The case for dark humor

Why we laugh despite our better selves

Until yesterday, I never thought I could ever watch someone say “Heil Hitler!” anywhere but in a documentary…and find it funny. I did. And I was startled as you are.

My newfound obsession with French comics (not the book kind) brought Ils Sont Partout — They Are Everywhere to my phone screen. Here, Yvan — a Jewish man — shares with his counselor about anti-Semitism and the woes of being Jewish in modern-day France. By its end, I had but one thing to say: L’audace des Français. The audacity of the French.

It takes a good, large pair to conjure up a hilarious joke about topics considered too important, too serious in a society where the price for insensitivity is steep.

If you are the kind that finds dark humor hilarious, you can probably relate to some retro/introspection where you question your decency after cracking up at something you know should NOT be funny; or at which you should be offended. But you laugh instead. Despite the best of our manners — and correctness — some situations simply override our sensibilities. Here are mine from the movie[Spoiler alert]:

1. A television host exposes the leader of an anti-Semitic right-wing party as Jewish on live television (after he implies in a rant that Jewish people are responsible for the cultural invasion of France).
2. His wife celebrates the absence of Jews, Blacks and Arabs at a party in Vienna (“So white!” she chimes).
3. A Mossad agent, sent back in time to murder the infant Jesus falls in love with his mother instead. (He is eventually crucified in Jesus’ place too).
4. Paris gets nuked after France votes to become all-Jewish.
5. There’s plenty more, go and watch the movie.

Humor fails in two ways: it can either bore or offend. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo incident a couple of years ago, my teenage self was baffled as to why a magazine would lampoon the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), a stunt that would clearly offend to the Muslim community in France and across the globe. I did not understand then.

When it comes to dark humor, nearly nothing is off-limits. Which is what makes it funny. It takes a good, large pair to conjure up a hilarious joke about topics considered too important, too serious in a society where the price for insensitivity is steep.

Consider a few examples:

- “What did the boy with no arms and no legs get for Christmas?”

- “Cancer.”

“What is black and blue and does not like to have sex?”

“The little girl in my trunk.”

What was your response? If you laughed, does it mean that you trivialize cancer and rape? Not necessarily. Humor, like most things we enjoy in life (deliberately inserted), is a mixture of pain and pleasure. It is never straightforward but perhaps, there is an explanation.

The Benign Violation theory posits that humor only occurs when something seems wrong, unsettling or threatening, but simultaneously seems okay, acceptable or safe. It builds on the work of a linguist — Thomas C. Veatch, PhD. The gist is that when the tone of a joke is playful, or its setting safe, a violation that might otherwise elicit sadness or fear instead leads to laughter. For this to work, these three conditions have to be fulfilled:

• The situation is a violation — something that threatens one’s view of how the world should be — in my case, no jokes about the Jewish people’s unfortunate past and anti-Semitic tropes.
• The situation is benign — the audience does not perceive any harm to be done.
• Both perceptions occur simultaneously — we are more likely to laugh when a friend falls on their ass and does not get hurt than when they do and get hurt.

A joke fails or succeeds depending on how distanced you are from its subject. It could be spatial (relating to space) — a tragedy in a far off place may not strike you as squarely as one next door; or social (a joke about genocide? highly not recommended in Kigali); or temporal (a problem from a decade back might be easier to laugh at than a current crisis); or mental ( a hypothetical situation isn’t at threatening as a real one).

In the context of a movie or a dark meme, we are well separated from the premise of the jibe. Our subconscious is (at least) temporarily desensitized to the insult. A chuckle escapes. This is why dark humor appeals to some and repels others. Our sensitivity to certain topics varies. What one may see as a benign jab, another may find revolting, depending on how close to home it hits. That screenwriters and meme lords continue to mint jokes about taboo subjects may well lead to the conclusion that there is nothing we can’t find funny — at least when it is presented right.

We laugh. Not because we are bad people with a simmering inclination towards evil, but because hilarity and pain are inextricably bound together. It calls for sensitivity and nuance, both of which come in short supply lately.

The only question left is how much more dark humor one can get away with. I’ll let you know when I find out. For now, the indulgence continues.