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[cultures which have gone through the worst seem to have the blackest jokes. Israel and Bosnia leap to mind, though much of eastern Europe has something similar going on]
I'd be interested in how it differs internationally. The US must be one of the countries least comfortable about black humor. [cultures which have gone through the worst seem to have the blackest jokes. Israel and Bosnia leap to mind, though much of eastern Europe has something similar going on]
I'd be interested in how it differs internationally. The US must be one of the countries least comfortable about black humor. [cultures which have gone through the worst seem to have the blackest jokes. Israel and Bosnia leap to mind, though much of eastern Europe has something similar going on]
Usually starts same day in the UK. We like our dark humour.
These kind of jokes are a time honored coping mechanism. I can remember that it wasn't long after the shuttle disaster in 1986 that I first heard the "Head & Shoulders" joke.
Was the one I remembered. I also remember walking into my 5th grade class and finding the teacher crying. She'd applied for the spot on the shuttle, and had made it through several rounds of the selection process.
For example, think about some of the jokes that are considered crass and offensive in American culture: bits about black people being poor; women being treated as housewives.
While the stereotypes are false, they relate to deep-rooted societal problems. Income inequality is still associated with racial inequality. Women are still underpaid and underrepresented in some industries.
Political correctness is not noble. It's a form of cowardice, a band-aid that prevents us from using humor as a vehicle for thinking about uncomfortable problems.
The harder an issue is to joke about, the more it requires jokes.
People either laugh straight away or never.
I'd be interested in how it differs internationally. The US must be one of the countries least comfortable about black humor. [cultures which have gone through the worst seem to have the blackest jokes. Israel and Bosnia leap to mind, though much of eastern Europe has something similar going on]
Usually starts same day in the UK. We like our dark humour.
Humor can be painful because there's a grain of truth in every joke. For example, think about some of the jokes that are considered crass and offensive in American culture: bits about black people being poor; women being treated as housewives. While the stereotypes are false, they relate to deep-rooted societal problems. Income inequality is still associated with racial inequality. Women are still underpaid and under…
If I were to constantly make jokes about how black people were all burglars and rapists, and women should spend all day in the kitchen, at some point I might blur the line between irony and implicitly endorsing the generalization.
I don't claim that I haven't made the types of jokes you describe, but at the same time, I don't consider it "cowardly" that some find such jokes categorically offensive