A man arrives home early from work one afternoon to find his wife sprawled out on the bed, gasping and panting.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Err,” she stutters. “I… um… I think I’m having a heart attack!” “Oh,” exclaims the gullible husband, “quick, I’ll call an ambulance!” He rushes downstairs, grabs the phone, and starts dialing 911. Suddenly, his son Johnny appears, sobbing his little heart out. “What’s wrong, son?” the father asks.
“Uncle James is in the closet with no clothes on, Daddy,” the tearful toddler replies. Furious, the man bolts back upstairs, yanks open the wardrobe, and finds his brother standing there, completely naked, just as his son had said.
“You bastard, Jim,” the man yells. “My wife is over there having a heart attack and you’re running around naked scaring Johnny!”
Importance of Jokes
In therapy sessions, the topics of conversation are often pretty serious. There is usually a significant amount of tension involved. A common instinct in many people when they feel tension is to undercut it with humor. Making a joke about a serious topic releases the tension and makes us feel more comfortable. Humor is also a way to say what you really feel without having to completely commit to it. Jokes are an important arrow in the conversational quiver for people who are passive-aggressive. They are a way to say how you feel without admitting how you feel. After all, it’s just a joke, right?
It’s never just a joke. OK fine, sometimes it is just a joke. But there is always a nugget of truth inside the joke. It’s like how we give dogs pills by putting them inside a scoop of peanut butter. The pills are the truth, and the peanut butter is the humor that makes it go down easier. Or unnoticed. For most of my life, I made a living making jokes. In a professional setting, writing comedy for film and television, my job was to understand the personalities of the characters in the shows I wrote for, the type of family life they experienced growing up that molded them into the people they have become, all the factors of their personality that would influence their point of view and how they would express it, and write jokes from that point of view. It is through a strong understanding of a character’s psychological makeup that the basis for their jokes is discovered. That’s what makes a great joke, in my opinion. It’s funny, but it also reflects a character’s personality and point of view. As viewers, this is how we appreciate a good joke. It’s the point of view motivating the character making the joke.
However, that’s the world according to television comedy, which, while approximating reality, is far different from it. Similar jokes made between romantic partners, parents, or co-workers in real life often do not land as well. These are the jokes that don’t have the luxury of a laugh track to soften the blow. Sometimes these jokes are ways for us to express emotions like anger, fear, jealousy, or shame, but in a safer way than talking about them openly. These are the jokes that are so clearly manifestations of the uncomfortable truth that we feel obligated to say, “It’s just a joke!”