The Anatomy of a Joke by Dr. Saniya Kamal (guest blogger)

Have you ever been in a situation where you have a final exam coming up and the syllabus is too extensive, the subject too confusing, and the time not enough? You and your friends make jokes about how you guys haven’t studied anything and have a good laugh. After the exam, you make jokes about how you were all going to fail. The result comes out and you’re relieved to know that you guys passed. Great! You find out that one of you has the highest marks in class. You’re happy for your friend but you make fun of him for participating in the “I’m going to fail” banter because he clearly knew a lot more than the rest of you. But you also find out that one of your friends actually did fail. Would you make fun of him? Objectively speaking, failure is great fodder for comedy but something doesn’t feel right in kicking someone who is already down. It feels unethical. It is also possible that there are bullies in your class who do make fun of your friend for failing the exam. It doesn’t matter to them that he’s feeling awful, they want to get a laugh out of him for their own entertainment.

My intent behind this very elaborate analogy is to demonstrate how jokes work. We use humor to cope with absurd or uncomfortable situations. Sometimes the strangeness or discomfort comes from a group of people that we don’t understand. Their “otherness” is a contrast to our own lives and that contrast is a source of comedy. In these circumstances, it’s good to ask ourselves, what are the power dynamics of this joke? Are we punching up at someone with more privilege than us or are we punching down at the already oppressed? Attacking a marginalized group could be funny, but is it ethical?

Which brings me to Imran Khan’s comments about Bilawal Bhutto. I’m not trying to frame this as a PTI vs PPP debate and my purpose behind writing this is not to criticize the Prime Minister but our entire society that will not only find certain jokes acceptable but respond to them with applause. Let’s talk about the two categories of jokes commonly told about Bilawal.

1. Burger Jokes: These can be great! The subtext in these is a criticism of a class of entitled young people living in a bubble, unaffected by everyone else’s problems and disconnected from the culture. A good Burger joke can make me laugh and simultaneously remind me to check my privilege.

2. Effeminate/Trans jokes: These are…problematic. In jokes like this, a man with effeminate characteristics is called a woman or is said to be behaving like a woman. Sometimes the man is called a trans slur. I understand that a lot of well-meaning people genuinely don’t understand what’s so wrong about this. They agree that it’s distasteful, but is it that bad? Why is there such an outcry? I hope I can clarify what my perspective is and for that, I’d like to first talk specifically about trans jokes. When we jokingly call someone trans and then laugh, aren’t we indirectly laughing at trans people? Look, the trans community is already so marginalized. So often they’re estranged from their families and excluded from the rest of society. They face constant discrimination and violence. Do we really need to make them a punchline too? Making trans jokes is wrong in the same way that making jokes about oppressed Muslims in Palestine, Burma and China is wrong. That’s such a jarring example and just the possibility of such a joke makes me feel intense revulsion. I think the reason we don’t have the same visceral reaction to trans jokes is because the oppression and violence against their community rarely makes mainstream headlines. If we knew the full extent of their struggle we would commend their bravery instead of throwing trans slurs at men we perceive to be ‘weak’. 

So far, I have tried to argue that making a trans joke is wrong, but this discussion would be incomplete if I didn’t also talk about why a trans joke exists in the first place. More broadly, why do jokes about men being compared to women exist? What is it about an effeminate man that provokes us to make fun of him? These are not rhetorical questions intended to shame anyone. I genuinely want to discuss this without judgment. For a long time, I also laughed at jokes like this so I don’t claim to be on a moral high ground. So, why do we find feminine traits in a man ‘funny’?

To answer this we have to ask ourselves: what makes anything funny? I talked earlier about how we use humor to cope with uncomfortable situations. I would go so far as to say that humor is always in response to friction or discomfort. In the face of something positive, we feel happy. In the face of something negative we still try to feel happy therefore we joke about it. In psychology, this is called an ego defense mechanism.

Women taking on masculine characteristics isn’t considered funny. A woman speaking with confidence and fearlessness is admired for being strong and independent. Good for you, we say, for being better than other women. Men are never called strong or independent because the underlying assumption is that they would already be this way. When a man has feminine characteristics, he has exchanged some of his ‘positive’ masculine qualities for ‘negative’ feminine ones. It feels like something has been tainted. And that, friends, is where the discomfort lies. That’s the discomfort we try to overcome when we make fun of effeminate men. It’s buried so deep into our subconscious that we don’t even realize it’s there.

So, what should we do? A good place to start would be to consciously remind ourselves that femininity is not equivalent to weakness or inferiority. It will be hard for a long time, maybe forever, because our entire lives we’ve been subliminally trained to think otherwise. We can only hope that this conscious thought correction on our part will one day create an atmosphere where future generations don’t even question this. It’s an ambitious goal and its practical applications will face incredible resistance. But if we weren’t already fueling everything with hope most of us wouldn’t have voted for Imran Khan, right?

[from Mixed Bag]

About the Author: Saniya Kamal is a graduate of The Aga Khan University Medical College, Class of 2018. She’s unsure of a label for herself but likes to read extensively about films and feminism. For occasional artwork, you can follow her Instagram @kamalsaniya.


DISCLAIMER: Copyright belongs to the author. This blog cannot be held responsible for events bearing overt resemblance to any actual occurrences nor for the author's beliefs.