Humour Apparently Isn’t a Laughing Matter

Forever gone are the times when I labelled everything that seemed reprehensible as “gay” or "retarded", and that's the dubious acronym "P.C."'s fault. Don’t get me wrong- I think that’s a good thing. Having a descriptor for sexual orientation or a mental disorder double as a synonym for “negative” clearly does nothing to add to human understanding.

Recently, however, political correctness has invaded the realm of the funny. God forbid someone should laugh at something that is upsetting to somebody out there. If someone does, I’m certain we will all have to hear about it later- be it from an upset individual or an affronted special interest group, in person or through a letter to the editor in the Gateway. Lately, for example, it hasn’t been very fashionable to laugh at rape or sexual assault. Individuals finding humour in the likes of admittedly crude student comics must, according to the affronted, clearly not realize the gravity of these offences, and contribute to the general societal indifference to the victims’ plights.

Now, excuse me while I call a big, fat bullshit on that. Firstly, humour is, among other things, a coping mechanism. Ever notice how people laugh when they’re uncomfortable? Ever seen somebody start laughing after they’ve narrowly escaped an accident? Exactly. Secondly, almost all jokes (save puns, and sometimes even they) are, in one way or another, politically incorrect. At the very least, we laugh about stupid people. Isn’t that unfair to the ones among us who are just a bit slower than the rest? Take that to an extreme, and we laugh about the developmentally disabled. We laugh at people being cheated on, people having horrible diseases (remember the leper jokes?) and even at people dying(famous last words, anyone?). And I’m already looking forward to seeing someone- and note that that is a real, existing person- wipe out beautifully this winter trying to catch his or her bus. Humour is humanity’s way of dealing with some of life’s unpleasant aspects on a daily basis- a protection mechanism without which we’d all be sitting in the bathtub with a nice set of razorblades right now.

That said, I realize that everybody’s sense of humour has its limitations, depending on his or her personal history. If your older sister just suffered a stillbirth, you probably won’t find dead baby jokes very funny, and if you’ve grown up in Ethiopia, you might not have laughed as loudly as I did when the Blue Nile Restaurant ran out of food one night. For me, having grown up in Germany, it’s the German jokes. I find them lowly, misinformed throwbacks into the WWII era, where German is synonymous with Nazi and all my fellow citizens are callous murderers screaming at each other in Russian all day. I find my head swelling up with anger when I, for the umpteenth time, watch a Hollywood comedy where all Germans have whiteblond hair and walk around like evil robots, and the theatre around me is roaring with laughter.

A little while ago, though, I have come to realize that even though they laugh, most people don’t actually believe these stereotypes. Whenever I meet one of the few who does, I either choose to ignore that person, or, more frequently, if I deem them to be receptive, try to clear up their misconceptions in a serious conversation. Still, even now that I’ve had said conversations with virtually all people that are close to me, most of them continue to find scenes like the one in Dodgeball - where the German team prays to David Hasselhoff before the big game- absolutely hilarious. How do I cope? Guess what: I just don't laugh. Occasionally, I also throw in the fact that David Hasselhoff had one hit in the very early nineties and hasn’t been heard of since, and console myself with the knowledge that my friends are for the most part smart, informed, open-minded people who would never buy into these clichés.

I mean, please, people, let others laugh at whatever the heck they want. Like, for example, that Canada is so boring and so insignificant in world history that most other countries haven't even bothered to make up stereotypes about it.