Humor is, at its core, a medium of representation. But its indirect and ironic nature in which an intended meaning is often different from (and even opposed to) what is stated, makes humor different from most other representational modes. When an individual laughs at a joke depicting violence, we might be inclined to say that that person is taking pleasure in violence, but often the opposite is true: violence may be presented, but the underlying meaning of the joke actually ridicules or undermines the very structures of violence that the joke represents. Consider the following joke by shock-comedian Sarah Silverman:
“I was raped by a doctor, which is a bittersweet experience for a Jewish girl.”
This joke presents its audience with several objectionable ideas. First, of course, is the blasé attitude that reduces the violence of rape to little more than a “bittersweet” experience. Second is the stereotype of the gold digging Jewish American Princess who is eager to sleep with a doctor (or other wealthy individual) at any cost.
Though the straightforward meaning of her language presents the sexual violence and ethnic stereotypes uncritically, it seems clear to me that Silverman is not actually endorsing these viewpoints. Squeezing all of this material into a single sentence makes the content of this joke not simply objectionable, but hyperbolically objectionable. In comically exaggerating these offensive elements, Silverman ridicules a society that adopts these attitudes while simultaneously performing the cultural work of bringing these often unspoken issues into the cultural discourse.
Indifferent attitudes toward sexual violence and ethnic stereotyping not only serve as Silverman’s object of ridicule, but also create the conditions that make this joke problematic. While I engage in what I feel is perfectly ethical (even morally corrective) laughter at the joke’s indictment of sexism and bigotry, it is not hard to imagine an audience—even a large audience—who laughs sympathetically with these elements. This audience laughs primarily out of relief that these ideas that society forces them to repress are released into the open.* In other words, the necessary repression these violent and racist feelings—feelings that individuals may not even be willing to acknowledge that they possess—during the course of everyday life constitutes a psychological hardship that is temporarily alleviated when Silverman gives public voice to them, thereby producing a pleasurable response of laughter for the malicious and/or bigoted.
*I’m willing to acknowledge that there is an element of this relief in all of our laughter, but there is a distinction between the relief felt in an act of transgression itself (the act that breaks restrictive social imperatives) and the relief that specifically validates or cultivates latent racist or violent beliefs. In other words, I experience some relief—manifested as laughter—in the fact that Silverman boldly defies social standards governing what is speakable, but that has nothing to do with the more problematic act of taking pleasure specifically in bigotry or sexual violence, which results in an entirely different kind of laughter.
As we can see, there are two perfectly plausible responses to Silverman’s joke. One (morally unproblematic) laughs at the absurdity of our culture’s commitment to violence and racial stereotypes, while the other (morally problematic) laughs with these elements, not only affirming them but taking pleasure in the fact that these socially repressed beliefs are given voice.
This leads us to the ethical question at the heart of this post: should we be producing and laughing at humor that may be as likely to affirm its audience’s violent and bigoted fantasies (even unintentionally) as it is to challenge them? To me, this is the question at the heart of debates around racist and violent humor. There is nearly unanimous agreement that telling willfully malicious, racist, or sexist jokes is wrong, but what about jokes in which there is no malintent on the part of the speaker, but members of the audience don’t laugh in the way he or she intended? Should the comedian be denied the power to speak (and we the pleasure of laughter) simply because some members of the audience lack the intelligence (or are simply to racist, violent, &c.) to understand the object of ridicule?
Linguists and semioticians have long recognized that an individual speaker (or writer) lacks the power to control all of the meanings present in his or her language. The inability to determine what aspects of racial humor the audience takes pleasure in led Dave Chappelle to walk away from a $50 million contract. Chappelle’s abrupt flight to Africa amplified the discussion about the ethics of engaging in race-based humor that is often misinterpreted in a way that promotes rather than condemns racism, but it did little to settle the debate.
Though considerably more space would be necessary to settle this debate conclusively, I will end by suggesting why comedians like Silverman and Chappelle should continue to engage in humor that ironically embraces violence and race-based stereotypes. Despite the potentially negative social consequences of individuals laughing at these representations as endorsements of racism and sexual violence, I simply do not think that a bigoted failure to understand the intent of a joke gives an individual the authority to deprive both the speaker and more perceptive audience members of the pleasure of humor. If anything, such shortsighted stupidity should deprive these individuals of this cultural authority. Allowing those likely to misinterpret the meaning of a joke to influence the moral implications of telling it confers on these individuals an authority over social standards of speakability, which, it seems obvious to me, is an authority they have not earned.
So let the great transgressive comedians continue to embrace violence and stereotypes in ironic ridicule; let those who don’t get the humor continue to be offended; and let those who misapprehend it continue to validate their thoughtless bigotry. Just because we allow the pleasurable circumstances that reinforce these bigoted beliefs to persist doesn’t mean we have to accept the beliefs themselves.
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