Ethnic joke

Last updated
Book of jokes about Jews published in the United States in 1908 Jew jokes.jpg
Book of jokes about Jews published in the United States in 1908

An ethnic joke is a remark aiming at humor relating to an ethnic, racial or cultural group, often referring to an ethnic stereotype of the group in question for its punchline.

Contents

Perceptions of ethnic jokes are ambivalent. Christie Davies gives examples that, while many find them racist and offensive, for some people jokes poking fun at one's own ethnicity may be considered acceptable. He points out that ethnic jokes are often found funny exactly for the same reason they sound racist for others; it happens when they play on negative ethnic stereotypes. [1] [2] Davies maintains that ethnic jokes reinforce ethnic stereotypes and sometimes lead to calls for violence. [3] The perceived damage to the ethnic group can be of great concern as when the ethnic Polish jokes became so common in the 1970s, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs approached the U.S. State Department to complain. [4]

Academic theories of ethnic humor

The predominant and most widely known theory of ethnic humor attempts to discover social regularities in the anecdote traditions of different countries by contextually describing jokes. Christie Davies, author of this theory, has posed the main arguments in his article Ethnic Jokes, Moral Values and Social Boundaries, published in 1982. His approach is based on Victor Raskin's (1985) Semantic Script Theory of Humor, or to be more precise, on the arguments connected with ethnic humor on binary oppositions. While Raskin merely describes the main binary oppositions providing examples (mostly from Jewish humor), Davies explores the situations where the scripts apply; for example, he has discovered that the most common opposition, stupid/clever, is applied under particular circumstances in the social reality of two ethnic groups concerned.

Davies in his monograph published in 1990 has surmised that "Jokes in every country (or reasonably homogeneous cultural and linguistic domain) have certain targets for stupidity jokes people who dwell on the edge of that nation or domain and who are perceived as culturally ambiguous by the dominant people of the center. In addition, they will likely be rustic people or immigrants in search of unskilled and low-prestige manual work. They are to a great extent similar to the joke-tellers themselves, share the same cultural background or even speak a similar or identical language." According to Davies, ethnic jokes are centered on the three main themes of stupidity, canniness and sexual behavior.

Davies is featured in the 2010 documentary film, Polack, exploring the source of the Polish joke. [5]

L Perry Curtis, in examining ethnic humour aimed at the Irish in Victorian England, describes the descent that the ethnic joke and the accompanying stereotype can undergo as the target that they are aimed at descends into depictions of violent behaviour: "My curiosity of 'Paddy's' transformation in comic art from a rather primitive, rustic, or simple-minded peasant to a degenerate man ... bent on murder or outrage." [6]

According to Samuel Schmidt, ethnic jokes can also be a form of social resistance, and so they are addressed by the joke-tellers against those whom they see as the aggressors, like the multiple jokes published in Mexico about Americans (also called gringos there). [7]

See also

Footnotes

  1. "Why do people find racist jokes funny?". BBC News . 2002-05-07. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
  2. Christie Davies "The Irish Joke as a Social Phenomenon". In John Durant and Jonathan Miller. Laughing Matters: A Serious Look at Humour. London: Longmans. ISBN   978-0-470-21185-4
  3. Berger, Arthur Asa. An Anatomy of Humor. ISBN   9781412817158.
  4. Dominic Pulera, "Sharing the Dream: White Males in Multicultural America". p 99.
  5. "website for Polack, 2010 documentary". Archived from the original on 2011-02-08. Retrieved 2011-02-15.
  6. L Perry Curtis Jr "Apes and Angels the Irishman in Victorian Caricature" p xiii
  7. Seriously Funny: Mexican Political Jokes as Social Resistance. University of Arizona Press. 2014-03-06. ISBN   9780816530779.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lightbulb joke</span> Jokes of the form "How many does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

A lightbulb joke is a joke cycle that asks how many people of a certain group are needed to change, replace, or screw in a light bulb. Generally, the punch line answer highlights a stereotype of the target group. There are numerous versions of the lightbulb joke satirizing a wide range of cultures, beliefs, and occupations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joke</span> Display of humor using words

A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means. Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition:

A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates in the final sentence, called the punchline… In fact, the main condition is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end. No continuation relieving the tension should be added. As for its being "oral," it is true that jokes may appear printed, but when further transferred, there is no obligation to reproduce the text verbatim, as in the case of poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Humour</span> Tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement

Humour or humor is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours, controlled human health and emotion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ethnic stereotype</span> Belief in certain typical characteristics for a grouping of people

An ethnic stereotype or racial stereotype involves part of a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group, their status, societal and cultural norms. A national stereotype does the same for a given nationality. The stereotyping may be used for humor in jokes, and/or may be associated with racism.

Blonde jokes are a joke cycle based on a stereotype of a dumb blonde woman.

An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke with humour that is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It is, therefore, an esoteric joke, only humorous to those who are aware of the circumstances behind it.

A punch line concludes a joke; it is intended to make people laugh. It is the third and final part of the typical joke structure. It follows the introductory framing of the joke and the narrative which sets up for the punch line.

Russian jokes (Russian: анекдоты, romanized: anekdoty, lit.'anecdotes') are short fictional stories or dialogs with a punch line, which commonly appear in Russian humor. Russian joke culture includes a series of categories with fixed settings and characters. Russian jokes treat topics found everywhere in the world, including sex, politics, spousal relations, or mothers-in-law. This article discusses Russian joke subjects that are particular to Russian or Soviet culture. A major subcategory is Russian political jokes, discussed in a separate article. Every category has numerous untranslatable jokes that rely on linguistic puns, wordplay, and the Russian language vocabulary of foul language. Below, (L) marks jokes whose humor value critically depends on intrinsic features of the Russian language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Polish sentiment</span> Hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Poland or people of Polish ethnicity

Polonophobia, also referred to as anti-Polonism or anti-Polish sentiment are terms for negative attitudes, prejudices, and actions against Poles as an ethnic group, Poland as their country, and their culture. These include ethnic prejudice against Poles and persons of Polish descent, other forms of discrimination, and mistreatment of Poles and the Polish diaspora.

Comedic device refers to a kind of device used to make a statement more humorous. In layman's terms, it is what makes things funny.

"An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman" is the opening line of a category of joke cycle popular in Ireland and the United Kingdom. The nationalities involved may vary, though they are usually restricted to those within Ireland and the UK, and the number of people involved is usually three or sometimes four. In Ireland, the characters are sometimes called "Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman, and Paddy Scotsman". Depending on who is telling the joke, one nationality fares well and the other nationalities fare poorly according to national stereotypes. For example, in England the punchline is usually based around the Irishman being stupid, the Scotsman being mean, and the Englishman being posh, whereas in Scotland and Ireland, the Englishman will typically be the butt of the joke. Sometimes, when the joke requires four people, a Welshman is brought in.

German humour is the conventions of comedy and its cultural meaning within the country of Germany. German humour encompasses traditions such as Kabarett and other forms of satire as well as more recent trends such as TV shows and stand-up comedy.

Stereotypes of white Americans in the United States are generalizations about the character, behavior, or appearance of white Americans by other Americans in the United States.

Although humor is a phenomenon experienced by most humans, its exact cause is a topic of heavy debate. There are many theories of humor which attempt to explain what it is, what social functions it serves, and what would be considered humorous. Although various classical theories of humor and laughter may be found, in contemporary academic literature, three theories of humor appear repeatedly: relief theory, superiority theory, and incongruity theory. These theories are used as building blocks for the rest of the theories. Among current humor researchers, there has yet to be a consensus about which of these three theories of humor is most viable. Some proponents of each theory originally claimed that theirs, and theirs alone, explained all cases of humor. However, they now acknowledge that although each theory generally covers its area of focus, many instances of humor can be explained by more than one theory. Similarly, one view holds that theories have a combinative effect; Jeroen Vandaele claims that incongruity and superiority theories describe complementary mechanisms that together create humor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comedy</span> Genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous

Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term originated in ancient Greece: In Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by political satire performed by comic poets in theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance pitting two groups, ages, genders, or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old". A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions posing obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth then becomes constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to resort to ruses which engender dramatic irony, which provokes laughter.

A Polish joke is an English-language ethnic joke deriding Polish people, based on derogatory stereotypes. The Polish joke belongs in the category of conditional jokes, whose full understanding requires the audience to have prior knowledge of what a Polish joke is. As with all discriminatory jokes, Polish jokes depend on the listener's preconceived notions and antipathies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christie Davies</span> British sociologist, criminologist and author

John Christopher Hughes "Christie" Davies was a British sociologist, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Reading, England, the author of many articles and books on criminology, the sociology of morality, censorship, and humour. He was also a visiting professor in India, Poland, United States, and Australia.

Hori is an ethnic slur used against people of Māori descent. The term comes from a Māori-language approximation of George, an English name that was very popular during the early years of European colonisation of New Zealand. By means of synecdoche, the term came to be ascribed firstly to any unknown male Māori and then as a negative epithet to all male Māori.

A conditional joke is a joke meant for a qualified audience only. If a joke requires from the audience a certain knowledge or a belief, then Ted Cohen calls such jokes hermetic. Possessing prior knowledge and understanding of the topic, which in turn enables them to understand the joke. Such ability is also called the prerequisite condition for laughter. The conditional joke is one of two main categories of jokes, according to Ted Cohen; the main one being a universal joke, which does not require familiarity with the hermetic language of a conditional joke.

References