#Humor in #American #Society

Once upon a time there was a Mexican drug-addict man who saw a donkey football match in his dreams every night, so he went to a doctor to find a cure. The doctor advised him to not sleep that night. The addicted replied that this was impossible because that night was the final match. In some countries, the drug-addicted is followed by the name of minority building hatred and racism based on stereotypes. Even though jokes make people laugh, they may bring sadness when they play a role in stereotyping a specific group of people. This paper will compare the two different effects of humor; positive and negative in American society focusing on two theories, namely the Relief theory and the Superiority theory.

Humor could have a positive effect on people’s life in America. The Relief theory proposed by Herbert Spencer and Sigmund Freud in the early 19th century discussed how laughter helps in liberating an existing strained energy and releasing a built-up energy by telling jokes and making people happy(Morreall,1986). Freud’s point of view is that jokes give a person a chance to talk about topics not usually discussed such as sex or violence, and thus it helps him\her to release the strained feelings. However, David Reisman criticized Freud’s opinion arguing that it might play a role in ethnic humor in American society where sharing suppressed thoughts as jokes liberates the dominant culture only i.e. White Americans (Lowe, 1986). Meanwhile, another opinion shows that humor could be a useful means to control a person’s aggressive behavior. Stephenson (1951) suggested that humor may be used as a conflict weapon when it allows people to express their hidden feelings of offence and frustration without explicit aggressive behavior. For instance, a satirical comedy-drama television series called Dear White People is a way of expressing such frustrations of the black community which discriminated against to White Americans. Hence, it lets them share their feelings of White Americans while preventing both sides from using violent behavior. In other words, humor may help in the context of multicultural societies where hatred and racism are widespread. Therefore, humor could be a good tool that makes people feel relaxed and take control of their behavior.

However, humor could promote stereotyping of minorities in American society. Plato and Aristotle proposed a theory on humor called a Superiority theory. This theory illustrates that people laugh about others’ bad luck so they feel joyful and enjoy superiority to them (Lintott, 2016). Thus, sometimes a joke is constructed for political or ethnic purposes and plays a significant role in stereotyping a minority community. For example, a study showed how entertainment TV-show programs in America help to trigger hatred and racism between the African-Americans and White Americans and maintain the White American negative perception (Ford, 1997). Forty White Americans were exposed to comedy skits which featured African-Americans in stereotypical or neutral portrayals. Then, they were given a vignette describing an assault incident between two colleagues (Ford, 1997). Guilt ratings of the African-American target were higher in the stereotypical comedy skit condition than after the neutral comedy skit condition, whereas the ratings of the White target did not vary significantly between the two conditions (Ford, 1997). The results prove that the group’s perception were negatively affected by the exposure to the stereotypical comedic skits of the African-American portrayals in the skits (Ford, 1997). Thus, stereotypical television portrayals of African-Americans even in a humorous context boost the probability that whites will perceive an African-American target person in a stereotypical manner and it could devalue a social judgment of him (Ford, 1997).

Moreover, racist jokes by supremacist groups could have a destructive social effect on American society. In America, there is a well-known white supremacist group called Ku Klux Klan which spreads malice and racism in American society. The study used a meta-discourse analysis to explain that the extreme racist humor of this group in a political context which is shown as jokes on three comedy websites such as whitesonly.net, are not “just joke” (Biling, 2001). These three websites have various types of racist humor against African-American and one of them includes 23 stereotyped descriptions (Biling, 2001). Lynching jokes, furthermore, gave an opportunity to White Americans to underestimate African-American and be a part of the dehumanization process (Biling, 2001). For instance, phrases like “Remember don’t kill niggers they are protected species under affirmative actions of laws” were shown on these websites comparing African-Americans to animals to criticize affirmative actions (Biling, 2001). Freud suggests that when extreme racism existed, the enjoyment may be gained through a lack of suppress which allow the racist to treat humans as animals (Biling, 2001). Moreover, racist jokes could instill fear in non-Whites American. “The white recipients are meant to find it amusing to imagine a black person being insulted and frightened from the site” (Biling, 2001). That shows how a joke could be misused and offensive instead of relaxing. Therefore, it increases the hatred between Whites and African Americans because it gives Whites the enjoyment of superiority feelings.

To conclude, humor in American society has two various effects, positive and negative. Jokes take a big part in today’s entertaining world. The basic purpose of jokes is to make people laugh, however sometimes they play a role in social construction, have a negative effect on society and trigger racist problems. The opinion of that jokes make people laugh is supported by the Relief theory which shows the positive side of telling a humor in American society and preventing offensive behavior of both Whites and African-American. However, another opinion represented by the Superiority theory which explains that what makes people laugh is the misfortune of others so they enjoy the superiority feelings. Thus, social judgment is increased in Whites perception by building more stereotyping of African-American. The expansion of social media in the modern world make this issue more serious because one unpleasant joke may spread the world in few seconds and make an exaggeration of social judgment. Thus, we should rethink of jokes that we tell and consider the consequences, otherwise everyone will be part of offensive jokes unconsciously. Hence, more awareness campaigns about the negative effects of humor. If we do not do it today, then when will it be when we are in 21century. Consider other’s feeling.