Using Humor Carefully

Lately my eldest son has developed a habit. He will make a derogatory remark towards someone else (often his younger brother) and then watch for our reaction. If he sees our disapproval he will immediately say, “Just joking.” He’s gotten very good at this – to the point that he can beat us with the, “Just joking” before we can say anything.

 As much as we are working with him to curb his derogatory comments, I am also interested in what he is learning. You see, as strange as it may seem, he is actually learning to joke appropriately. 

 One form of humor, in fact probably the most common form, involves making fun of someone. It usually doesn’t matter who it is as much as the images that we are given of that person.

 For example, in Canada we have Newfie jokes. These are jokes about people from the province of Newfoundland. Now Newfies aren’t any less intelligent than the rest of us, but they seem to be the target of a lot of jokes. The rest of us laugh at the poor Newfies’ misfortunes.

 We laugh mostly because we’re happy that it’s not us who are in that situation. That’s the key to this form of humor – those who are laughing are doing so almost out of joy that it’s not them.

 When I was a teenager I spent several summers living in Houston Texas. At the time I learned that they didn’t have Newfie jokes – instead they had Aggie jokes. It was really the same jokes – only with the word Newfie replaced with the word Aggie. In this case the group being made fun of was the students and graduates of Texas A&M (Agricultural and Mechanical) University.

The problem of course is that we’re having a lot of fun at the expense of many Newfies’, Aggies’ and others’ feelings. That’s pretty insensitive at any time – but it could be down right disastrous during a speech.

A couple of summers ago we were at a family resort. Every night they hosted a show. On one particular evening they had a ventriloquist. As a ventriloquist he was extremely talented. As a humorist he had a lot of growing to do. Every “humorous” comment he made was at the expense of Americans. He wasn’t funny, he was down right rude. Frankly, I was embarrassed. I did not want Americans thinking that this was a typical Canadian attitude.

I hate seeing other peoples’ feelings being hurt by insensitive humor. In fact one of my favorite jokes is, “What’s black and blue and lies in Saint John’s Harbor?” (Saint John’s is the capital city of Newfoundland). The answer – a Westerner (from a Newfie’s point of view a Westerner is someone from anywhere else in Canada) who has told one too many Newfie jokes. 

I love it because the Newfies finally get some justice in a joke.

So, what are we to do? As I’ve said before, humor is an incredibly powerful tool to captivate your audience. You want to use it as much as possible – but use it carefully. If you are going to make fun of a group (or even an individual) do it cautiously – you don’t want to alienate your audience instead of captivate them. 

In our next newsletter I will share with you one of the most effective techniques for accomplishing this.

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Copyright © 2007 David Mudie All Rights Reserved

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