I have heard it said many times that laughter is the shortest distance between two people. As such, that statement implies that humour is a powerful social tool.
While bringing people together through laughter is most definitely a notable end in itself, creating such a connection is often used as a means to achieving a far broader strategic objective. Indeed, the possibilities of using humour are endless and have certainly not been overlooked in the game of politics.
When humour gets political, the role it plays in society becomes tangible as concrete examples of its effects are brought to our attention. Humour that deals with subjects like culture, ethnicity, religion, social class, or politics is considered taboo, which may be precisely why it is so appealing and why it can be so controversial.
Freud’s theory on humour supports this idea. He noted that one can’t express aggression and sexual drive directly, as it is prohibited in society, so these desires get subliminated in our jokes. Although humour is too broad and complex a phenomenon to ever be fully understood, I think Freud does shed light on what fuels political humour and why this sort of humour has the effect that it does.
When a joke on a taboo subject appears on the pages of a newspaper, it’s always for a purpose, but there’s no telling what effect it will have. Jokes, like any other message, have their greatest impact when they are made subject to the criticism of the masses.
Newspapers, television, radio, and other forms of media are all breeding grounds for the controversy political humour has been known to instigate. But what purpose does humour serve in the media? What makes it unique as a tool for conveying a message?
Political humour can be seen to have a threefold function. It has a critical function when it focuses attention on some incongruity, some disparity between the way things are and the way they should be. Its purpose is often to spark resistance to this disparity.
A political joke usually draws a line between an “in” group and an “out” group, and so can also have a cohesive function when it creates solidarity in those laughing together at the “out” group. The “out” group can be an ethnic minority or an individual oppressor, for example.
Political humour can also serve a coping function when it is produced by an oppressed group to help deal with their suffering. A historical example of this would be during World War II, when Jewish people would tell jokes about the Holocaust.
Just as political discourse has changed over the years, so too has the nature of political comedy. Decades past saw a cultivation of bluntness with regard to ethnic and religious humour. Little was held back and jokes about minorities were told with ease and taken more lightly.
With the rise of left-wing politics, the notion of political correctness came to have meaning, and over time we began to truly understand the power of words and images in the media.
What I see now is a loss of innocence in the realm of political humour. The most recent and poignant example that comes to mind to illustrate this point is the international crisis that was caused by religious cartoons originally published in Danish newspapers.
These cartoons, which depicted the prophet Muhammad in ways that were highly offensive to many Muslims, crossed a very thin and blurred line between acceptable and unacceptable political humour. The aftermath of the decision to publish these cartoons forced us all to revisit the ever-popular debate about freedom of speech versus protection of rights and respect for cultural diversity.
Apart from extraordinary instances however, it’s safe to say that there is generally great regard and respect for individual rights where political humour in the media is concerned, especially in North American society.
While public figures in politics still seem to be fair game, there are certain rules that apply for jokes about religion, culture, ethnicity, and social class. In fact, there is very little ethnic humour in the public domain except for humour that uses racism as the butt of the joke, and “upwards” and inter-ethnic humour. It is also considered acceptable to joke about your own group. We see these standards at play every time we read a newspaper or watch Saturday Night Live.
With each passing day our view of what qualifies as “crossing the line” continues to change. We must be more careful and sensitive than ever before and realize that a wrong move can be catastrophic.
But we will continue to play with fire. It’s in our very nature to use humour as a means of communication, and what’s more, it has a power and function comparable to no other.
The world presented in comedy is the same all-embracing world depicted in every other medium of expression, merely from a different perspective. So can it be argued that no subject should be off limits? Maybe not. All we can be certain of is that political humour will change and become more complex, but always remain prevalent.
