joke cycle ended (Dundes [1987] 3-14).
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










Dumb blonde jokes
Stupid Jokes
Promiscuous Jokes
Sick Jokes
Challenger Jokes
Polish Jokes
Jewish American Mother Jokes
Jewish American Princess Jokes
Lightbulb Jokes
Urban Legends
Tall Tales
 Christie Davies (1990) showed that such jokes are not
told about our adversaries, but are told about groups
that are peripheral to the mainstream: in terms of
geography, ethnicity, or economics (Oring [2008] 194).
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 The Jewish American Princess is portrayed as “spoiled,
self-centered, materialistic, excessively concerned
about her appearance, and indifferent to sex and the
needs of her family.”
 In contrast, the Jewish American Mother is portrayed
as “over-solicitous of her children; she is ever
concerned with their feeding and health; she suffers
for them and enjoys her martyr role; and she looks
forward to nothing so much as the attention and
appreciation of her children” (Oring [2008] 203).
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 “Challenger jokes did not appear all at once, but in
stages. The weeks following the explosion of the
shuttle on 28 January, 1986, jokes appeared on three
different college campuses that focused on the
acronym NASA (e.g. Need Another Seven Astronauts),
on Bud Light (e.g. they found the flight recorder and
all that was on it was, “no, Bud Light,” and on Christa
McAuliff’s last words (“What’s this button for?).”
 “The jokes signaled a move towards closure; meaning
a willingness to bring the tragedy back to private
discourse” (Oring [2008] 196).
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 Dundes views sexual and aggressive joking as
cathartic.
 People use joking to express their repressed
sexual and aggressive wishes.
 The cathartic theory of joking can also be
applied to Auschwitz jokes, quadriplegic
jokes, and Helen Keller jokes (Oring [2008]
193).
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 “Keying” refers to the words, actions and props that
identify telling a joke as “performance.” Parties and
roasts can be considered to be “joke places.”
 “Jokes may also be keyed by
 stereotypical actors and locales (“Guy goes into a bar…”);
 a pervasive present tense (“asks the bartender for a
martini…”);
 formulaic introductions (“Have you heard the one about…”);
 appeals to tradition (“Here’s an old chestnut…”);
 and disclaimers (“My husband is the joke teller in the family,
but...)” (Oring [2008] 200).
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 “Alf Walle (1976) studied a diner in upstate New York
and focused on the dynamics of joking during the
period of 12:45 to 2:00 A.M.”
 “Many bars in the immediate area of the diner closed
at 1:00 A.M. and waitresses who began work the
previous evening got off at 1:30 A.M.”
 So this period, known locally as ‘the bar rush,’ was the
period in which men from the bars went to try and
pick up waitresses who were getting off from work”
(Oring [2008] 199)
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 “The jokes provided a way for customers to test
the availability of waitresses without risking a
personal rejection.”
 “Similarly, waitresses could encourage
someone they were interested in or discourage
others without having to entertain or reject
explicit sexual overtures.”
 “Thus joking in the social context of the bar
rush was a coded communication about
intimacy and sexual availability” (Oring [2008]
200).
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 “Play is not the opposite of seriousness.”
 “The comic in ritual is not comic relief; it is
another system of signification that speaks to,
against, and with the serious one.”
(Oring [2008] 189)
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 “Carnivals can be affairs of great seriousness requiring
enormous discipline, expenditure, and even pain.”
 “The preparation for Carnival goes on throughout the
year, and these preparations are not something apart
from the festive celebration itself”
 But sometimes “carnival” goes too far.
 Some members of the Lutheran congregation use the
term “chancel prancers” to label and criticize those
members who take delight in “high church” and
Catholic-like ritual behaviors (Oring [2008] 190).
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 When California police office Adelle Roberts got out
of her squad car to deal with a domestic dispute she
heard yelling and things being thrown against the wall
inside.
 Then a portable TV set cam crashing through the front
window.
 She knocked very loudly and a voice inside asked,
“Who is it?”
 “TV repair” Adelle responded, and the husband and
wife caught onto the humor and came to the door
smiling.
(Morreall [2008] 240)
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 “It is difficult to make stupidity jokes about a
democratic leader with a popular mandate
because it would imply that the people rather
than the system were stupid since they put
him there.
 Therefore, mass joking about the stupidity of
politicians normally doesn’t exist in Western
democracies
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 There is, however, joking about Sir Alec Douglas-
Home (British Prime Minister 1963-4), President
Gerald Ford, Vice-President Dan Quayle,
President George “Dubya” Bush, and Governor
Evan Mecham.
 What they have in ;common is that they were not
elected in the usual way, and lost legitimacy as a
consequence.
 (Davies (2008): 171)
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 Some practical jokes become institutionalized:
 April Fool Jokes
 Halloween Trick-Or-Treat Jokes
 The Snipe Hunt
 The Farm Animal in the Classroom
 The Animated Corpse
 Video Clips: Piano, Squirril
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 !Practical jokes occur during particular times
of the year (April Fool’s Day, Halloween).
 They occur during certain events (Initiations,
Weddings, Wakes)
 Certain groups are prone to practical jokes
(students, males, fraternity or sorority friends)
 They are a means of social control, social
resistance, and folk aesthetics.
 (Oring (2008) 187-188)
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Penelope Eckert said, “the
use of variation does not
simply reflect, but
constructs, social categories
and social meaning.”
(Eckert 4)
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 Mary Douglas says that joking promotes
community over hierarchy and reveals
ambiguities in the fabric of society.
 Douglas said that jokes are anti-rites that
subvert the normative social order, the order
usually validated and maintained by religious
and civic rituals (Oring [2008] 187).
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 Accidental Humor
 American Pop Language
 Body Humor
 Gender Issues
 Stand-Up Comedy
 Make ‘Em Laugh (DVDs)
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