In Andre Jolles’ chapter “Joke”, distinguishes satire and irony through the way in which they mock. Satire mocks by critiquing and distinctly separating the audience from the butt of the joke. Quite the opposite, irony mocks by relating the audience to the butt of the joke, it relies of the viewer’s familiarity with the subject to find it amusing.
A common instance of satire being used in this way to mock “without pity” is homosexuality being the punchline of a joke (207). It is so common that whenever it appears on television it often comes across as the writers being lazy. Of course, this type of joke is losing its welcome reception and thus popularity but that does not mean it is dying. I would instead suggest that it is being taken over by (Jolles’ definition of) irony. Instead of heterosexual screenwriters pointing and laughing at homosexuals, writers like Emma Seligman are making us laugh with gay characters rather than at them.
How I Met Your Mother is an easy example of queerness as satire, in which one running joke is that Lily has a crush on Robin. The jokes are slightly more complex and thus a small step up from the painfully unfunny jokes in Friends that are infamously homophobic, but it still makes use of the laugh track after a mention or nod to homosexuality. To put things in perspective, Lily is married and makes lustful comments about or to Robin in front of her husband. If it were a heterosexual crush this would be considered wildly inappropriate and a demonstration of poor character. Because it is another woman that Lily has a crush on, it is not only funny but completely fine for her to frequently attempt to kiss someone who is not her husband. The audience is supposed to watch and laugh at how Lily behaves.
As is Mary Douglas discusses in her chapter “Jokes”, we can understand a lot about societal norms and popular opinions through jokes. The increased complexity of jokes in How I Met Your Mother from Friends (two shows I compare because of their undeniably similar formulas) is somewhat telling of a change in attitudes towards queerness. But more telling than this are films like Bottoms that do not use homosexuality as a joke but as a narrative tool that may be used to facilitate jokes. Bottoms use of queerness for comedy certainly feels a lot closer to Jolles’ definition of irony than satire, with humour intended to relate rather than just mock.
The relationship between queerness and comedy is vast and complex and certainly cannot be summed up in a short blog post. However, with a constantly evolving dynamic, I think it highlights Jolles’ ideas well.
Douglas, Mary. ‘Jokes’. In Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology, edited by Mary Douglas (London 1975): pp. 146–64.
Jolles, André. ‘Joke’. In Simple Forms, edited by André Jolles, Fredric Jameson, and Peter J. Schwartz (London 2017): pp. 201-12
I like how you compared these two different clips to provide commentary on the evolution of queer representation in comedies within the last two decades and how they reflect changing social attitudes surrounding homosexuality.
I really enjoy your interpretation of the reading in terms of the definition of irony- then linking this to queer story telling adds to its definition. This adds another level to the humour as not just the set up and punchline being funny put its point of origin is what makes it funny to those who know.
This is a really interesting exploration of the satirisation of queerness in sitcoms especially, where they have a history of, as you say, using homosexuality as the punchline. I also really liked how you contrasted this with a film like Bottoms to illustrate how this can be subverted and the brilliance of queer comedy at its best- when the queerness facilitates good comedy rather than comedy being directed at queerness.