Mean Humor and the Autist
Mean Humor and the Autist
Most comedy shows are unwatchable to me. This is because I find most humor to be based on making fun of other people. And making fun of other people, I was taught as a kid, is mean. Maybe I should have grown into “more mature” senses of humor. But I guess I didn’t. I still think it’s mean to make fun of people and I don’t particularly care who the humor is directed toward. It used to be different ethnic groups when I was a kid, and I didn’t laugh at those jokes, either.
OK, fine. So we don’t make fun of “marginalized” groups, but if you’re careful to make sure it’s only someone who has power, that’s good, right? Taking down the man. Isn’t it funny to, as comics say, punch up? I don’t know. I feel like this is just another excuse to not have to be kind and compassionate. Even people you disagree with. Even Republicans. Even libtards.
Any time you put a label on a group of people like that and give yourself permission to make fun of them, aren’t you just othering them and saying they aren’t human? I’ve lived through way too much of that myself to find it anything other than dangerous and cruel.
So, yes, if everyone is off limits for making fun of, that makes it very hard to get me to laugh. The only exception I know of this is if you make fun of ME, then I will often laugh. I have no idea if this is a reflex from the trauma of being laughed at for so much of my life or if I genuinely find my own stupidity hilarious. I found Hannah Gadsby’s “lecture” in Douglas to be very instructive on this, coming from an autistic comic who spent most of her career making fun of herself in front of other people so that she could earn a living from her own trauma.
If you find yourself thinking that you wouldn’t want to be my friend, well, that is definitely a problem. I had almost no friends for most of my childhood and teen years, slowly finding a group of nerds toward the end of high school. I sometimes thought of myself as morally superior to other people precisely because I had no friends and because I didn’t laugh at cruel jokes. Now I’m in a more uncomfortable position of realizing that I’m missing something that allows me to laugh the way that normal people do.
It’s painful to be told that the problem is “me,” that I should just “learn to laugh more.” I cringe whenever I hear people say that the only thing they can’t abide is someone who has no sense of humor, because that label has often been applied to me. I do have a sense of humor, but it’s quirky and is usually related to one of my “special interests” that few people share. And no one wants to hear a lecture (except maybe Hannah Gadsby fans) in order to understand a joke about something they never cared about in the first place.
Nonetheless, laughing cruelly at the expense of others isn’t going to be something I strive for. I’m going to continue to be someone who has a problem with even nerd comedies that make fun of women or nerds. I’m going to struggle with joes about trans people or jokes about stupid conservatives or stupid liberal people, even though I’m not those people. I’m going to continue to see a lot of comedy as about allying yourself with the “in-group” and getting protection through laughter by bonding to other people who are in power. I’m not going to participate in this social system, however convenient if might be to do so.