Stereotypes and Jokes

I love to laugh, and I love good comedy.  Jim Gaffigan, Chris Rock, and Aziz Ansari are some of my favorite widely known comedians.  I even did standup comedy myself for about a year, performing at various open mics, and even co-hosting a comedy show out of a Jiujitsu gym I trained at.  During that time I met tons of great comics from southern California; some of my favorite were Karl Hess, Billy Bonnell, Rajan Dharni, Christian Spicer, and Zoltan Kaszas.  My good friend David Zafra, whom I had co-hosted the Jiujitsu comedy show with, still performs and is even getting booked shows now.  He's taking the comedy and podcast world by storm with his wild, take-no-prisoners style of wordplay that would have Shakespeare himself saying "damn, that shit was hot!  Now time to go smoke a blunt and write some more dick jokes."

Me doing standup, circa 2012.

 The point is, I'm no stranger to standup comedy.  In fact, I'm quite the fan.  During my time participating in it, I had a lot of fun coming up with new joke concepts and fleshing them out.  I also heard a lot of fantastic jokes of all sorts: some critiquing something about society, some dealing with certain traumatic experiences, some just so wacky and out of left field you couldn't help but laugh.  Then there were the jokes about race, and that's my topic for today.  There's a lot to unpack when talking about race and comedy, especially since there are different ways to do so.

First off, jokes where the punchline is the stereotype.  These are what people, even advocates, appropriately term "racist" jokes.  When you make jokes that draw upon stereotypes, you're perpetuating these stereotypes. You can say it is "ironic" or just in "good fun" or whatever, but you're still bringing those stereotypes to the surface.

Let's take an example of a racist joke I heard recently to look at what I mean. "What's the difference between a Mexican and a bench? A bench can support a family!" Literally, the punchline of that joke is that Mexicans can't support a family. It's feeding into the idea we are all unreliable and living in poverty.  If you didn't know about the stereotype, then this joke could not work.

For instance, we don't have many stereotypes about Bhutanese people here in the United States.  So let's try the same joke: "What's the difference between a Bhutanese person and a bench?  A bench can support a family!"  It's completely nonsensical.  That's what any joke about stereotypes would be if we didn't actually still hold onto those stereotypes as a society.

On a side note, holy shit, look at this picture from Bhutan!

Also, remember that stereotypes have real life consequences.  For instance, the stereotyping of young black folks as criminals means they're more likely to be shot than their white counter parts, more likely to be arrested for drug use despite similar rates between black and white folks, and less likely to receive employment when qualifications are the same.  Stereotypes are not harmless.

Now, if you and your friends just love teasing each other about your backgrounds and only make these jokes around each other, sure, do you and have fun.  But also, try to develop an actual sense of humor?  Because these types of jokes, aside from keeping around stereotypes, are also just structurally bad. Because the meat of your joke is literally "ha, notice that I just said a stereotype?  Pretty clever and ironic, right?" That shit is just weak.

But not all jokes involving stereotypes simply refer to them.  Plenty of comedians bring them up to critique, ridicule, subvert, or otherwise challenge them.  These comedians take these stereotypes on and challenge them.  For instance, check out this quick Dave Chappelle joke about chicken:

 
In it, he talks about an experience of his as a black man visiting the south. He then explores and mocks the stereotype about black folks liking chicken; "all these years I thought I liked chicken because it was delicious, turns out I'm genetically predisposed to liking chicken! I got no say in the matter! That guy ruined chicken for me, I was scared to eat it in public."

Notice how he deconstructs and attacks the stereotype. The punchline isn't "black folks sure do like chicken!" but "man, isn't that stereotype about black folks liking chicken ridiculous?" And that's what comedy has the power to be: subversive and challenging to prevailing ideas. Even outside the topic of race, it can be used to critique society and be a powerful tool for critical thought.

The thing is, when you make a racist joke where the punchline is a stereotype, you're doing exactly the opposite. You're just keeping stereotypes in people's minds without being critical about them, and that's where the difference lies.  A lot of people say "well, if you're criticizing racist jokes, then how about guys like Chappelle and Rock?"  It's a misunderstanding, because they are tackling the subject matter in very different ways.  Talking about your experiences involving stereotypes and deconstructing them is quite different from simply referring to those stereotypes and calling it a joke.

One thing that is important to keep in mind is that anyone can make jokes lazily relying on stereotypes.  Carlos Mencia's entire shtick is based on constantly repeating the punchline that lots of Mexican Americans are here without papers.  No one gets a pass when they are making shitty jokes.

Now, of course there are plenty of shades of gray when talking about jokes that subvert stereotypes vs feeding into them.  I've heard a lot jokes that I couldn't neatly place into one category.  What's important is that we at least try to analyze and think critically about them.

Especially when it's a super edgy joke about ketchup.

Damn him and his reckless comedy!