Humor: the undefinable, the untangible, the hilarious

               Humor is a very elusive thing. Not everyone has the same sense of humor, or even finds the same things funny. I for example, do not think that comedians are funny about 85% of the time. Disgusting comments, racial slurs, and cursing do not qualify as humor to me. Anyone can use profanity, only the people who do not use is should be taken seriously. This being said, until recently I never really thought about the fact certain cultures think that certain things are funny, or have a particular kind of joke. We have learned, through reading Me Funny that Natives in particular, like to reverse the situation. So instead of saying the obvious, they turn it inside out, and make it funny. I really like this concept because when I saw Markus Zusak (author of The Book Thief and I am the Messenger) in the fall, he made a point of saying that humor derives from the unexpected. A story is not funny until something you have not foreseen occurs. He even told us a story where he was sick of being bullied by his brother, so he sets him up for revenge. He switches his brother’s hardboiled egg for a regular egg, and he watches in horror as his brother cracks the egg on his head and is immediately covered in yolk. The funny part of the story is when Markus went to confess the deed to his father, to prevent the disastrous consequences, his father does not reprimand him, he congratulates him on his scheme. Hence, the unexpected reaction from Markus’ dad makes the story funny.

               I personally do not have a Native sense of humor. I realize that part of the reason that I do not is that I am not, in fact Native. But, there are people out there that are not Native that have the same sense of humor; I am just not one of those people. Probably the reason behind this is that I do not understand a lot of the innuendos and the humor that goes in between the Native Nations. I have also never lived on a reservation, so that could indeed be another aspect of the problem.

               I have also discovered that I fall into the category of non-Natives that feel bad about laughing at Native jokes. I am one of the people that always second-guesses my laughter when it is at the expense of other people, regardless of who it is. I feel bad when I laugh at a joke that is about Natives, even though obviously the comedian is saying this for a laugh. This also happens to me with African-American comedians as well; yet I have no problem laughing when the comedian is a white woman. Some white men also bother me, when they make rude jokes about their wives, or things of that nature. I think that honestly what this boils down to is the fact that my own brand of humor is lightly teasing someone about something, self deprecation, and a heavy dose of sarcasm.

               This all being said, I do think that Native humor is at the very least entertaining, and I particularly like Don Kelly and his jokes. My favorite of his jokes is when he is talking about being Ojibway and Swedish- and his name should be "Dances with Bjorn". The rest of Me Funny that I have read so far has been a little bit of a letdown, I had expected it to be a little funnier, and once again that could be due to the fact that I don’t get the humor or don’t have that sense of humor. We shall see though, if the book takes a turn for the hilarious, I am only on Chapter 6.