Have we really had the last laugh?

Sunday is International Joke Day, says Jonathan deBurca Butler, who wonders if, jokes aside, there’s any point

IT’S official. The joke has been included on a list of endangered cultural species. Catch it while you can because it is becoming something of a rarity. Whereas in days gone by it was common to hear someone at a table ask if anyone had a joke, they have, it seems, become something of a faux pas.

Even the New York Times recently declared: The joke is dead.

Perhaps the joke is just not that cool anymore. Not even today’s stand-up comedians tell jokes. Instead they indulge in what has become known as observational humour; a sort of running commentary on the ironies and quirks of life. This Sunday is International Joke Day, but what exactly are we celebrating? Hasn’t the joke become something of a joke?

“Humour goes through trends,” says Professor Eric Weitz of Trinity College Dublin. “It can seem equally bizarre to a later era or other culture. Social joking occurs very much in thrall to specific cultural context and moment, so, for example, periods or regimes of permissiveness or repression can give way to different kinds and tones of humorous expression.”

Professor Weitz, author of The Cambridge Introduction to Comedy, and a member of the International Society for Humour Studies, explains that although the short-form, one-line or two-line joke was popular for a long time in the 20th century, a transformation to modern comedy started in the 50s.

“I think most people trace the beginning of modern stand-up to Lenny Bruce,” says Weitz. “He stopped telling formal jokes in favour of riffing in ways meant to reveal the inconsistencies of ‘rational’ or ‘approved’ thought and social boundaries. That’s when it acquired an edginess or a willingness to court controversy that we see now in the likes of Tommy Tiernan.”

Thankfully, not all of us are Tommy Tiernan. But he is interesting in that his shock comedy trades off something that perhaps prevents the rest of us from telling jokes: an increase in political correctness. The more the joke’s often traditional targets such as women, homosexuals, the disabled and whatever foreigner you happen to dislike this week have pushed themselves to the forefront of society, the more the joke has become marginalised. And perhaps that is no great pity. But while ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ is just pure silliness, many jokes are racist or sexist. “It’s arguable that a joke can’t be any good unless it stands to offend somebody,” says Professor Weitz. “A general cultural move toward social awareness has caused uneasiness about what used to be considered fair game in joking targets. Humour trades on, not only getting the joke’s unspoken connection, but approving its prejudice, which is why I can know a joke has been made, but not laugh at it.

“Society used to routinely approve ridicule of so-called accepted joking targets, and because they were largely culturally endorsed prejudices they seemed invisible, like ‘just good fun’. It may be true that it’s harder than it once was to make a good joke for an unknown general audience, because you can never be sure who’s going to be in it, and we are, thankfully, more socially aware. Some might suggest that ‘political correctness’ ruined all the fun, but joking can be seen as a form of social bullying. It used to be that if a group of men made a joke about a woman in their midst, she could either laugh ‘with’ them, thereby seeming to endorse their belittling of her, or risk being castigated for not having a sense of humour.”

As Weitz eloquently points out, neither situation is ideal for the victim of the joke, but others believe that we have perhaps become a little too sensitive.

“The joke might be dead in the media because people have become so politically correct and they’re scared of insulting or upsetting anybody,” says Professor Des MacHale of Universtiy College Cork. “But the joke is still alive and well in social interaction. If you go into any pub or golf club or workplace you’ll find people telling jokes all the time, and especially in this country.”

Professor MacHale, who is a retired Maths professor, has been collecting and analysing jokes for over 50 years. He has published over 40 joke books and he runs a course on the subject in UCC.

For MacHale, a joke has to have “a target or a sting”. He claims that he has yet to meet anyone who has been insulted by a joke.

“I think the only legitimate answer to a joke is to make a counter joke,” he says. “It’s social interaction. Jokes are meant to sting. If someone makes an Irishman joke, it’s going to sting a little bit, but we’re mature enough to take it. I don’t think it causes irreparable damage. It certainly causes less harm than bombing and shooting, and we seem happy enough to let that continue.”

A man walks into a bar…

Here are a few jokes to mark International Joke Day on Sunday:

Silly: Horse walks into a bar. Barman says: “Why the long face?” — Ken Hennigan

Clever: “I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure.” — Alan Sharp

Current: “Due to the economy, profiteroles will now be called deficiteroles.” — Tom Webb

Traditional: “Doctor, Doctor, some days I feel like a tee-pee and other days I feel like a wig-wam.”

“You’re too tents.”