Stereotypical Humor

I was watching "Hunt for the red October" yesterday with a couple of friends and remember making a lot of jokes stereotyping Russians and Blacks (forgive me for the use of this supposedly derogatory term but the intent to insult is definitely not there). I also remember thinking that had a particular friend of mine been there at that time, he would certainly have commented caustically at our misdemeanor. Which brings me to the point of the post. Most, if not all comedy is about stereotyping.

We do it all the time. Whether we are laughing at the social inadequacies of the geeks or chortling at the mental ones of the blonds. Whether we are sarcastically giggling at the political deficiencies of the ruling class or the herd mentality of the upwardly mobile middle. We stereotype the 'questioning intonation' of the teens as mercilessly as we do the general American obsession with cheese. The relative societal stuntedness of the Indians and the Chinese are as much a source of amusement to us as the unruliness and excessive physical exaggeration of the Italians or the hilarious snobbery of the British. Corpulence is as potent a topic for comedy as excessive thinness and the driving sense of the fairer sex figures as prominently in our humorous musings as the sexual drives of the not so fair.

The point is, stereotyping is most essential to our sense of humor. We need a sort of familiarity with the subject for us to appreciate its ridicule. Imagine trying to make up a joke about an alien blob of gooey substance about which you know absolutely nothing. Although the depth of comedy increases with increasing sophistication, more often than not, at the end of it all lies a good old stereotype. When you have waded through the linguistic tricks and the obscure references, when you have managed to find your way through the intricate forest of jargon, its a stereotype you are more than likely to find at the end. Even as abstract a form of comedy as purely linguistic humor (I am a big fan of which by the way) ridicules and stereotypes our knowledge of language and the way we take it for granted. To say that such a form of comedy is pompous is probably our cry for a subject that we can understand as a stereotype.

I must confess here that we as Indians probably stereotype the most, which again is a stereotype ! But our hypocrisy lies in not being able to sportingly take a joke upon ourselves. On the other end of the spectrum are the Americans who are more than happy to take a joke but who seem to be trying too hard to be political correct for too much of their waking time. But political correctness, as detrimental to a healthy society as it is, is an entirely different ballgame and requires a different arena and a sterner and more acidic tone. So we will leave it for now.

I feel that the maturity of a society is defined, to a huge extent, by the freedom with which it can mock its elements. Stereotyping, therefore, lies at the very heart of a healthy society since it is so intricately related to comedy. It is perfectly acceptable till it's done with the understanding that it does not necessarily apply to each individual constituting the group. It doesn't have to be insulting to be effective but then what is insulting is more often than not determined by the most regressive elements of the society. Those who twitch their brow and purse their lips when they come across an otherwise harmless piece of stereotypical comedy, generally are moralists if not hypocrites. But then I have not known a moralist who was not a hypocrite.