Can we laugh at everything? And who can? Why? How?
After the temporary banishment of a Twitch platform streamer, following a racist joke (I will not give the names or the details, because that does not matter for the discussion that will follow below), the eternal question on the black humor and its bans have returned; can we laugh at everything? And I would add: who can laugh at everything? This post will be used to expose my opinion on these questions, questions which, it must be admitted, have tickled neurons for many years.
What is the question in these questions?
Humor is offensive when it is mockery, and somewhere it is always mockery when it comes to laughing at a community, a skin color, sex, a sexual orientation, etc. So the problem lies in the fact, simple to understand and explain, humorous malice pronounced against a person or a group. I made a joke, I got upset and was mean, so I did not have the right to make that joke and I have to apologize and/or be punished.
The debate that generally follows these kinds of statements has to do with humor permits; who has the right to make nasty, annoying or even disrespectful jokes? Who has the right to practice humor says black? We also wonder about the authorization procedures: if I can do black humor, with whom? To what extent? And with what limits, despite everything?
I will try to answer these questions in the following sections.
Who has the right to do black humor?
1. The excluded: the “haters” of all kinds
Who answers “yes but not with everyone” to the question “Can we laugh at everything?” Desproges quotes. It is well known that this quote — trafficked — comes from this comedian of genius. What is less known, as with many quotes, is the context of that quote. Desproges pronounced this famous sentence in a show that he animated with other comedians. That day, he had as guest Jean-Marie Le Pen. So yes we can laugh at everything, but not with everyone; understand, we cannot laugh with dangerous and disrespectful people, especially not vis-à-vis the subjects on which they spread their bile. Desproges’ response is, therefore, more political than moral; we cannot laugh with individuals who seek to exclude (or even kill) certain members of a community or certain individuals aspiring to be part of this community. It is, in a way, proposing a rule for living together in the “humorous order” — if this thing exists — of a society. If you are a racist, homophobic or other, I will not be able to laugh at everything with you because this humor that I practice is for you an authentic activity; there is no more humor, but insult, discrimination, and first degree.
2. The excluded: Mr or M everyone?
In the excluded, should we include “everyday people”? All the people who make a bad joke, but as we do not know them, it is not clear if it’s a disguised joke or not. It’s a question of doubt. We don’t know the author of the black spade, is it an ugly joke or a form of hidden politeness? In this case, the practice of black humor may be prohibited for everyone, especially if it is not able to make it known that it is indeed a joke; or don’t be afraid of being judged.
From experience, I practice black humor even if my audience does not understand the second degree. If I have to apologize afterward, I do it — you shouldn’t be playing the freedom of expression card when you’ve been heavy, it’s a reflex more childish than political. I think that all forms of humor, black or not, have possibilities of producing a political discourse, a discourse that translates positions in community life. When I make a violent valve, I reproduce the violence but I do not care too to emphasize its stupidity; basically, dark humor must be accompanied by a raised eyebrow intended to say “no but seriously, is there some who really think that ?!”.
However, I feel that today black humor must be practiced with caution because the sensitivity has increased. So much the better, if that makes it possible to produce progressive reflections; damn shit, if it only generates taboos, do not say that, as you tap a child’s fingers without explaining to him why what he’s doing can be a problem. There is nothing worse than the constraints imposed on speeches without justification and reflection; it is frustrating and counterproductive in the sense that the groups one is trying to protect are not able to defend themselves and depend entirely on ‘us’ to be -. It’s even unhealthy I would say for those who claim to be anti-racist (for example), but will reproduce the same behavior as racists by winning representatives and defenders of a group as if it were not intelligent enough to represent and defend himself; these are the same group inferiority judgments between racists and anti-racists of this type.
Let’s come back to the practice of black humor of madam and sir everyone: I remain on the idea that this practice must be done with a question mark, that is to say, keeping in mind the potential need to justify oneself but also to make a mockery of mockery follow, showing how stupid it is to think like the content of the black joke. Of course, they will answer with the famous verse of “we can no longer say anything”, but it is not the truth. It is fairer to emphasize that we can no longer say anything as before; if you are nostalgic for the time when you could make fun of a skin color, a sex or a sexual orientation, without having to justify yourself, without having to think for a second about the absurdity of a racist, sexist or homophobic way of thinking, it may be that you are a little racist, sexist or homophobic. But I repeat, the prohibitions must not take precedence over reflection, that the constraints brought to bear on black humor become taboos preventing us from grasping what is disturbing in disrespectful words.
3. The authorized: comedians
Let’s stay on Desproges, practicing black humor. Some of his jokes on the Jewish community would have earned Dieudonné a trial no doubt. Why is there such a difference between two professional humorists? In my opinion, the distinction is made on the doubt as to the first potential degree of Dieudonne’s jokes. Is he kidding or is he really anti-Semitic?
Comedians, whose second degree would not be questioned, would, therefore, have the right to practice black humor. They are humorists, it’s even their job, so they have professional legitimacy to implement this disrespectful and violent form of humor in the worst case, surprising and embarrassing in the best case. There is not much to add, but it is still necessary to note this free pass which benefits the comedians. It is a professional type of privilege by trade, in the same way, that we will not prevent a doctor from producing a diagnosis on illness, we will not cut the floor to a humorist who practices black humor because that his job is to produce humor.
4. The authorized ones: it is necessary to be a black humorist
It’s an idea that comes up a lot in the debate: if you want to make fun of a homosexual, for example, you have to be homosexual yourself. Black humor is therefore composed, in terms of its content, of the intrinsic characteristics of a group and only members of this group can practice it.
I feel compelled to make a parenthesis: with such a practice, white heterosexual men can no longer do black humor, which proves indeed that they are dominant. Indeed, I rarely hear black humor about white men and heterosexuals. The dominant of modern French society is, again, a man, of a white color, and love the individuals of the opposite sex. We can hope for a rebalancing in the balance of power and, without doubt, black humor will serve as a marker.
Let’s go back to the topic of licensed humorists about their own group. In my opinion, it’s a funny way to deal with mockery; when I make a dirty joke, I vex a group, but if I am part of it, I have the right to make fun of it because, as a member, I can not be accused of vexing myself. This tortured logic hides a “politically correct” thought, thus framing the thought before it takes place. The mockery remains malicious or dangerous, whether pronounced by an individual inside or outside the group. It all depends on the audience, if we practice this kind of humor only within the group, it can be a way to recover the criticism of the group to make fun of it, in a kind of hijacked humor that takes as subject of mockery, not the subject of the joke but those who are likely to take this subject as a joke or seriously. On the other hand, if the audience leaves the group, the risk may be to give those who want to stop seeing humor to hear an acceptance of the criticism contained in the joke, whether true or not elsewhere.
In short, limiting the practice of dark humor to only members of a group is not logical or even intelligent; that will not prevent discrimination against the group from existing. Or else, it is necessary to develop alongside the practice of dark humor locked up within the group, a critical spirit intended to encourage a discourse of struggle to recover the mockery and turn it to the advantage of the discriminated group.
How can authorized black humor be deployed?
Now let’s admit that I’m allowed to practice black humor, either because I’m a laughing pro or because people have understood that I often use the second degree. How am I doing it? Can I say what I want? Do I have a license granting me the right to offend anyone? The answer is obviously no and several criteria must be respected in my opinion: a voluntary audience and respect for the latter are the main ones that I will detail. One could add attention to the composition of the public or the context of communication — make sexist jokes at a meeting of feminists come to seriously discuss the relationship between man and woman seem to be the worst opportunity, against the absolute current with the purpose of the meeting.
The will of an audience, whether it was created by chance or in advance (during a show for example), counts for a lot in the deployment of black humor. Indeed, an audience disposed to disrespectful jokes makes the choice to be potentially upset. Besides, I have always found ridiculous the people who, after hearing the worst horrors on other groups or individuals, suddenly take offense at a joke that touches them closely; this is a completely narcissistic impulse, as the slightest risk of splashing his little person causes anger or flight. So, when the public is willing to listen to this type of humor, it agrees, in a way, beforehand with the fact that the jokes are second degree and will not hold it against the professional humorist or of passage — this will not, of course, prevent a reaction if the comedian “goes out” of humor to hold a racist or other speech.
However, for this public will to hold water, the practitioner of black humor must be respectful. It may be tempting, once we have this tacit agreement from the public, to subject them to very discreet symbolic violence; for example, gradually mixing political criticisms that have little to do with jokes, or, worse, change the style of speech by starting in a diatribe, always under the guise of humor. I think it is exactly for this reason that the sketch of Dieudonné on France 2 during the broadcast of Fogiel, this famous sketch which earned Dieudonné the status of a plague victim, was so badly received, beyond the fact that ‘It was a speech against Israel. Dieudonne did not respect the public; instead of doing only a skit, which people expected, he mixed political remarks, turning the humorous performance into political speech.
Black humor is therefore not just a type of humor, but, like any type of humor, comes from a social relationship. One could almost say that it obeys contractual rules; the public undertakes voluntarily to understand the words of the comedian to the second degree and he respects his audience by not changing the type of speech.
Limits: is it that so good black humor?
I defend the idea that yes, it is a democratic political humor, a humor that is there to learn to manage and state the conflict. However, black humor can not replace the implementation of real democratic practices, such as learning to govern locally, for example. In our society, we lack this political awareness as conflict management, to live together peacefully. I do not need to show that life in common is made of contradictions or even clashes. For this reason, there are institutions to manage these conflicts (justice or the police mainly) but in the current “democracy”, we are infantilized, we do not ourselves manage our conflicts, we leave to the institutions the choice of the regulation of these. Daily life indeed brings its share of conflicts that the institution does not directly supervise, but the threat of its intervention or the framework that it poses impose on us the methods of managing the conflict. It is not a question here of describing the institutions as devils depriving us of all freedom of action, but rather to point out their structuring role in our daily lives. In short, I come back to black humor; it can not be considered as an institution in its own right, whose mission is to teach individuals how to manage conflicts. On the other hand, it can accompany, without necessarily appearing, an education of the individuals to the management of the conflicts, that is to say, an education of the individuals to the democracy.
Another limitation of black humor is found in the issue of freedom of expression. Some reactions, in part, only point out the fact that we cannot throw everything in front of everyone on the pretext that we have the right to say what we want. This need for respect for others will always be related to black humor, no offense to those who, like a rebellious child, still do not understand that community life must be accompanied by a consideration of the other. But but but, it focuses on the question of freedom of expression the other question, always present in human societies, of the (historical) temporality of social activity. The dark humor of the Desproges era cannot be that of today. For example, I often say that we can no longer make black humor as before and this statement is taken as a sign of conservative who sees everything better in the past. In reality, I take into account the evolution of the mores of the expressible and the inexpressible in discourse and I maintain, perhaps wrongly, that a Desproges would find it more difficult to express himself these days — for example lately Desproges is treated as anti-Semitic. More precisely, it seems to me that the question of the legitimacy of the humorist (professional or not) arises more acutely; we are trying to find out what are the characteristics of the person who speaks. Does he have the right to say that? Moreover, it may be a communitarian reflex, such as the dark humor of the inter-self, or an interrogation close to the “where you speak” of the 1960s, without its “revolutionary” components, but rather to understand what can authorize a person to make such or such remarks. This limit of black humor corresponds to an evolution of our society where the surveillance of the speech seems to me to have gained in magnitude.
Moreover, black humor could be an unopposed practice, able to make everyone agree. Some people can expect the dark humor of their favorite comedians to be unbelievable or that they are flawless because they are second-rate. Despite all the good intentions of the world or rather all the unwillingness to harm the world, the interpretation is on the side of the public. From there, black humor will always be likely to strike a communitarian sensibility. As a heterosexual white man, if I laugh at people of color, women or homosexuals, I may offend someone in one of these communities. We must be aware of this fundamental characteristic; black humor is annoying, it can disturb anything, and the practitioner of this humor style must be prepared accordingly.
To conclude, I will offer my own answer to the famous question “can we laugh at everything?” We can laugh at everything but it will depend on our intentions, the respect that we give to the public and our legitimacy in this matter. It will also be necessary to be ready to justify his remarks and, better still, to use them to carry out a criticism of the contents of the joke, of those and who, if not practicing the black humor, think of the horrors in the first degree.
