Joke

A joke or joke is a short, fictional, humorous oral or written narrative that is humorous and arouses laughter. Sometimes it can also be satirical, ironic, critical or burlesque. It contains a verbal or conceptual game based on humor, capable of causing laughter, and unlike the apologue, the fable or the parable, it is not intended to moralize or teach, but only to amuse or distract. It is often illustrated by a drawing (graphic joke) and constitutes one of the main humorous genres.

Jokes are generally considered to benefit from brevity, as they contain no more detail than is necessary to set the scene for the punchline. In the case of riddles or one-liner jokes, the setting is implicitly understood, leaving only the dialogue and punchline to be verbalized. However, subversion of these and other common patterns can also be a source of humor: stories without rhyme or reason are their own kind of anti-joke; though presented as a joke, it contains a lengthy narrative of time, place, and character, rambles through many nonsensical inclusions, and finally offers no punchline. Jokes are a form of humor, but not all humor is a joke. Some forms of humor that are not verbal jokes are: unintentional humor, situational humor, practical jokes, and anecdotes.

It should be distinguished from a joke, which consists of creating a comic situation out of a real person, situation or event, whereas a gag differs from a joke in that the humor is not verbal but visual, as in the case of the pie or throwing of cakes or cream pies in someone's face, characteristic of slapstick type comedy.

History

The oldest Western compilation of jokes is the Philogelos, a Greek-language anthology of 265 jokes collected in a 19th-century manuscript IV or century V. In Spain, the first compilations of jokes are found in the Renaissance genre of miscellany items from the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly courtly, especially Pero Mexía, who grouped them by themes^{[citation required]}, among many others including Juan Timoneda. Some poets especially cultivated this type of court entertainment, such as Baltasar del Alcázar. Also known as salts or facecias, in the 18th century and XIX are usually put into verse and published in book form or in the press as epigrams, constituting a very important part of entertainment literature and frequently occupying a part of the production of the writers in verse (for example, the Cementerio de Momo by Francisco Martínez de la Rosa). In the XIX century, the cultivation of English non sense spread especially. The first professional humorists of the 20th century wrote enormous compilations of them, such as the various ones printed by Luis Esteso López de Haro, who came to gather about six thousand.

Structure of a joke

Most jokes have two parts: the introduction (for example, "A man walks into a bar...") and a joke, which together with the introduction causes a funny situation that makes the audience laugh.

Genesis of the joke

Psychological theories of jokes and their study

Marvin Minsky

Edward de Bono

Why we laugh has been studied on numerous occasions by experts in the field of psychology, in the case of:

• Society of Mind (The society of the mind)Marvin Minsky's work. Minsky suggests that the laughter has a specific function that relates to the human brain. He believes that jokes and laughter constitute mechanisms that use the brain to learn the absurd. For this reason, he argues that a joke, after hearing it several times, is no longer fun.
• The mechanism of the mind (The Mechanism of the Mind) and I am right, you are wrong (“I am right, you are wrong”) by Edward de Bono. De Bono suggests that the mind is a machine that works by forming patterns, and it works by recognizing stories and behaviors to put them in family patterns. When a family connection is interrupted, and alternatively a new and unexpected link occurs in the brain by a route other than expected, laughter is caused with the new connection. This theory explains enough about jokes. For example:
  • Why a joke is only funny when you first hear it: once you hear it once, the pattern of recognition originates, so there can be no new connections, and therefore there is no laughter.
  • Why jokes have an elaborate and often repetitive start: Repetition sets the family pattern in the brain. An usual method is to say almost the same story twice to then say the funny part the third time the story is told. The first two times of history evoke a family pattern in the brain, and thus prepare the brain for the comic part.
  • Why jokes often resort to stereotypes: the use of stereotypes creates a link with a expected family behavior, saving time in the introduction of the joke.
  • Why there are varieties of well-known stories (e.g., the genius of the lamp): this saves time in the introduction and establishes a family pattern.

Freud's theory of jokes

Sigmund Freud wrote about the meaning of jokes.

Freud points out that the joke, together with the failed acts, is one of the ways in which the representations can emerge to the conscious in a disfigured way in facts that transcend our daily life.

Failed acts are causal and somatic actions and failed acts or operations that have a meaning (they carry a message) and a purpose (they fulfill a function), the result of an intrapsychic conflict due to a struggle of forces, in the psychic apparatus., of unconscious (repressed) representations, which want to become conscious, against conscious (manifest) representations. This struggle of forces produces an interference between the conscious representation (disturbing) and the unconscious representation (disturbed), producing restraint and suffocation. Thus, a transaction between systems (Conscious-Unconscious) arises without success or failure of any.

The above produces many appreciable behaviors, such as forgetting proper names, in which not only is forgotten, but is erroneously remembered and substitute names come to consciousness, which persist tenaciously. From here, Freud deduces that there is a certain connection with the mistaken and forgotten name. Sometimes the name is forgotten as a guarantee of purpose. The same applies to forgetting foreign words and strings of words. In the same way, oral mistakes or lapses linguae occur, in which the mistake is due to the disturbance caused by a repressed or semi-repressed idea, foreign to the one that is intended to be expressed; It can occur by word substitution or by resemblance or similarity.

In any case, the disturbance that occurred tries to prevent the memory of a painful or unpleasant sensation from awakening. And what is never lacking in all kinds of mistakes (oral, written, reading, names, actions, forgetfulness, etc.) is the disturbing word or idea, whatever its cause, which prevents a representation unconscious becoming conscious.

These memories that can cause displeasure are presented as substitutes for other impressions and cover the entire life of the individual, they are not present in the memory, but they are evoked by events in the moment or history of the individual and that is how they want to be externalized and in that process they are disturbed. These memories are the so-called concealing childhood memories, which are not exclusively visual and in none of them is the person himself observed.

In the case of jokes, Freud finds that a phenomenon that occurs is condensation, which consists of the fusion of two words forming a single one, and for this reason, even if it is a mistake, it is funny; as in the case of Heine and the word "familiar", in which the subject means "familiarly", but who is disturbed by the idea that this familiarity is only possible for a "millionaire" and this motivated the fusion of words.

Another element can also be appreciated in jokes: displacement, for which Freud alludes to endless examples. Displacement usually leads to fallacy or simplicity. At the same time, there may be jokes that use a material in another sense, double meaning pun with allusion or concealment of idea. And the fun of the joke is not found in the expressed thought, but in the latent idea or in the purpose it carries. All these and those of verbal formation subordinate to the concept of formation of substitutes.

The joke brings with it the achievement of pleasure, which can be deduced from the fact that it obeys the satisfaction of the tendency (hostility or obscenity). Therefore, the joke produces joy by overcoming an external obstacle and an internal one. In the latter, the contribution of pleasure obeys an economy of psychic expense and the saving of coercion.

It can be easily observed, in the joke, how the desire is fulfilled, disguising the intention to circumvent censorship and overcome coercion. Following Freud, the relationship that appears between the joke and the dream is that, in both, the same phenomena are presented: displacement, condensation, unconscious elaboration, etc.; although a big difference between the dream and the joke is that they arise in different domains of mental life and in places of the psychological system that are very far from each other: the dream seeks to satisfy a need and avoid unpleasantness, while the joke seeks to obtain pleasure.

Types of jokes

Regarding the types of joke, Freud distinguishes the innocent joke (which finds an end in itself and maintains a play on words) and the tendentious joke that at the same time time is hostile or aggressive and obscene or erotic. The relationship between the erotic joke of the merely dirty is found in the infantile assimilation of the sexual functions and those of defecation, substituting in these jokes, as in the hostile ones, the aggression of word to that of deed.

Innocent or unintentional jokes, in the sense Freud gave them, are called "white jokes" (or "parlor jokes") without any kind of verbal offense. Likewise, popularly tendentious jokes, depending on their degree of malice or contained vulgarity or when they mention sexual or obscene content, have been called "red jokes" or "green jokes".

One-sided jokes that make fun of illness, disability, or death are called "black jokes" or the so-called black humor.

There is an alternative kind of joke, recognized as "bad girl", that plays with too obvious or non-contextual associations. It usually offends or disturbs the audience who receives it, and in some isolated case provokes laughter the surprise of the bad argumentative quality.

The joke as a mechanism of violence

Jokes are one of the most common mechanisms and pretexts for bullying or verbal violence at school (bullying) or work (labour bullying) and through social networks Internet (cyberbullying), used by bullies to impose themselves on the harassed referring to them using hostile or aggressive tendentious jokes by containing offensive expressions incorporated into a humorous situation that humiliates or denigrates them. In this way, jokes contain and transmit stereotypes and prejudices and trigger discriminatory attitudes, even if they are discursive and symbolic.

Jokes in direct verbal form or through messages via the internet (sms or Twitter) and on social networks, are powerful and subtle means that, most of the time, manage to be attended or "heard"with impunity. 3. 4;. With the excuse of the joke, in many cases they manage to be powerful mechanisms of violence used in many fields, political, between genders, racist, etc.

With the intention of avoiding this type of violence, "politically correct" humor was born, whose mission is to make the public laugh without offending anyone with it.

Common stereotypes in jokes

Jokes generally operate with stereotypes (not to be confused with archetypes) or are extremely rich ways of addressing stereotyped identity and these jokes are generally biased aggressive —following Freud's classification— and therefore must refer to a difference built in controversial historical conditions.

Not all stereotypes are negative and some jokes highlight the presumed intelligence or sagacity and seduction capacity of a certain human group.

• Sexual or gender stereotypes: they represent the traits of masculinity or femininity that popular culture or tradition attributes to each genre. The jokes with this stereotype are considered "sexists" or "machists". It can be included in this category to jokes about characters who represent homosexuals or blonde women.
• Ethnic stereotypes: based on the traits attributed by race or nationality that can be negative or positive.
• Regional or national stereotypes: It is generally those in each region or country that represent a trait or defect such as greed, naiveness, stupidity or ignorance:
  • In Spain the leperos, inhabitants of Lepe in the province of Huelva, are used to represent gross or gross characters. Something similar happens in the Canary Islands with gomeros, coming from the island of La Gomera.
  • In Guatemala Don Chebo is the character in the oral tradition used to represent any adult man who in general is very naive.
  • In Colombia and Ecuador the stereotype is attributed in the jokes to the pastures, inhabitants of San Juan de Pasto.
  • In Spain, Peru, Mexico and Argentina the naive or infantile character is called Pepito or Pepita Or "Jaimito." In Colombia it's "Juanito". It also refers to the "Mama de Pepito" for jokes about jokes about a naive character or nothing sagaz in funny situations with his mother. In Venezuela the stories of Jaimito are very common.
  • In Argentina and Brazil the naive or ignorant character can be the gaucho.
  • In the United States and other Anglo-speaking countries, Poles tend to stare at jokes.
  • In Australia they are usually tasmans.
  • In the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand are often involved with the Irish.
  • In Ireland with the inhabitants of Kerry County.
  • In France they allude to the Belgians.
  • In New Zealand with Maori or West Coast inhabitants.
  • In Nigeria with the Hausa.
  • In Tajikistan with the inhabitants of Uzbekistan.
  • In Germany with the Frisians.
  • In Brazil with the Portuguese.
  • In Sweden with the Finns.
  • In Italy with the Neapolitans or the Carabineros.
  • In Ancient Greece with the inhabitants of Abdera.
  • In Canada with the inhabitants of Newfoundland.
• Stereotype of powerful, strong or brutal man: they are represented by characters of television or film fiction using both the character's name, such as Rambo, or that of an actor who interprets that type of role usually denoting his encasing, as for example the actor Chuck Norris.

• Inert characters or objects: they represent human traits or behaviors to cause rhyme or joke.

• Stereotypes by trade, profession or work: These are the ones that represent for example doctors, lawyers, politicians, police, among others. The jokes usually treat their behaviors with exaggeration and irony and humorous sense in the context of the character.

• Stereotypes for conduct: The drunk or the drug addict, that is to say a character that under the effects of liquor or a stimulating substance, serves to relate with irony and exaggeration anecdotes or jocose situations derived from the behaviors in that state.
• Stereotypes by defects or negative traits and diseases: the stuttered characters, with nervous tics or with leporin lip, among others, are frequent protagonists of tendentious and cruel jokes