Leon Rappoport, Punchlines: The case for racial, ethnic, and gender humor

Extract

Leon Rappoport, Punchlines: The case for racial, ethnic, and gender humor. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005. Pp. xv, 181. Hb $44.95.

Written in a student-friendly style, Punchlines examines the state and development of racial, ethnic, and gender humor in the contemporary United States. The social psychologist Leon Rappoport's main objective is to save the reputation of this kind of humor from its “politically correct” critics. Specifically, Rappoport sets out to debunk two pieces of criticism: that this type of humor is inherently prejudiced against minorities, and that it contributes to anti-minority prejudice in society. The author argues that humor cannot be the automatic vehicle of prejudice because its reception is inevitably context-dependent. Different audiences react differently to the same words at different points in history. Also, racial, ethnic, and gender humor is widely performed and enjoyed by members of minorities. As to the second piece of criticism, Rappoport hypothesizes that this kind of humor, the often outrageous comedy of performers like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor, renders intergroup hatred ludicrous and thus contributes to the destruction of prejudice and the decline of the significance of ethnicity in America. Ethnic humor immerses increasingly sophisticated mass audiences in the risky but entertaining and cathartic mud bath of human folly (racism, homophobia, misogyny) and then has them emerge cured from their own prejudices and hypocrisy.