First Drafts - The Prospect magazine blog

If, as Nietzsche put it, a witticism is an epitaph on the death of a feeling, it’s always interesting to look at where feelings are running too strong for jokes—something that has been an uncomfortably live topic for editors these last few years.

For reasons I cannot quite fathom, Prospect has recently gained a review copy of Jonathan Swan’s Man Walks into a Bar 2: the ultimate collection of jokes and one-liners. It’s cheap and cheerful, and operates in the well-worn tradition of quips alphabetised by subject from accidents to zebras (”What is a zebra? 26 sizes larger than an ‘A’ bra”), but my eye was caught by an intriguingly hesitant section near the middle marked ethnic.

It rather gives the game away that the first one-liner in this section goes, “How does every ethnic joke start? With a look over your shoulder.” In order, then, the individual “ethnic” topics are—American, Australian, Chinese, Chinese phrasebook, Eskimo, French, German, Iraqi, Irish (by far the longest), Japanese, Jewish, Mexican, Scottish, Welsh. These are hardly ethnicities in the conventional sense, but what I found striking was just how narrow and predictable a spectrum of inhabitants this joke-land has: its Americans are brash, its Chinese mangle English to comic effect, its French are cowardly (”How many Frenchmen does it take to defend France? Don’t know, never been tried”), its Germans are dull, its Irish are stupid. Arab, Afro-Caribbean and Indian categories are notable by their absence, with the dubious exception of Iraq (”What is Iraq’s national bird? Duck”). Far less of the world is thought generically amusing than it used to be, and most of these efforts smack of desperation rather than relish—surely a good thing.

Also interesting are the 53 entries under religion. According to my count, these divide into 34 about Christianity, 12 generic “god” gags, five about Judaism or the Old Testament, one about Taoism, and one about Buddhism (”What did the Dalai Lama say to the hotdog vendor? ‘Make me one with everything’”). Islam, clearly, is not remotely funny at the moment—and I’m far from convinced this is a good thing.

Finally, there are no less than 23 entries under chavs (”What do you say to a chav in a suit? ‘Will the defendant please stand’”). I remember when—unthinkable today, at least in print—that joke was doing the rounds with its butt as “a black man.” But it’s disconcerting to see that there’s still nothing taboo about pouring contempt on one’s social inferiors.