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Barbs of the West: Humor of the Western United States
| Article
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19896 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
4 / 1992 |
3,457 Words |
| Author
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Alleen Pace Nislsen and Don L.F. Nilsen
Alleen Pace Nilsen and Don L.F. Nilsen are professors of
English at Arizona State University. They are founding members
of the International Society for Humor Studies and from 1982
through 1987 hosted annual WHIM (Western Humor and Irony
Membership) conferences at Arizona State. |
Barbs in the West are of two kinds: the kind that come on wire fences and the kind that come in jokes. Both serve as dividers and place markers. Jokes occur where there's a moderate level of tension between people. Those who hate each other would rather fight than make jokes, while those who are indifferent to each other won't be inspired to expend the intellectual energy to create jokes. And in the same way that early explores of the Old West knew that the existence of green foliage was a sign of underground water, today's explorers of the New West know that the existence of jokes signifies underlying tensions. Indeed, elements of shock permeate all successful humor. Good humor surprised: It bumps and reshapes our old assumptions, even at the cost of a little pain. Certainly, the vocabulary with which we describe humor indicates the presence of a modest level of discomfort. A wisecrack (reminiscent of the crack of a whip) strikes us as funny, and we would rather listen to a biting satire from a sharp tongued wit than to a pointless joke without a punchline. Even our so-called funny bone isn't' very funny.
Slang exaggerates the matter even further: We crack someone up, break them up, knock 'em dead, fracture 'em, lay em in the aisles, even slay them. A good joke can be screamingly funny, sidesplitting, gutbusting, or a killer. In their preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor, E.B. and K.S. White compared humorous writing to an active child playing with fire. Humor can pass closely by the hot fire of truth, but when it does, someone feels the heat.
Humor From Inside A Group
In his Encyclopedia of Jewish Humor, Henry D. Spaulding wrote that the Jewish people have a fondness for "honey-coated barbs…a kiss with salt on the lips, but a kiss nevertheless." But that humor--the kiss with salt on the lips--can also offend and even cause condemnation. Who tells the joke and whom they tell it to determine how that joke is received. For example, westerners will cheerfully joke among themselves about being anti-intellectual, red-necked cowboys. But woe betides an outsider who makes such a joke in their presence!
One of the reasons that ethnic humor is frequently unacceptable when told by outsiders is that most such jokes are external or crude and clumsy, such as comments about skin color. But when an insider tells such jokes, the content is generally more subtle and insightful, reflecting characteristics and attitudes that the particular group cherishes or is thought to cherish. When a member of the group makes a
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