Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83 SMI; site husky.uucp Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ucdavis!lll-crg!seismo!rochester!ritcv!husky!pjm From: pjm@husky.uucp (Paul Metzger) Newsgroups: net.jokes.d Subject: Tasteless Humor: A Form of Therapy in Bad Situations Message-ID: <247@husky.uucp> Date: Wed, 23-Oct-85 12:53:00 EDT Article-I.D.: husky.247 Posted: Wed Oct 23 12:53:00 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 25-Oct-85 03:15:47 EDT Distribution: na Organization: Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY Lines: 94 I recently read the following article in a local paper, and in regard to the recent outbreak of the "How could you dare make fun of Rock Hudson?!!!" jokes, I figured that a few of you should read this. It should be noted that this article is simply the author's point of view, and you can either accept it, or disregard it as trash. Tasteless Humor: A Form of Therapy in Bad Situations by Isaac Rehert (taken from the Rochester "Democrat and Chronicle", originally published in the "Baltimore Sun") Wherever there's disaster, there you'll find the offensive, distasteful, sick joke. Some jokes are so sick that even as we listen to them we are embarrassed, even appalled. That guffaw was over someone's suffering. Earthquake, epidemic, famine aren't laughing matters. How could anyone make light of such dreadful situations? And yet, we can't help but laugh; the joke was truly funny. The subjects of jokes often are people in the most wretched kinds of situations. The starving in Ethiopia, the victims of AIDS and those who have died in this year's spate of airplane crashes have been recent targets. These jokes circulate wherever people gather: in schools, at the office, on buses, in locker rooms and living rooms. They circulate despite our sense of shock at their insults to decency and good taste. Of course, the jokes are indecent and distasteful, says Dr. Joseph Eisenberg, a Towson, Md., psychologist. If they weren't, they wouldn't be funny. "Sick jokes," he said, "poke fun at . . . situations so serious they border on the taboo. You mustn't mention them except in the most solemn tones. Poke fun at them and of course people find it offensive. "But at the same time, these jokes are useful. What makes these situations so solemn, so awe-inspiring, is that they are out of our control. But as we laugh, we regain some little sense of power over that situation. To be able to laugh is to be in control. So, thanks to these jokes, we can put our minds on subjects that otherwise we're too scared to think about." In a world of continual change, sick jokes seem to be one of those few constants we can count on. Dr. Richard Macksey, professor of Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, says they have been around forever. "I'm sure that today's AIDS jokes are recycled versions of the bubonic plague jokes of the 14th century," he said. "In the AIDS joke, the victim is regarded as a tabooed person. That's the way they joked about people with the plague. In Bible stories, lepers were regarded in the same way." Sick jokes are a last-ditch defense against an intolerable condition, said Dan Rosen, a comedian and co-owner of the Charm City Comedy Club. "This kind of joke is making light of a tragic event," he pointed out, "and you can't get away with that as long as there are other alternatives. It's when you're totally frustrated, when there simply isn't any other option, that sick jokes go over, no matter how offensive of distasteful they may be. "Jews and blacks have a long history of being caught in that kind of situation. They've learned to laugh at the situation and at themselves. That's the most successful kind of humor when you can laugh at yourself," he added. When you laugh to relieve your own anxiety, you are giving yourself therapy, said Dr. Joseph Lichtenberg, a Washington psychoanalyst. When you come up with a sick joke that makes others laugh, you're being creative. "These situations are so awful," he said, "that just to think of them puts you in a state of tension, of turmoil, a situation you don't know how to relieve. Then somebody has an insight that makes him laugh. He shares it, and however much you are shocked, you and everyone else laughs. That's the true function of art. It's really an art form." He advised, however, that because sick jokes admittedly are offensive, be careful that the butt of the joke is not around. The jokes, he said, are not dreadful if their victim is on the other side of the sea or at least if he is a member of another social group. Sick jokes undoubtedly are a folk art form, Macksey said. Such jokes simply sprout wherever small groups with time on their hands collect. Under such circumstances, swapping stories is one of man's oldest ways of passing time. Schools, prisons and the army, he suggested, are probably the source of many sick jokes. He pointed out that the variety of sick jokes making the rounds is evidence of a democratic society. In totalitarian societies the menu is sparser. "We have sick jokes about morons, lepers, ethnics, sex, excrement, the body organs, a whole variety of themes. In the Soviet Union, most of the jokes are aimed all one way, at the foolishness of the bureaucracy." He said both the tastelessness of sick jokes and their therapeutic value was brought home to him recently when his son was being treated for cancer. "We used to have to take him frequently to the pediatric oncology center at Hopkins. On the wall there they had mounted a poem, a dreadful poem in doggerel, that poked fun at the horrible things that doctors would do in treating these sick children. At first I was shocked. Medical humor at best doesn't rank high in the precincts of art, but this was especially offensive, especially to parents like us whose own child was undergoing this torture. "But then I realized, this poem was the work of the medical residents who treated these kids. They were themselves so appalled by the tortures they had to subject these kids to, they had to joke about it as a defense. Laughing at themselves and their work was the only way they could carry on."