Theory of Humor Series, part 8, Use of Stereotypes in Humor

This series of blog posts has as its ultimate goal an analysis of the comic quality of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy), by John Kennedy Toole. In the previous seven posts, I have defined humor, defined comedy, and discussed comic devices related to hiding and revealing. One problem with writing a text as a series of blogs is that I am publishing pieces of the text before it is entirely finished, and I have discovered that I should return to a subject that I had not fully discussed. This post is such a digression.

For a quick recap of humor theory from part three of this series, humor has two fundamental aspects: incongruity, a contrast that causes the brain to try to resolve a puzzle of interpretation, and disparagement, a non-violent way to adjust an individual's (or subgroup's) place within a group status hierarchy, an adjustment which can be either gentle or aggressive.

The common feature of humorous performances that I failed to mention earlier has to do with the use of stereotypes. The first fundamental aspect of humor, incongruity, is often generated by a text which has two or more possible interpretations. When the comic text begins, one interpretation is the most reasonable one; then as the text ends, the other interpretation is forced on the audience. This flip is called bisociation. However, for the surprise to be spontaneous, the second interpretation needs to be already loaded and hovering at the ready in the minds of the audience. People who do not get a joke often lack the understanding that would create in the background the surprise second interpretation.

The second fundamental aspects of humor, disparagement, is fulfilled by this bisociation because the second interpretation usually lowers the status of the target of the humor.

Among close groups, there is a large shared history populating objects and individuals with known characteristics, which can be used to generate the second interpretation. So if A and B have a friend C who is forgetful, then the story featuring C might flip from an interpretation that C was passionate or heroic to the interpretation that C had forgotten something. And forgetfulness, while not reprehensible, is not a positive trait. The joke does not have to be mean-spirited so long as the target is well accepted by the group despite that known character flaw.

In the joke repertoire of traveling comics or in the industrial comedy broadcast by mass media, there is often little shared history among the audience, so stereotypes about groups are frequently used to create that second interpretation. The group could be a gender, an ethnic or racial group, an occupational group (lawyers), or people from a neighboring state or country. Stereotypes save the effort of building a second interpretation to which the joke flips. Unfortunately, in order to fulfill the disparagement aspect of humor, the stereotype needs to be one that lowers the status of the individual or target group, and this use of negative stereotypes perpetuates and reinforces those stereotypes. Members of the stereotyped group often find the joke offensive and oppressive.

A comic text can avoid stereotypes by presenting a character in the comic text with obvious flaws, and then building the text's bisociative twists on those flaws. The flaws do not apply to an entire group, just to that individual. But that backstory takes time to construct, time that the comedian may not have. Comics often pick on celebrities, because the celebrities have character traits known widely to the audience, which can be easily exploited for the interpretive surprise, and woe be the person who recently was in the news accused of a ridiculous act.

So those who criticize humor for its oppressive quality have a point. Humorists often do employ stereotypes that unfairly characterize individuals within an identifiable group. Again, those humorous put-downs may be on a spectrum from gentle and pro-social to hostile and alienating, and each individual experiencing the humor might assign it to a different location on that spectrum. The comic has to navigate and know the audience well. If the comic uses stereotypes, they have to be ones that many in the audience accept at least at a minimal level. This feel for the audience may even be not consciously understood by the humorist. A gentle humorist is one whose humor generates pro-social feelings among the broadest possible audience; an aggressive humorist may build strong pro-social feelings among a privileged subgroup by disparaging another group within a potential audience.