All Joking Aside: American Humor and Its Discontents

Introduction. The Laughscape of American Humor

Introduction The Laughscape of American Humor There’s a lot of things that people find funny that are really just bullying. When people get bullied, there are people that laugh. And I think that is a lot of comedy. Whenever people come up to me and say I don’t really like comedy, but I love what you do, it tells me two things. One is that’s someone who has had really bad experiences either with bullying or with going to a comedy club and being made to feel uncomfortable because something is directed toward them. Hari Kondabolu, “The Feministing Five” It’s just a joke. Come on, I was only joking! Geez, why ­ can’t you take a joke? Likely, you have heard this dozens of times. It is a statement most commonly dispensed when the unlucky butt of the joke offers protestations. Some of the most hateful vitriol passes under the guise of joking—­ someone’s truth, but certainly not the truth, masquerading as humor. When Kevin Rogers detailed, in a post on Facebook, Tracy Morgan’s homophobic tirade at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee, on June 3, 2011, he publicly called into question what is and is not a joke. In Rogers’s estimation, Morgan’s worldview felt like an attack against his lifestyle and person. While Rogers understands that comedy can level criticism, he was unprepared for the angry onslaught against queer folks, a segment at the end of the show, which according to his post, ceased to express itself in comedic terms and instead devolved into a string of slurs aimed at the gay community, making him feel intensely uncomfortable. Comics often use the stage to broadcast worldviews. Tracy Morgan’s beliefs about gay people are part of his worldview. The difference between comics Tracy Morgan and Hari Kondabolu, whose statement opens this chapter, is that Kondabolu refuses to use the stage to promote intolerance or bigotry. Ultimately, 2  All Joking Aside every comic wants to elicit laughter from an audience, but there are some who give careful consideration to the means by which they achieve that laughter. Humor has always taken aim at its surrounding culture, exposing societal discontent, be it Morgan’s antipathy for gays or Kondabolu’s open hostility toward bigots of any ilk. All humor locates itself in social and po­ liti­ cal contexts, but not all humor does so self-­ consciously or with specific intentions to promote unity and equality or to create a safe and accepting space for people from all walks of life. I take as my jumping off point the Kondabolus performing in the United States—­ not the Morgans—­ the comic performers who intentionally produce humor-­ challenging social in­ e­ qual­ ity and cultural exclusion, what I call “charged humor.” Some jokes are tears in the fabric of our beliefs. They challenge the myths we sustain about how fair and demo­ cratic our society is and the behaviors and practices we enact every day to maintain that fiction. In other words, we are all supposed to be equal, but social, economic, and po­ liti­ cal forces collude to maintain in­ e­ qual­ ity. Jokesters unmask in­ e­ qual­ ity by identifying the legal arrangements and cultural attitudes and beliefs contributing to their subordinated status—­ joking about it, challenging that which has become normalized and compulsory, and offering new solutions and strategies. For example, Gloria Bigelow, a lesbian African American comic, writes and performs comic material intending to unmask such inconsistencies and remind us that things are not fair or equal for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. I recently came out at my job, you know. Thank you. Thank you [applause and whistles]. Yes, I’m what you call a preemptive gay. I drop big gay bombs whenever I get the chance. “I’m GAY!” [makes sound of bomb dropping]. You gotta do it because otherwise if you don’t tell heteros that you’re gay and they find out [drops voice to a conspiratorial whisper] . . . ​ they feel violated [loud laughter]. Imagine that. I have no rights, but they feel violated [laughter and applause].1 Here, she uses her comedy to unveil the heterosexism inherent in the expectation that queers must reveal their sexual orientation to others. While heterosexuals are not expected to make official announcements to friends and family regarding their sexual desires and proclivities, LGBTQ persons are subject to the “coming out” narrative, reifying compulsory heterosexuality, fueling American culture’s...