Humor Used in Different Ways

 

The Times article “Why I use Humor When Talking About My Sexual Assault,” and Ralph Ellison’s article “American Humor” describes how humor can be used in many different ways, and for different reasons as well.

In Time’s article, Myriam Gurba writes about how she uses humor to cope with her sexual assault. While using this tactic may prompt others to think, “oh, it must’ve not been that bad if she uses humor to talk about it,” Gurba writes how she uses humor as a form of action. She turns the definition of humor on its head as she says that rape itself is the “sickest practical joke ever invented.” Gurba uses humor to normalize talking about sexual assault because as she states in her closing sentence, society still has not become “intimate” enough with talking about it, and it’s something that must be talked about. Gurba also writes about how humor helps the healing process because she states that humor “requires spontaneity” and later on Dr. Jack Saul states that he knows when a trauma patient has recovered when they have the “ability to exercise spontaneity.” Gurba using humor to talk about her sexual assault reminded me of Tyler Perry using humor to talk about his own traumas as well. Even though he was heavily abused as a child, Perry/Madea still “joke” about giving children an “ass-whoopin'” to educate them. Even though some people may be surprised by how “easily” Gurba and Perry talk about heavy topics like that, through them using humor it means that they are able to “exercise spontaneity,” which in a way, means that they have recovered. The reason why they use humor is that they have come to terms with what happened and can now express their feelings in a way that is comfortable for them.

Ellison’s article on the history of American humor was interesting, yet may be somewhat questionable. He starts off by writing that American humor started when the colonizers first arrived in America. The people that came over had to realize that the nature, crops, and insects of the “new world” were not going to be like the ones in the English countryside, and through those hardships of learning how to adapt to the new environment, humor was created through stories. This made me wonder about the Native Americans, the people who had to suffer through their own problems as well. Now, I wonder if the Native Americans that were in the land found humor in the colonizer's hardships as well. Ellison then states that later, “some agency had to be adopted which would allow us to live with one another without destroying one another, and the agency was laughter— was humor.” He mentions that humor allowed “us to adjust to one another in our diversity,” yet, this is ironic considering American history’s relationship with race. This is especially interesting because Ellison is a black author as well. If anything, it shows how everyone uses humor to deal with their particular situations, as Ellison states, it does create a "humanizing factor" too. One thing which I personally think is that there is definitely a difference between "white" humor and "non-white" humor, with "white" humor being more critical and "non-white" humor attempting to make light of hardships.