Can We Find Humor in Tragedy?
Although the school shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas was one of hundreds of incidents of gun violence in schools, it captured the nation’s attention for months on end. Students held protests, marches and vigils across the country. Bills lobbying for gun control, overdue for decades, were suddenly pushed through Congress. The country was reeling from the realization that if a school located in a predominantly white, wealthy school district could face gun violence, no one was safe. Despite the alarm that the event sparked, some found humor in the situation. Jokes mocking the survivors and their attempts to spur change quickly circulated the internet. People ranging from right-wing political pundits to “internet trolls” to comedians like Louis C.K. made controversial jokes that were quickly met with backlash. However, the jokes spawned by the shooting follow a pattern of finding comedy in tragic situations. These jokes fall into one of two categories: jokes that target victims specifically, and jokes that mock the tragedy as a whole.
Jokes aimed at victims include put downs and comments targeting their race, physical appearance and sexual identity—essentially, any deviation from the norm. This relates to the Hobbesian idea of laughing at others for being “infirm,” or even varying from typicality. Emma González, one of the survivors of the shooting and a voice at the forefront of the gun control movement quickly became a target for these types of jokes. Internet trolls and the far right spread insults regarding her dark skin and short hair, calling her a “skinhead lesbian.” Insulting jokes that target traits inherent to her, her race and sexual orientation, are only funny to those not being targeted. These jokes rebel against the tragic images of the shooting and the media’s attempt to spread sympathetic homiletics regarding the students’ efforts to foster change.
Creating a mockery of the victims delegitimizes their movement and hence their media reputation as survivors fighting to ensure gun violence prevention. By rebelling against these grievous images, the joke tellers assert the existence of attitudes not reflected by the media, and iterate that the media cannot determine their emotions. Apart from direct putdowns, a digitally manipulated video of González tearing up the U.S. constitution was disseminated across internet forums. In the original video, González was ripping apart shooting range targets. Justified as “political satire,” the doctored video attempted to spread misinformation and “expose” González as being unpatriotic in order to delegitimize her aims. It forced the audience to question why someone who allegedly does not care about the United States would be pushing for something that is supposedly beneficial for it—gun control legislation. This satirical video appeals to those who oppose gun control legislation because it delegitimizes proponents of that very legislation.
Although the hostility of the jokes can be directed at the victims, it can also be an attempt to decode the reality behind the media image of the tragedy. Comedian Louis C.K. faced intense backlash after joking that the survivors were not interesting, saying that he doesn´t have to listen to them because they went to a high school where kids got shot. By joking that the survivors were not worth listening to, he treaded the thin line between speakability and unspeakability. Making light of sensitive topics or people, such as the survivors, is usually considered unspeakable, but when formatted as a joke, it becomes speakable since it is not meant to be taken seriously. However injurious to the victims’ families and to the survivors, his joke calls out the popular media image of the “brave survivors fighting for change.” He calls out the tragedy itself, as well as the legitimacy of the survivors in leading a gun control movement into question. By doing this, he forces his audience to confront the reality of teenagers leading this movement instead of solely letting them see the survivors portrayed in a positive light by general media.
Similar to the video, this joke may also appeal to opponents of gun control legislation since it questions why proponents of gun control listen to the survivors in the first place. It may also appeal to those who distance themselves from the tragedy. In the media, the differences between a private and public loss are indistinguishable because tragedy is reduced to censored images. These repetitive images and lack of intimate knowledge of the victims creates distance between joke tellers and the melancholy nature of the event, allowing them to make harmful jokes. Emotional isolation from the tragedy allows the audience to take a step back and appreciate the joke without considering its offensiveness or the people it inevitably hurts.
Whether humor regarding tragedies is taboo or not depends on the event itself, as well as the identity of the joke teller. In the case of extreme situations like school shootings, jokes, regardless of who made them, will always injure survivors and families of the victims due to the gravity of the event. However, in less critical situations, such as when a woman makes a sexist joke, it can serve a different purpose; in this case, to mock patriarchal society at large. Conversely, if a man told the same joke, it would uphold a systematic structure that oppresses women. There is a clear difference in the way jokes will be perceived depending on who relays it. The same joke is perfectly fine in the first case, yet taboo in the second. In this way, tragedy is not always antithetical to humor, as it can always be used as a coping mechanism in more inconsequential situations.
by SHWETA KONDAPI