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Jokes and targets PDF

328 Pages·2011·1.534 MB·English
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Sociology • Humor Davies Jokes and “The most distinguished scholar of ethnic humor in the postwar period . . . has collected and organized a large body of jokes and TargeTs identified and described the contradictory values or ideas they manipulate.” Jokes and Targets takes up an intriguing and J —Paul lewis, author of entertaining topic—the social and historical o Cracking Up: American Humor origins of jokes about familiar targets such in a Time of Conflict as bankers, used car salesmen, rustics, k the military, blondes, aristocrats, and the “a definitive account of what is probably the practitioners of a great variety of kinds of most numerous and dominant kind of sex. christie Davies explains why political e joke, those with a definite target. Davies’s jokes flourished in the soviet union, why s scholarship is the state of the art.” Jewish men tell jokes about Jews and sports, why europeans tell jokes about american —Victor raskin, author of lawyers but not about their own lawyers, a The Primer of Humor Research and why sex jokes often refer to france n rather than to other countries. one of the “why are stupidity, cunning, and a variety of world’s leading experts on the study of d sexual proclivities attributed in jokes to humor, Davies provides a wide-ranging and particular groups and social classes? detailed study of the jokes that make up an T christie Davies reviews a broad range of important part of everyday conversation. jokes to formulate an answer.” a —elliott oring, author of christie DaVies is Professor r Engaging Humor emeritus of sociology at the university of reading, uk. his previous books g include Ethnic Humor around the World: A Comparative Analysis (iuP, 1990); e Jokes and their Relation to Society; and T The Mirth of Nations. s INDIANA University Press Christie Davies Bloomington & Indianapolis indiana iupress.indiana.edu 1-800-842-6796 Jokes and TargeTs Jokes and TargeTs • Christie Davies Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis This book is a publication of National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Indiana University Press Printed Library Materials, ANSI 601 North Morton Street Z39.48-1992. Bloomington, Indiana 47404-3797 USA Manufactured in the United States of iupress.indiana.edu America Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Fax orders 812-855-7931 Publication Data Orders by e-mail [email protected] Davies, Christie. © 2011 by Christie Davies Jokes and targets / Christie Davies. All rights reserved p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and No part of this book may be reproduced index. or utilized in any form or by any means, ISBN 978-0-253-35619-2 (cloth : alk. pa- electronic or mechanical, including photo- per) — ISBN 978-0-253-22302-9 (pbk. : alk. copying and recording, or by any informa- paper) 1. Wit and humor—Social aspects. tion storage and retrieval system, without 2. Wit and humor—Psychological aspects. permission in writing from the publisher. 3. Wit and humor—Political aspects. I. The Association of American University Title. Presses’ Resolution on Permissions consti- PN6149.S62D36 2012 tutes the only exception to this prohibition. 152.4’3—dc22 The paper used in this publication meets 2010039258 the minimum requirements of the American 1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12 11 For Janetta, and in memory of my father, Christy Davies Contents Acknowledgments · ix Introduction: Why Study Jokes and Targets? · 1 1 Mind over Matter: A General Theory of Jokes about the Stupid and the Canny · 20 2 Blondes, Sex, and the French · 69 3 Jewish Women and Jewish Men · 113 4 Sex between Men: Places, Occupations, and Classes · 154 5 The Great American Lawyer Joke Cycle · 184 6 The Rise of the Soviet Joke and the Fall of the Soviet Union · 213 Conclusion · 253 References · 279 index · 301 Acknowledgments The writing of this book was made possible by a research fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust in 2008–2009 that enabled me to make two extended visits to the Folklore Archive at the University of California, Berkeley and the Schmulowitz collection at the San Francisco public library and also to work in the Cummings Library of Humour at Uni- versity College Cork in Ireland. I must thank the Leverhulme Trust and also all the exceptionally helpful and friendly archivists and librarians in these institutions, notably Jean Bascom, Joy Tang, and Ted Biggs in the Berkeley archive, Andrea Grimes and her colleagues in the Schmulowitz collection, and John Fitzgerald and his colleagues at the Boole library in Cork. I should also remember here the late Alan Dundes, who cre- ated the Berkeley archive and who first encouraged me to make use of it. My final debt is to the staff of the library of the University of Reading in England and particularly the interlibrary loan department, who as always proved adept at finding the unfindable. I also acknowledge the financial assistance of the British Academy and the Estonian Academy of Sciences, who funded my visit to the Uni- versity of Tartu and the Estonian Literary Museum, and I thank Piret Press for helping to arrange my visit there. It enabled me to consult the leading Estonian humor researchers Arvo Krikmann, whose work was being celebrated, and Liisi Laineste. There are two institutions to which all humor scholars are grateful, namely, the well-established International Society for Humor Studies and its executive secretary, Martin Lampert, and Willibald Ruch’s celebrated ix

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