The Perils of Trying to be Funny

by Eric Boa

Are you laughing at my joke or at my Spanish?

My father offered me sage advice before my one, and so far only, visit to China. “Don’t tell too many jokes”. This was way back in 1985, when China was slowly opening up, emerging from unimaginable strife and suffering. The World Bamboo Congress had seized the opportunity to hold their big meeting in the country where bamboo is big. My father knew my propensity to play with words and tell jokes and worried that my attempts to make people smile could backfire. He also understood better than me the perils of trying to be funny in a new place with unknown people.

It was not as if I was about to tell jokes on mispronunciation of English words. As in the Greek restaurant owner who constantly taunts a Chinese neighbour about how to enunciate fried rice. After much effort, fuelled by mounting irritation, his neighbour proudly responds: “It’s fried rice, you Gleek clunt.” Forty years on this appears crass and insulting. I can’t remember any attempts to be funny during my short stay and suspect that any attempts at humour were either ignored or not understood.

Making fun of national or local traits is a common theme in jokes. Whether you find them funny depends to a large extent on who is telling the joke. I’ve listened to countless jokes about Scotsmen that centre on their meanness. I spent six years at a grammar school in Cambridge. There were frequent remarks about kilts, bagpipes and haggis from fellow pupils and teachers. For many years I felt a simmering resentment. It irked me that those making fun of Scotland had mostly never been there. They failed to recognize the generosity of Scots, or that kilts were for ceremonial occasions, as were bagpipes. I rarely eat haggis and, no, they don’t have three legs to make it easier to run round the sides of hills.

An English friend later told me of the constant barrage of ‘jokes’ and other disparaging remarks he’d received about his home nation when attending a school in Glasgow. The intent was clearly to wound and insult. My resentment at my own treatment disappeared. Both of us benefitted, in a curious way, from the constant mocking. We learned to turn the other cheek and develop a resilience to cope with similar behaviour in future.

I’ve lived in England most of my life and jokes about Scots have faded. Within Scotland, devolution has helped diffuse a tendency to blame everything that goes wrong on the English. Not that Scots ignore their own failings. When Nicola Sturgeon, a forthright and feisty leader of the Scottish National Party (remember them?), was finally undone by a scandal about misspent funds raised for an independence campaign, a putative cover of her forthcoming memoir began to circulate. Published by Amnesia Press, the cover featured Nicola against a background of a mobile home, a key part of the scandal. The spoof memoir was called Mein Kampfervan. I don’t know who created the cover, but my bets are on a fellow Scot.

It is more acceptable for people from a country to tell jokes about their compatriots. Not that these are necessarily funny, or less cruel.  Colombians make jokes about people from Pasto, the capital of Nariňo, a department far away from the main metropolitan centres. Canadians tell jokes about folk from Newfoundland. Both minorities are relentlessly mocked for being uncouth and stupid. A gentler form of mocking is when people make jokes about themselves, something Jews are particularly good at. A centenarian Jewish couple want a divorce. The rabbi asks them why they’ve waited so long. “We wanted to make sure first that all our children were dead”.

Old age also allows you to be funny at your own expense. There’s a tendency for us older folk to talk about our ailments. More things go wrong with our bodies and there’s always some medical problem to talk about. A friend and fellow musician describes this as “the organ recital”. Ever eager to make people smile, I tried out my new joke with fellow oldies. They’d heard it before. Beware the perils of telling a joke that’s been around for ever. I recall many years ago watching a stand-up comedian on TV. I was with my Uncle Stanley, then in his 60s. He consistently beat the comedian to the punchline. I was astonished at first that my otherwise poker-faced uncle knew so many jokes. Then I smiled. He’d heard them many times before.

There’s a fine dividing line between cruelty and comedy, unfunny and funny. Changing values and mores have made some categories of jokes less acceptable or simply redundant. The foibles of mothers-in-law and supposed failings of women (particularly with cars) are off limits. Irish jokes have largely disappeared because Ireland has become modern, rescinding laws on abortion and homosexuality . The punchline “John Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzjohn” is unfunny at best, but mainly irrelevant these days. I realise that by alluding to the original joke (you can look it up) lays me open to accusations of having my funny cake and eating it. Call it comic cakeism, my lame attempt to be funny, to paraphrase the amusing yet incompetent and deceitful Boris Johnson. Does this mean that I find Boris Johnson’s jokes unfunny? Let’s move on.

Cruel and offensive jokes still exist. There are countless websites which keep them alive while adding new ones that push comic boundaries. Exactly where you draw the line is difficult to decide. Context and shared experiences play a big part in whether you grimace, gurn or smile and laugh. To give one example, consider jokes about pandemics. One cow asks another cow if they’re worried about Mad Cow Disease. “No” is the answer. “Why?” “Because I’m a duck”. Mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), to use its proper name, was a major human health concern over 30 years ago. It’s easier to joke about old events, however horrid, though those affected by BSE are unlikely to agree.

As are those who’ve suffered under the Taliban in Afghanistan, when presented with a putative schedule for Taliban TV, circulated when I was living in Bangladesh in the 1980s. Programs included: Xena: Modestly Dressed Housewife – Xena stays at home and does some cooking. For younger viewers: Talitubbies say Ah-ah – Dipsy and Tinky-Winky repair a Stinger missile launcher. Adults and lovers of quiz shows had: Who wants to be a Mujahadin – will contestants phone a mullah, go ‘Insha’Allah’ or ask the Islamic Council? A final offering, sailing closer to the wind: Koranation Street – Deirdre faces execution by stoning for adultery. Similar schedules still exist on joke websites, with new programs such as Veilwatch, an Islamic version of Baywatch.

There’s nothing to prevent anyone making a joke about serious events, and diffusing concern by laughing at events can be therapeutic. But it can be perilous to attempt to tell such jokes in public. Typhoo, a popular brand of the UK’s most popular beverage, once had an advertisement saying that Typhoo put the T in Britain. The comedic potential in a place called Scunthorpe was spotted soon after, reinforcing a popular perception that this was a dreary place to live. If this allusion is incomprehensible, don’t worry. Let’s keep  moving on.

International development is not known for its jokes. I’ve received stony silences when recounting the outcome of a (fictitious) review by the World Bank, held at the request of Bangladesh’s then President Ershad. Not a man known for his humour or indeed intellect, the review had two major findings. The good news was that everyone in Bangladesh would be eating shit in 20 years’ time. “So what’s the bad news?” asks Ershad. “All the shit will have to be imported”.

Less a joke than a dark reflection on the dire future predicted for Bangladesh back in the 1980s. The ultimate joke is, of course, that Bangladesh has proved all the naysayers wrong, with astonishing economic successes. Pity about the politics, where I suspect that any attempts at humour are kept strictly between friends of known sympathies. Good jokes don’t have to be rude or play on crude stereotypes.

Rahm Emanuel was the notoriously foul-mouthed chief of staff to Barack Obama who often poked fun at his loyal friend. “Rahm always has a hard time on Mother’s Day. He’s not used to saying ‘day’ after mother.” Rahm appeared to take the ribbings in good spirit. He probably told jokes against Obama, though clearly never in public.

Learn to laugh at yourself and avoid mocking – or appearing to mock - people you don’t know. I presented two copies of the same book to a drab and unsmiling sales assistant in Austicks, a bookshop in Leeds. Her khaki, drab overall made her look more like a cleaner than someone with a keen interest in literature. The book in question was a collection of wonderful nature photographs, published by the Sierra Club, one of America’s foremost conservation groups. One copy was for me, the other for a friend. She queried me in a listless Yorkshire accent: “Do you realise you’ve got two copies of the same book?” “Yes”, I said, “I’m going to read it twice.” Her demeanour stayed the same. My thrill at the clever reply disappeared. I was a victim of the perils of trying to be funny. Served me right.

Who's the funny one? You or me?