What’s So Funny?
On September 19th, I led a conversation on the Friendship Bench about humor. Among other things, we discovered humor — particularly joke-telling, the nature of the jokes being told, and the people to whom they’re told — should be a matter of respect. (Thank you, Phil Williams.)
Yet I remain curious: How far should respect go? Do we need to Exercise respect for every demographic group such that some jokes are simply off limits because of their possible connotations or their potential (mis)interpretations? What are the respective responsibilities of teller and listener? If I know a joke, the ostensible humor in which depends on a stereotype, should I never tell it? Should I tell it selectively?
Because I believe every stereotype breaks down at the level of the individual, there are some jokes I’d never tell particular people. And there are some jokes I’d never tell at all because of the ignorance they reflect and the hurt they’re likely to inflict. But there are some jokes somewhere in the middle.
Exhibit A
Two elderly women, Gladys and Tilly, are out walking their dogs one day and happen to pass a bar.
“Wanna go in for a drink?” Gladys asks Tilly.
“Yes,” Tilly replies. “But there’s a sign in the window that says, ‘No Dogs Allowed.’”
“Watch this,” Gladys says. She reaches in her purse, pulls out a pair of sunglasses, puts them on, and walks in the front door of the bar with her German Shepherd.
As she enters, the bartender looks down over the bar, sees the dog, and says, “I’m sorry, Ma’am. We don’t allow dogs in here.”
Gladys says, “But that’s my seeing eye dog.”
I’m so sorry,” the bartender says. “Let me help you to a table.” He takes Gladys by the elbow and guides her to a booth in the corner.
Looking through the window, Tilly sees what happened. She, too, puts on her sunglasses and walks into the bar with her dog.
Looking over the bar, the bartender says, “I’m sorry, Ma’am. We don’t allow dogs in here.”
“But that’s my seeing eye dog,” Tilly quickly says, following Gladys’s lead.
The bartender looks down again and says, “I didn’t know Chihuahuas could be seeing eye dogs.”
Tilly looks astounded and says, “They gave me a Chihuahua?!”
Should I ever tell that joke? Is it disparaging to elderly women? Does it make elderly women look conniving? Does it intimate elderly women like to drink? Does it suggest bartenders are stupid? Does it make certain breeds of dog look like objects of ridicule? Should we split the hair ever more finely? Or can we just appreciate the cleverness of the ladies and the absurdity of the situation?
I don’t know. But it’s easy enough to imagine some members of the Red Hat Society getting miffed at the characterizations of Gladys and Tilly as manipulative. I can see PETA getting its fur and feathers ruffled over the treatment of the dogs and the stereotyping of the Chihuahua as diminutive and incapable. And I imagine the United States Bartenders’ Guild might take exception to one of its ilk being duped by two women and two dogs.
You really do have to wonder.
Exhibit B
Out for a drive one day, a man sees a sign outside a house: “Talking Dog for Sale”. The man stops, approaches the house, and rings the doorbell. The homeowner comes to the door and says, “If you’re here about the dog, he’s in the back yard.”
Going around back, the man sees a handsome Labrador Retriever.
“Do you really talk?”
“Yep.”
“Wow!” the man says. “What’s your story?”
The Lab says, “I discovered I could talk when I was a pup. I was grabbed by the government, put in the CIA, and loaned out to various embassies, especially those of enemy governments. I listened to conversations between world leaders and their intelligence agencies. No one imagined I could. be eavesdropping. Then I reported what I heard to the CIA. I was their top operative for eight years”.
“But the Travel and the intrigue got to me. And I wasn’t getting any younger. So, I put in for a transfer and got an undercover job with the TSA, listening to conversations, sniffing suspicious stuff — drugs, bombs — the usual. I earned a bunch of medals for all the busts I was responsible for. When I got tired of that, I decided it was time to get married, settle down, and have a few pups of my own.”
Amazed, the man goes back to the house and asks the owner how much he wants for the dog.
“Ten bucks.”
“What?! That dog is amazing! Why would you sell him so cheaply?”
“He’s a liar. He didn’t do any of that shit.”
If you tell that joke, the folks lining up at your door might be from the US Foreign Service, there to tell you they’d never believe in a talking dog, let alone be hornswoggled by one. They might be folks from the Central Intelligence Agency, who’ll gladly tell you they’re way too … uh … intelligent to be had like that. They might be from the Transportation Safety Administration, there to tell you they don’t need any dogs, talking or otherwise, to bust you for attempting to take some barbecue sauce home with you (as they did to my dad as he was headed back to South Carolina after a visit to Connecticut). And they’ll surely be from PETA, an organization that would never permit a talking dog to be called a liar.
Can We Lighten Up?
We can continue to be as sensitive as we want about everything we want to be — or think we need to be — sensitive about. Or we can get a grip of our knickers, as the Irish love to say.
Now that I’ve written that, the next time you hear from me I’ll likely report that some irate Irishman showed up to pound on my door, probably drunk, and incensed that I’ve generalized about quintessentially Irish colloquialisms. Especially if he overlooks the fact that I’m a thick Mick my own self, I’ll use another Irish expression on him: “Tell your story walking.”
Here’s hoping we can put some laughter back in humor.
Originally Published on https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/category/lifecolumns/notes-to-self/
