Ethnic Humor, Essay Example

It seems to me that one of the best ways to understand representatives of some particular nationality is to look at their humor and to hear their jokes. Every country has its own anecdote traditions and favorite themes for jokes. Very often it might be quite difficult for people of one country to understand the humor of those from another one. The reason can be that in most cases ethnic humor is based on some historical, social and political facts that might be unknown to other nations, or traditional jokes may be based on the themes of cultural and ethnic features of a nation and its people.

But there is also a negative aspect about the ethnic humor. For example, jokes of one nation about representatives of another one.  Very often such jokes may sound offensive, they can be based on stereotypes and prejudices against a particular nationality, and thus these jokes only promote those stereotypes and prejudices and can increase hostility between two nations. For example, in Japan there are wide-spread jokes about the ideology of Northern Korea, in England about the French and vice versa, in Russia there are a lot of jokes about Estonian slow decision-making, and so on (Davies 213). The funny thing is that almost in every nation it is absolutely acceptable to make jokes about their own country, but it may be deemed extremely offensive if such a joke is made by a representative of another nation.

However, for me still the most important point about ethnic humor is that it gives certain type of insight into the psychology and cultural particularities of a country and its people. In every nation there is its own example of classical humor. In the United Kingdom it is Oscar Wilde, in the USA it is Mark Twain, in France – Moliere, and so on. By reading works of Wilde it can be understood that English people joke in a more sarcastic way, they like different sorts of puns, and also Englishmen enjoy making jokes about themselves. Mark Twain’s works show that Americans make jokes in a more direct and open way, without some hidden ideas, and they are very ironical. From this point of view French humor is more sophisticated, as British it has a lot of puns, but French are still more delicate.

However, together with traditional and classical humor it is quite important to know and understand the contemporary humor of a nation. In every country there are some modern movies, TV- shows, or books that give examples of contemporary jokes, of the themes that a nation finds to be the most humorous at this particular time period. Thus if one wants to get an understanding of what type of humor is popular today in the USA one simply needs to watch several episodes of “F.R.I.E.N.D.S.”, in the UK it is the movies about Mr. Bean and episodes of “Jeeves and Wooster” with Hugh Laurie, in France it is classical comedies with Pierre Richard and Louis de Funes.

So a conclusion may be drawn that ethnic humor is a very interesting and at the same time quite a tricky thing. It can provide a lot of information about a nation, its features and characteristics of its people. However, ethnic jokes are sometimes seen as a type of verbal hostility and therefore they can lead to aggressive actions from one of the sides.  That’s why one should always keep in mind that what sounds funny in one country, may seem insulting in another one.

References

Davies, Christie. Ethnic Humor Around the World: A Comparative Analysis. Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1996.

Mitchell, Henry. “Ethnic Humor Around the World.” National Review (1991).