[Ads-l] societal assumptions in jokes

[Barretts Mail]

A straight friend of mine has, on occasion, joked that I am more manly than he is even though I am gay. He recently told me he realized that’s an inappropriate joke to make because it wrongly assumes an association between gender and societal stereotypes.

I’ve been in conflict about this even before he said that.

A contradiction of a stereotype is very much a matter for joking behavior; yet, his objection rings true in that such a joke is offensive at an existential level to many people. 

Cf
About four years ago, an old, white, high school friend of my father’s attended my father’s memorial. I will call this friend Bill. He told of a conversation he had had with a Japanese-American some years before that. I will call the latter Frank.

Bill had asked Frank whether he had been offended at all the racist jokes and language he had used back in the late 50s or the 60s. Frank, he reported, responded that he had not been offended at all because everyone, including Frank himself, had shot out jokes like that. The barbershop scene in “Gran Torino” is definitely a case in point.

My experience is that my non-white friends used racist jokes (indiscriminately with respect to ethnicity) more than my white friends in the 80s to the 00s, though things may have changed in recent years.

There must be some queer and general sociolinguistic material that discusses the clash of such expectations.

Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
Formerly of Seattle, WA
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