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BS: Jokes and Tragedy
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Subject: Jokes and Tragedy From: Naemanson Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:33 AM Click for the 'PermaThread™: List of all joke threads'I read through the thread with the WTC tragedy joke in it and realized that there are no popular jokes about 9/11/01. This in itself seems to make sense because of the horror and the shock. But generally, a few days after something bad happens, a number of jokes surface. It is as though we can only come to terms with tragedy by laughing about it. Is the WTC/Pentagon tragedy so horrific that we cannot laugh about it? Were too many people killed in too horrific a manner? Or is it too fresh? I believe both points are true. Will we ever begin to laugh at/over the events of 9/11? I believe we will. The laughter is part of the healing process. But its going to take a lot of time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: MC Fat Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:47 AM What do you mean there are no jokes about Sep 11th they didn't come as quickly as after other 'disasters' but they are around and there are plenty of people who want to tell them... but not me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Donuel Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:49 AM If anyone here will eventually gain an historic perspective by surviving this war it is sure to have its jokes and songs regarding disease, warfare, neutron weapons, The Taliban, and a host of other events. There will be jokes told by one group that uses words like rag head and sand monkey and a different set of jokes and songs by people who use the words Peace and Love. Sometimes only humor will allow a truth of a situation be exposed to the light of day. But we have a long night ahead of us and a hard rains agonna fall. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Amos Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:50 AM I suspect it would be one of those "It only hurts when I laugh" situations. Many of us are are barely restabilized after the emotional pain of late September. I did the think the image of rebuilding the WTC as a giant "flipoff" was pretty funny, frankly, not just as a response to the terrorists, but also as a way of acknowledging the character of hard-core New Yawkers everywhere... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Jon Freeman Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:51 AM Naemanson, I think another factor is that some people wouldn't want to post them here for fear of upsetting others. I have only heard a couple and confess to laughing at one of those two... Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Jon Freeman Date: 09 Oct 01 - 09:59 AM Heres something, not a joke but an actual happening that we may get more of. I was in a pub a few nights ago and along with some other people had got caught up some some film that was on the TV. I don't know what the film was but it seemed to have superheroes saving the world from destruction. Anyway, the world was saved and they did the usual sort of shots to show it, e.g. Eifel Tower for France, Beg Ben for London and no prizes for guessing the view of America. Some people went "Oh dear" and some of us laughed, I'm afraid I was was one of the ones who laughed. Jon |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Jeri Date: 09 Oct 01 - 10:30 AM You have to have some emotional distance to be able to laugh or tell a joke about a disaster. I haven't yet talked to a person who didn't know someone who numbered amongst the 5.000 or so people who died on Sep 11th. I don't think most people who DO have that distance are telling jokes, because in effect, they're most likely telling them within earshot of someone who hears the screams of a loved one echoing in their nightmares. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Bat Goddess Date: 09 Oct 01 - 10:43 AM But we NEED humor in order to release stress and try to heal from the horrific events of Sept. 11. In my opinion The Onion Last week's also included this story: Bush Sr. Apologizes To Son For Funding Bin Laden In '80s MIDLAND, TX— Former president George Bush issued an apology to his son Monday for advocating the CIA's mid-'80s funding of Osama bin Laden, who at the time was resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. "I'm sorry, son," Bush told President George W. Bush. "We thought it was a good idea at the time because he was part of a group fighting communism in Central Asia. We called them 'freedom fighters' back then. I know it sounds weird. You sort of had to be there." Bush is still deliberating over whether to tell his son about the whole supporting-Saddam Hussein-against-Iran thing. I grew up in Wisconsin when Ed Gein was tried for horrendous crimes that were entirely out of anyone's ken -- the jokes were therapy, and they helped. We can't let terrorists terrorize our every breathe -- LIFE has to go on! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Jack the Sailor Date: 09 Oct 01 - 10:47 AM A friend of mine has been sending me 10-12 jokes a week. some of the more memorable ones... A picture of UAL and AA planes dropping bombs. The new world trade centre, five towers with the middle tower much taller than the rest. If the Taliban doesn't surrender, we're going to send their women to college. Oddly enough humour, is usually my first defence against tragedy. Not this time. I haven't found anything to laugh about and no one I knew was killed. Perhaps because here in the US South, next to one of the homes of 75th Ranger battalion this is serious business. Perhaps because I realize that Western society has had its head in the sand and we have work do do before it is time to laugh? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Bill D Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:04 AM I don't remember any Loma Preta earthquake jokes either...or any Hurricane Andrew jokes....or Oklahoma City jokes. There simply is nothing funny about real people suffering. (Sure, there is sometimes clever word play or bad puns, but tasteless jokes are just that-tasteless.) It seems to me that most 'shock' jokes are about imagined disasters, or parodies of disaster(what is that squishy stuff between elephants toes?..Slow natives)....or spin-offs such as what to do with the Taliban...that is, irony/sarcasm/ridicule of disaster 'causes'. "Send their women to college" has a certain ring to it.) Humor can help us get on with life and cope...but only if it does not directly call up the pain & anguish again. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Bat Goddess Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:09 AM Oops, I said above that Ed Gein was tried. Actually he was found incompetent to stand trial and was committed to a mental institution for the criminally insane. In 1965 or 1966 they again decided to see if he was competent to stand trial (no -- he died years later still institutionalized) and there was another wave of Ed Gein jokes. Most of these were later recycled yet again during the Jeffrey Dahmer thing. One of the other "good" jokes is about giving Osama Bin Laden a sex change and sending him back to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban. The "acceptable" humor seems to involve heavy irony. Bat Goddess |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: catspaw49 Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:15 AM Yeah Bill....that's kinda' my take too. I'm a real believer in making a joke out of anything and have always loved the Byron quote, "If I laugh at any mortal thing, 'tis that I may not weep.".........just seems that right now there is still too much weeping to do. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: NH Dave Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:15 AM I've not seen any jokes ABOUT the disaster, but, ah la Jack, semi-patriotic cartoons about Lake America, where Afghanistan used to be, and Osama with the Empire State Building being shoved up his fundamental oriface. Dave |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Gervase Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:28 AM There are jokes about the disaster, and some of them were buzzing around the wires within minutes rather than hours of the event. However taste (and the reaction to poor old Max Tone in the other thread) precludes me from posting them here! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Naemanson Date: 09 Oct 01 - 12:00 PM Well, I am either not paying attention or people around here have exhibited extraordinarily good taste for I have not heard any jokes about 9/11 and I am happy about that. I am not ready to tell or listen to the jokes yet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Mrrzy Date: 09 Oct 01 - 12:17 PM Oh come on, we need some jokes. I saw the Message to the Taliban cartoon (give us Bin Laden or we'll send your women to college!), and thought it was funny, and laughing helped. I also thought the Bin Laden Boat Song (a la Banana Boat song) was funny, then, but now that the airforce has really gone to flatten their homes, less so now. But I'm not sorry I saw it when I thought it was funny, nor am I sorry I laughed at it then... more for those who need it? Maybe not on this thread but one dedicated to Read If You Think You Can Laugh? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Airto Date: 09 Oct 01 - 01:26 PM The British satirical magazine Private Eye has got into trouble for putting what was by their standards a rather lame but fairly harmless joke about the situation on its cover. Even hardened readers have been cancelling subscriptions. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Art Thieme Date: 09 Oct 01 - 03:19 PM More people died in this than were killed in all the terrorist attacks from 1901 to 2001 combined. That includes everyhing done in Israel, Ireland or anywhere else. No jokes from me--now or ever. Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: SINSULL Date: 09 Oct 01 - 03:51 PM I had a doctor's appointment this morning. He told me that for a week now he has been writing prescriptions and calling them into pharmacies at all hours of the day and night for near hysterical patients wanting an antidote or innoculation against Anthrax. I started to laugh and couldn't stop. Still don't know why it struck me as so funny. When I finally stopped laughing - he was looking at me in wonder - I asked if I could have a prescription too. Then he laughed. Someone tell me PLEASE what was so funny. And no. I did not get the prescription. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Clinton Hammond Date: 09 Oct 01 - 04:00 PM Taste shmaste! Taste is WAY too subjective to be quantified... I've heard a few jokes about Sept, 11th, but I have yet to hear a GOOD joke about it... I'm waiting for George Carlin's take... he's been ranting about Airport Security and the decline of the Western World for years... He's more predicted this thing than anything that Nostridamus, Casey or any other crack-pot has done... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Pseudolus Date: 09 Oct 01 - 04:16 PM I think the difference for me is what the jokes are about. If they are about Bin Laden, or revenge, they seem to be less provocative because they are about "them". I still wouldn't tell them, but it seems that people are a little less offended by those, me included. When the jokes have to do with the tragedy itself, the rubble, the planes or the victims, I can't handle that. I'm not the kind to try quieting the ones telling the jokes. I simply walk away. But I feel that if I couldn't bring myself to tell the joke to one of the family members of the victims, I probably shouldn't tell it at all. Someone used the example of Good Morning Viet Nam either in this thread or the other one on this subject as an example of humor about a clearly non-funny issue. The difference is, the setting may have been in Viet Nam, but none of the jokes were about the dead. I agree, we need the humor, I respect the right of those to tell the jokes, but we all need that humor in different doses. Some are more ready than others.... Frank |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: SINSULL Date: 09 Oct 01 - 04:23 PM Pseudolus, you're right. I don't recall any jokes about the little girl running in panic after being napalmed or the man shot in the head before the cameras. I do remember a lot of Challenger jokes - tasteless but funny. And starving Biafran jokes, also tasteless but funny. I am embarrassed to admit that I laughed. Maybe this is just too close to home. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Bill D Date: 09 Oct 01 - 06:21 PM oh, lordy!...I had forgotten the starving Biafran jokes! "Did you hear about the Biafran who fell in the shark tank?.....he ate three sharks before they could get him out." ...somehow, that 'helps'..not funny exactly, but make a point. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: GUEST Date: 09 Oct 01 - 06:30 PM It helps to keep this tragedy in perspective. For instance, how many of you know that 25,000 people suffer horrible, violent deaths by firearms in the U.S. every year? Or that over 30 million people have been killed in the crossfire of political violence since WWII? I also question the idea that only people who have emotional or physical distance from a disaster can enjoy black humor about it. Clearly we don't have many ER personnel or emergency workers (ie firefighters, cops, paramedics, etc) on this forum. I have family members who work in those fields, and they have some of the blackest humor I've ever heard, and I've already heard some very grim jokes about 9/11. And laughed. And no--we aren't animals for doing it. You aren't going to see the jokes the emergency workers clearing out the rubble are making anywhere on-line or off. Those folks don't generally share their jokes with "civilians" because they know the reaction would be just what you are seeing here. Dismay, hand wringing, etc etc. Personally, I find the jingoistic, nationalist, racist jokes much more offensive than grim jokes making the rounds about the event itself. And always do. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: Bert Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:18 PM Jon Freeman, you are the greatest. Thanks you for having more courage than most of us possess. A joke doesn't have to be in good taste for it to be funny. Those lesser mortals like me, just giggle and don't admit it. Hitler wasn't funny either but we sang "When the Fuehrer says.." It's a terrible tragedy when any ONE person dies, but even when my second wife died we laughed, at times, at some of the silly things that she had said or done. It's just not possible to keep things in perspective, and it's difficult not to cry when we think of all those who died on Sept 11th.. But if we did keep a really logical perspective then we would have to feel the same for all those who die on the roads or from pollution or from malaria. And there's just too many of them to cry for every one. All we can do is to try to be as honest as our Jon and to try to keep love and compassion in our songs, |
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Subject: RE: BS: Jokes and Tragedy From: dick greenhaus Date: 09 Oct 01 - 11:54 PM (told to me by a cop who had just returned from a 12-hour tour of duty amidst the rubble) " And where's King Kong when we need him?" |