Humor and Sociology - Humor Across the Disciplines - Lecture Slides, Slides of Sociology

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HUMOR AND SOCIOLOGY

Sociological Perspective!

Standin’ on the Corner

with a Friend

“He’s really a humorist…But he’s trying to give humor

more respectability on university campuses.”

Talk about this idea in relation to what scholars say are the social functions of humor. 1.Meaning Making 2.Hierarchy Building 3.Cohesion Building 4.Tension Relief Are these ideas the same for universities as they are for other institutions (business, church, military)? Does it depend on what part of the university you are thinking of?

Humor as a Social System (Continued)

• “Joking relationships…manifest a consciousness of

group identity or solidarity.” (Mahadev Apte)

• Joking promotes communities over hierarchy and

reveals ambiguities in the fabric of society. Jokes

are anti-rites that subvert the normative social order,

the order usually validated and maintained by

religious and civic ritual. (Mary Douglas)

• “One never laughs alone—laughter is always the

laughter of a particular social group.”

(David Viktoroff)

The Theory of Social Control

• Some theorists suggest that in close-knit

communities, humor is a social corrective, linked

with embarrassment. They argue that ridicule is not

a “detachable negative,” but instead lies at the heart

of humor.

• This goes back to the beliefs of Henri Bergson, who

called humor a “social corrective…intended to

humiliate.” Bergson did not believe in group-

created humor. Instead of interaction, he defined

humor as one-sided: those who laugh and those who

are laughed at.

The “Dyadic Tradition” = A Built-In Humor Community

Elliott Oring coined this term to refer to joking

relationships among couples, siblings, or close

friends. Incidents are largely humorous and involve

insult, abuse, or references to shared experiences.

For example, in the photo to the right, if only one of us had been driving to Heber, this roadside stand selling “rustic furniture” would not have seemed humorous. But together we found it funny enough to stop for photographs, even if not to make a purchase.

Alleen and Friends

Here our grandsons are laughing simply from

the surprise of “overlooking” Chicago from the

Willis Tower. Explain these characteristics of this particular incident of “Dyadic Humor.”

• Surprise
• A new viewpoint
• A sharing among family members
• Incongruity
• Understatement
• Spur-of-the-moment word play

The People of the Joke

• The Scots became “the people of the joke” about the same time as did the Jews.
• Scottish jokes were about tricky Scotsmen who were covetous, argumentative, and obsessed with keeping the Sabbath.
• Scots told the jokes about themselves, hence the self-mocking tone.

The People of the Joke ( CONTINUED)

• British scholar, Christie Davies explains that 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.
• He believes that “From this arose the Jewish and Scottish pre-eminence in physics, philosophy and economics and in jokes that no other small nation can match”

Oring also points to the long history

of community centered joking.

• “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.”

Alan Dundes observed how joke

cycles reveal community values.

For example, he said that “Dead Baby Jokes” showed a

hostility and resentment against babies that resulted in

contraception and abortions from the 1960s to the

1980s, when the joke cycle ended. Helen Keller jokes

reflected fears about new laws protecting the rights of

disabled children and adults. They disappeared after

the new laws were successfully implemented.

Christie Davies showed that such jokes (listed in the

next slide) are not told about our adversaries, but are

told about groups that are peripheral to the mainstream

in terms of geography, ethnicity, or economics.

Promiscuous Joking

• A. J. M. Sykes says that obscene joking is more acceptable between the sexes when the jokers are not in danger of a real sexual relationship as with old men and very young women, or old women and much younger men.
• Going along with this, Elliott Oring said that when there is a possibility of a sexual relationship, joking is marked by modesty and restraint.
• Oring gives an example from a study of the dynamics of joking at an upstate New York diner during the period of 12:45 to 2:00 A.M. Bars in the area closed at 1:00 A.M. and waitresses got off work at 1:30. This resulted in a “bar rush” with men hoping to pick up waitresses.

Promiscuous Joking ( continued)

• 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.