No such thing as a joke?

April 30, 2007 6:44 AM

Freud once said there's no such thing as a joke?

I'm interested in the theory that there is no such thing as a joke. Actually, I think I just want a really witty response when someone tries to mask hostility by calling it a "joke".

A quick web search about Freud's book "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious" said he "theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure. The first purpose (which includes satire and defense) is fulfilled through the hostile joke, and the second through the dirty joke."

Dirty jokes are obviously awesome. But I'm interested to hear if anyone has any interesting articles, thoughts, or responses to hostile jokes.

posted by hokie409 to society & culture (22 comments total)

"So if that was a joke, why wasn't it funny?"
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:01 AM on April 30, 2007

I think if you respond with a theory about "all jokes", you'll just look humorless.

Also, by a "witty response" do you mean one that eviscerates your opponent and lays bare his intention to all or do you mean one that diffuses the tension the unfunny hostility created in everyone who heard it?
posted by DU at 7:05 AM on April 30, 2007

I think if you respond with a theory about "all jokes", you'll just look humorless.

That's very true. It reminds me of the literature classes I took where a student would suggest something about, say, a character, and the professor would raise his eyebrows and say "Ah. But really, what is a character?" That's not a particularly useful response, you know? Postmodern fucks.

Ahem.

Dirty jokes are obviously awesome.

I think we should talk about this instead.
posted by danb at 7:12 AM on April 30, 2007 [1 favorite]

Actually, I think I just want a really witty response when someone tries to mask hostility by calling it a "joke".

If you are asking for help with teh funny, be prepared. Whatever "witty" response you offer is not going to shut down someone with a hostile sense of humor, it will make them insult you more. You will need about a bajillion rejoinders, because the person will always have another one.
posted by 23skidoo at 7:17 AM on April 30, 2007

Actually, I think I just want a really witty response when someone tries to mask hostility by calling it a "joke".

If you are asking for help with teh funny, be prepared. Whatever "witty" response you offer is not going to shut down someone with a hostile sense of humor, it will make them insult you more. You will need about a bajillion rejoinders, because the person will always have another one.

Yes, and also, wouldn't any "witty response" designed to expose others' jokes as hostile also be a hostile joke?
posted by lampoil at 7:23 AM on April 30, 2007

If you feel comfortable, can I ask, what was the joke and the context in which it was relayed to you?
The reason I ask is because is because personality clashes and the opportunity to wound a person under the guise of humour are at the root of some 'jokes'. Sometimes it's not a joke, it's just being cruel and disguising it as a joke/humour.
Dirty jokes are obviously awesome.??
I can't recall the joke right now but it involved a frog and there was no aggression or exposure involved. I'll post it if I remember.
posted by tellurian at 7:24 AM on April 30, 2007

When the older guys in the office make a stupidly racist or sexist joke, or merely say "nigger" or "chink" to get a rise out of me, I just shake my head and wonder aloud why they're acting like twelve-year-olds, when they're twice my age. I think we're down to about once a month, when it was daily when I started six months ago.
posted by notsnot at 7:56 AM on April 30, 2007

Tellurian,
It seems like I hear about hostile jokes secondhand more than it happens to me. Like someone joking to a girl that she only got her job because she is hot. Or a co-worker saying "Nice of you to show up" when my buddy rolls into work at 10 AM. These situations seem to happen mostly with new people. Shoot, I've got a group of friends that can joke about anything and nobody gets upset.

Lampoil- Yes. But a hostile joke back can be so much fun sometimes.

Maybe I was looking for a way to say "Freud (or whatever) said this so you are not joking, you believe what you said. So here is why you are wrong...."
posted by hokie409 at 8:04 AM on April 30, 2007

Worth a read: Rationale of the Dirty Joke.

(way cheaper on biblio.com)
posted by kmennie at 8:29 AM on April 30, 2007

It's not really witty, per se, but a former (Russian) boyfriend claimed there was an old Russian proverb to the effect that "In every joke there is some truth."

I have both used it internally (what did that person really meant to say?) and to call others on putting their feet in their mouths when they think they are being "funny."
posted by whatzit at 8:42 AM on April 30, 2007

What Freud said is that everything is over-determined. In other words, it's both a joke and it expresses something else (like hostility). It isn't that the utterance isn't a joke at all, but simply that the joke tells us something about the joker. He said this about many things. Over-determination is at the heart of a Freudian understanding of the world.

Unfortunately for you, this makes it useless as a rejoinder as, by its very nature, over-determination is something that can be plausibly denied. Insisting on the additional meaning is likely to make you look like a prat.
posted by OmieWise at 8:43 AM on April 30, 2007

My 9th grade English teacher used to tell us that there is truth to all sarcasm. I like to bring up this theory when someone says something (obnoxious - to get a rise out of you) like "Oh yeah, your grandma's so hot, I want to do her." ["Heh, there's truth to all sarcasm...sicko!"]
posted by infinityjinx at 9:10 AM on April 30, 2007

Maybe I was looking for a way to say "Freud (or whatever) said this so you are not joking, you believe what you said. So here is why you are wrong...."

So... why don't you read Freud?
posted by ludwig_van at 9:26 AM on April 30, 2007

kmennie beat me to the Rationale of the Dirty joke. You might also wish to try out the film 'The Aristocrats', but only if you actually like dirty jokes. It is about the rationale and the folklore of the joke called 'the aristocrats' among comedians.
posted by kch at 9:41 AM on April 30, 2007

I think I just want a really witty response when someone tries to mask hostility by calling it a "joke".

Pretend not to get the joke. If you acknowledge the joke in any way you participate in derailing the conversation. By pretending not to get it you keep the focus where you want it and it unbalances the jokester who has to wonder if you're not getting it or he didn't tell it right.

If you brought up Freud, you'd just get an eye roll from me and I would still have succeeded in derailing the conversation.

If you want to learn more about humor, I suggest taking a course in improv. They'll have plenty of lessons on what is and is not funny, and why.
posted by chairface at 10:58 AM on April 30, 2007

In line with what whatzit said, a friend used to say, and I've totally stolen her line, that "a joke is truth wrapped up in a smile."
posted by granted at 11:34 AM on April 30, 2007

A former girlfriend used to shut me down with, "There is truth in jest."
posted by OpinioNate at 11:42 AM on April 30, 2007

I just found this excellent article last week:
The Theory of Humor
He describes three parts to what constitutes "a joke" by a perceiver, and explains why it's subjective. There's lots of stories and examples to illustrate his points. Really fascinating.

From personal experience, I feel that people sometimes tend to joke about the things they care most about. It's a way to mask the pain, or relate ideas with the option of taking the backdoor of "teasing/humor" in case it's not received well.
posted by iamkimiam at 1:02 PM on April 30, 2007

I see where you're coming from, but don't pull out anything about Freud, or anything serious at all. The other person will just be able to paint you as taking the situation too seriously. You don't want to be perceived as putting too much thought into anything the person says. If his joke was a real cheap shot, tell him so. But the most effective method is to just stop being nice to him, and treat him as if he didn't exist, or use the same kind of jokes against him long as he does so to you (and use the same "it's just a joke defense"). Then he'll get the message.
posted by wireless at 1:25 PM on April 30, 2007

I would recommend the book
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken.

This book isn't theoretical, but it has some good ideas about people who say offensive things, get caught, and say, I was only kidding.
posted by mai at 1:25 PM on April 30, 2007

hokie 409 said: A quick web search about Freud's book "Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious" said he "theorized that jokes have only two purposes: aggression and exposure.

and telllurian said: I can't recall the joke right now but it involved a frog and there was no aggression or exposure involved. I'll post it if I remember.

To clarify: Freud did not claim that all jokes must be either aggressive or exposing. What Freud wrote was that if a joke has a purpose, then the purpose is either aggression or exposure. Not all jokes have a purpose. Some are "innocent" or "non-tendentious" and do not serve an aim other than to be amusing, such as jokes that rely solely on wordplay for their effects (e.g. "Why do seagulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over the bay, they'd be bagels").

So hokie 409, if you were to derive from Freud a comeback to aggressive jokes, it would have to be something like, "Yeah, that was a joke, but it was a TENDENTIOUS joke and don't try to pretend it wasn't!" As previous responses have pointed out, this approach is unlikely to cut much ice with the teller of the joke.
posted by Orinda at 5:21 PM on April 30, 2007

In my experience, a lot of hostile joking is perpetrated by passive-aggressive people who are blowing off some resentment steam at their target. If you, the target, make it obvious you won't acknowledge what they're doing when they make a transparently hostile joke, they only resent you more, even if they don't have the balls to confront you about why. Meanwhile, acknowledging what they're doing is a sticky situation that can get you into a worse one.

I find it most effective to either:

1) pretend that they didn't even say whatever it is that's gotten under your skin and move on to other conversation as if they've just done something embarassing and you're doing them a favor by not mentioning it, or

2) Ask them to repeat it. It's surprising how often they won't. I figure that gets some of them who are actually ashamed of their own behavior, and gets the rest of them too because everyone hates having to repeat themselves, especially when they think they've just been stunningly clever and displayed perfect timing.
posted by zebra3 at 8:01 AM on May 1, 2007