The Joke's On You: How to Write Comedy by Stephen Hoover

Author:Stephen Hoover [Hoover, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

Political correctness

As sketch humor has evolved, we’ve seen varying levels of politically correct (PC) humor. The civil rights legislation, women’s liberation, Americans with Disabilities Act, and other such movements have changed the standards of what is considered good taste when speaking about minority groups. As previously mentioned, Amos ‘n’ Andy (about two African-American characters voiced by white men) stayed on the radio for two decades, but lasted only two years (1951 to 1953) on television.

We can all agree that the PC definitions have helped us become more broadminded and tolerant of others (or at least speak like we are). But some people today would say that maybe we’ve taken it a bit too far. Texas A&M University, which hosts an annual competition for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term, gave the trophy for ‘political correctness’ to this:

“Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”

Well, okay, that may be a bit strong, but it does convey the growing irritation with what is and isn’t PC. Why would people want to be politically incorrect? Sometimes because it can bring in more laughs. As we have seen, people love to laugh at the misfortunes of others. The German language even has its own word for this—Schadenfreude.

Just think of how many jokes are at the expense of others. For example, Aggie jokes, blonde jokes, Polish jokes, etc. Exaggeration is used in which you take a characteristic of the target group that may have an element of truth (or not) and blow it out of proportion. Mother-in-law jokes, lawyer jokes, politician jokes, these can all have their place, but it’s critical that you know who your audience is before you try them.

A comprehensive list of today’s PC terms could make for a great comedy sketch in its own right. In addition to racial terms, such as African-American, Native American, Asian and Hispanic, and disability euphemisms, such as vision impaired, hearing and speech impaired, we also can go to ChangingMinds.org to find more PC terms:

 Midget: vertically challenged

 Fat: horizontally challenged

 Bald: follicularly challenged

 Perverted: sexually dysfunctional

 Body odor: nondiscretionary fragrance

 Dishonest: ethically disoriented

 Wrong: differently logical

 Dead: living impaired or metabolically challenged

The freedom of the Internet, with sites appealing to every possible demographic, has definitely opened the floodgates to non-PC humor. It will be interesting to see how the PC strictures evolve in the future.

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