1. Chapter 2 Humor and Anthropology
by Don and Alleen Nilsen

2. Humor, like story-telling, is a social construct
Humor, like story-telling, is a social construct. The Navajo story teller is a good metaphor to illustrate this concept. A person telling a story needs an audience. A person telling a joke or a humorous anecdote also needs an audience. Ethnic identification in the field of humor studies is an advantage, not a disadvantage. It allows a person to inform an audience about his or her ethnic specialness.

3. Kachina Fountain at ASU
The stone figures on this fountain were carved by Indians from what is now Mexico. This fountain stands in the ASU “Quad.” It is surrounded by Old Main, the Foundation Building, the University Club and the Language and Literature Building. It has been a traditional gathering place for more than 100 years.

4. ASU Cowboy Poet Jim Blasingame
Professor Blasingame works with ASU Regents Professor Simon Ortiz. Together they bring Native American writers to campus including Sherman Alexie. They’re the faculty sponsors of our Native American program. Jim has also been a co-sponsor with Tracey Flores of the very successful “Dia de Los Libros” program. Jim has attended a number of ISHS Conferences.

5. University of Illinois and Chief Illiniwek
A graduate from the University of Illinois displays her treasured Chief Illiniwek mugs. She is now living in Arizona, and is one of thousands and thousands of graduates who fondly remember Chief Illiniwek. He is no longer a mascot, but he is still a “Revered Symbol” on campus.

6. This is the Phoenix Indian School, which lasted from 1891-1990.
Indians from various tribes (Apache, Navajo, Hopi, Papago, etc.) attended regional Indian Schools, mostly in Western States.
They were taught English language and American Culture, and were encouraged to accept a Pan-Indian view of life and discouraged from tribal thinking.

7. Indian Crafts
In Arizona and elsewhere, Kachina dolls are highly valued. Other native crafts include silver and turquoise jewelry making, the weaving of Navajo rugs from the wool of their sheep, the making of Papago baskets from desert grasses, and the making of pottery.

8. The Mexican Influence
Mexican influence is prominent in America’s South West. This welcoming statue in front of a Mexican restaurant “invites” hungry customers in for tacos, burritos, chimichangas, tostados, flautas, and enchiladas. Some diners say that they’re all the same—just folded differently.

9. A Parody about Mexican Food
William Shakespeare wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Later, Gertrude Stein wrote the following circular poem: “A rose is a rose is a rose….” A later poet wrote a circular parody of Gertrude Stein’s poem. It is about the sameness of Mexican food: “Arroz is arroz is arroz….” (Rice is rice is rice….)

10. Italian Food: Linguine (little tongues), Tortellini (little turtles) & Vermicelli (little worms)

11. Humor is Everywhere Anthropologist Mahadev Apte has observed that
Not only does humor occur in all human cultures, it also pervades all aspects of human behavior, thinking, and sociocultural reality. It occurs in an infinite variety of forms and modalities.

12. Mahadev Apte

13. Both Folklorists and Anthropologists Study Humor
Folklorist Elliott Oring has observed that:
Anthropology focuses on the concept of culture whereas folklore emphasizes the notion of tradition.
Folklorists confront and study humor because a number of the traditions they study—tales, songs, proverbs—are humorous.
In fact, jokes and other forms of humorous expression have come to be recognized as the pre-eminent form of folkloric expression in contemporary urban society.

14. Elliott Oring

15. Kan Ghu Ru = “We don’t understand!”
An often told urban legend is that when English speakers first arrived in Australia, they were surprised to see kangaroos. They had never seen animals that could jump so far and so high.
They tried talking to the local people about the matter but of course the locals could not understand what they were asking.
And so they responded in their own language, “kan ghu ru,” which means “We don’t understand you!”
Jessica Milner Davis told us current thinking on this matter can be found in the “Ozwords” url.

16. One of the earliest and most famous mistakes was when Christopher Columbus named Native Americans Indians because he thought he had come to the West Indies. These two photos illustrate one of many cultural differences even 500 years later.

17. As the world becomes smaller through technology and travel, such mistakes are less common as ordinary people make efforts to learn about other cultures. Here a girl in one of our classes tries on an Afghan chaderi (a burka) and then folds it back when getting ready to serve Afghan food.

18. In another example of cultural differences, when the ISHS humor conferences are held in the United States, we use the smiley face on the left But when in 2012 it was held in Poland, the organizers used a face similar to the one on the right.

19. Common Ethnic Metaphors Based on the Colors of RED, YELLOW, and BROWN.
In Asian American communities, current insults are ‘FOB’ (‘Fresh Off the Boat’) or ‘white-washed,’ meaning too assimilated.”
Kids who do not assimilate, drive cars dubbed as ‘Rice Rockets,’ and their pastimes and clothes are likely to be Asian.
A ‘Twinkie’ is a person yellow on the outside, white on the inside.”
Native Americans call other Indians ‘Apples’ if they are red on the outside but white on the inside.
African Americans call other Blacks ‘Oreos’ if they judge them to be brown on the outside but white on the inside.

20. Further Complications Connected to Chinese Ethnicity
Chinese writer Frank Chin criticized Maxine Hong Kingston for Woman Warrior, Amy Tan for The Joy Luck Club, and David Henry Hwang for his plays F.O.B., and M. Butterfly.
He accused these writers of “boldly faking” Chinese fairy tales and childhood literature.
Kingston responded, “Sociologists have criticized me for not knowing myths and for distorting them.”

21. Kingston has explained that in China, pirates illegally translate her books for publication in Taiwan and China.
These pirates “correct” her myths, and revise them to make them conform to traditional Chinese versions.
“They don’t understand that myths have to change, be useful or be forgotten.”
“Like the people who carry them across oceans, the myths become American.”

22. Christie Davies charts the joking targets in 28 different countries
Christie Davies charts the joking targets in 28 different countries. The ones given below are the most recognizable:
Americans consider Poles, Italians, and Portuguese as stupid while Jews, Scots, and New Englanders are tricky.
Canadians consider Newfies as stupid and Jews, Scots, and Nova Scotians as tricky.
Mexicans consider people from Yucatan as stupid and people from Monterey as tricky.
Nigerians consider Hausas as stupid and Ibos as tricky.
The English, Welsh and French consider the Irish, Belgians, and Swiss as stupid, and the Scots and Jews as tricky.

23. Christie Davies

24. Davies also says that:
The most common targets of ethnic humor, live on the geographical, economic, or linguistic edges of the society or culture where the jokes are told.
They live in small communities, or rural areas on the periphery of a nation, and are immigrants concentrated in blue-collar occupations.
“There is no evidence that the targets are stupid, but they occupy stupid locations.”

25. Also, the marginalized groups learn about the mainstream groups, but the mainstream groups remain ignorant of the marginalized groups.
The joke tellers identify with the target groups by seeing them as comically stupid versions of themselves.
The best joking relationship between two groups is when the groups exhibit both “attachment and separation,” along with “social conjunction and social disjunction.”

26. Is Ethnic Humor a Sword or a Shield?
Depending on its context, humor can be offensive (aimed at ridiculing a group different from the joke teller’s).
But humor can also be defensive (aimed at protecting a group from ridicule).
Or it can be both at the same time.

27. An INSIDERS-vs.-OUTSIDERS Example
Why aren’t Jews concerned about the abortion controversy?
Because they don’t consider a fetus viable until after it graduates from medical school.

28. Explanation
If the tellers or listeners of this joke are gentiles, it may be anti-semitic, criticizing Jews as being overly ambitious and arrogant.
But if the tellers or listeners are Jews, it may be an expression of Jewish pride and the extraordinarily high standards of child rearing.

29. When a group member tells an ethnic or religious joke, it opens the door for inner-group communication and invites group members to examine their attitudes and behaviors.
But if outsiders tell the same joke, the effect is the opposite, because the outsider focuses on the group’s most obvious characteristics and implies that these characteristics belong to everyone in the group.
Because outsiders have little power to bring about internal change, the effect is to stereotype the group, and this lessens the chances for change.

30. Legal Issues
An Arizona Republic headline ( ) read “Arpaio assistant takes heat at trial.” Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies were being tried in Federal Court for discrimination against Hispanics and for “inaccurate or false interpretations of federal immigration law.”
Sgt. Brett Palmer admitted forwarding racially insensitive s to other deputies and members of the human-smuggling unit. One was a cartoon of a Hispanic man passed out near a bottle of tequila with the caption “Mexican Yoga.”
Pratt said he “regretted sending the s,” but he considered them to be jokes (our underlining).

31. An Old, More Generalized, Joke Based on Ethnic Stereotypes
HEAVEN is the place where the cooks are French, the police are English, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, and everything is organized by the Swiss.
HELL is where the cooks are English, the police are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and everything is organized by the Italians.

32. What to do about such jokes?
Christie Davies says, that to become angry about such jokes and to seek to censor them because they impinge on sensitive issues is about as sensible as smashing a thermometer because it reveals how hot it is.

33. Ethnic vs. Political Jokes
Alan Dundes says that Americans have more ethnic than political jokes because America has a free press where politicians and politics are lambasted on a daily basis.
Americans therefore have little need for oral political jokes.
But because people are often uncomfortable discussing such subjects as sexuality or racism, these tend to become the hidden subjects of joke cycles.

34. Most of the Success Is in the Telling
Most good joke-tellers do not memorize jokes.
They simply remember the punch-line, the theme of the joke and possibly a couple of particularly clever lines.
And then they RE-INVENT the story by putting in local color and adapting it to something that has recently happened.
Arizona’s congressman, Morris Udall, was a master at this kind of adaptation.

35. Robert Priest’s M.I.C.H. Theory
A psychologist at West Point Military Academy proposed the MICH theory of Moderate Intergroup Conflict Humor.
He says that people will not use humor with each other unless there is some kind of tension or strong feeling.
However, when feelings go beyond the moderate level then humor exacerbates, rather than helps a negative situation.
Therefore, the most amusing jokes are usually found in the middle ranges, because this is where the hostility does not overpower the humor.

36. Univ. of Maryland Scholar Larry Mintz has described stages that immigrants go through as they adapt to the majority culture.
Critical humor targeting their own ethnic group (e.g. Harpo Marx)
Self-deprecatory humor including themselves in the targeted ethnic group (e.g. Chico Marx)
Realistic humor as part of accepting integration (e.g. Groucho Marx)
Critical humor targeting mainstream culture (e.g. Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks)

37. Radio Ethnicity
During the “golden age” of radio, ethnic voices were especially important in helping listeners know who was speaking.
One radio show which ran during the 1940s was named “Allen’s Alley,” and featured Fred Allen.
There was a loudmouth Irishman named Ajax Cassidy, a farmer named Titus Moody, and a pompous Southerner named Senator Beauregard Claghorn, whose signature line was “that’s a joke, son!”

38. The writer of the show, Kenny Delmar modeled the Claghorn character after a Texas rancher who had given Delmar a ride in his Model-T ford.
Even today there is a Warner Brothers’ cartoon character by the name of Foghorn Leghorn who is modeled after Beauregard Claghorn.

39. Basic Principles to Keep in Mind: 1
Basic Principles to Keep in Mind: 1. Someone’s else’s ethnicity does not seem nearly as important as our own.
Most people are happy to develop their ethnic awareness through their stomachs as at this Mexican Restaurant in Arizona.
The appreciation of ethnic humor correlates with how much we know about, and identify with, the joke’s target

40. 4. Even within the United States we have cultural differences as shown on this decorative map at a U.S. Egg restaurant where the egg shells are decorated with stereotypical images of different parts of the country.
Humor is a tool that can be used either for building up or tearing down relationships.
Today, people are more sensitive when they hear jokes, and tellers need to be aware that a particular joke can travel much further than the immediate environment.

41. Toward the end of his career, Groucho Marx worried about talented comedians who would soon be out of work because dialect humor was out of fashion.
Charlie Chan’s pidgin English disappeared from the airwaves and so did Tonto’s manly grunting.
Children no longer read El Gordo comic strips and both Beaulah and Amos ‘n’ Andy are gone.
Bill Dana gave up telling jokes through the voice of his popular Jose Jimenez character and Frito-lay discontinued its Frito Bandito commercials.

42. Larry Wilde, a professional comedian who came to our humor conferences said that jokes are 25% funnier if they are tied to an ethnic group.
He claimed this made them more specific and therefore funnier, but he got lots of disagreement.
Today, what techniques, besides making characters come from different ethnic groups do script writers use to help people distinguish between particular characters as on Sesame Street or in cartoons?

46. Nilsen, Alleen and Don. The Language of Humor: An Introduction
Nilsen, Alleen and Don. The Language of Humor: An Introduction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2019.