Corny jokes, cruel-but-harmless humor, and dirty jokes are a guilty pleasure that can make anyone of any age belly laugh or snicker as they try to hide a smile.
Explaining the human habit of laughing at “inappropriate” things, Dr. Leigh Rourk, associate professor of English and humanities at Beacon College, was a featured as a speaker during the Beacon Salon Speaker Series, the community outreach education program that brings diverse speakers in to discuss various topics.
Rourk appeared as a guest speaker on Oct. 16 for the presentation titled “Appallingly Funny: Humor and the Taboo from War Literature to Social Media” hosted at The Venetian Center, 1 Dozier Circle, Leesburg.
The speaker presentation, which also featured a free meal for those who registered for the event, examined how humor is handled across cultures, subcultures and generations.
“It’s like its own language culturally. If you think about the best laughs you’ve ever had, it’s those ‘in jokes’ with your best friends or your family where you guys are the only ones who get it,” Rourk said. “Where it takes just one little word to set you rolling on the floor. They work like that for cultures as well. Especially subcultures.”
She said it is a way for subcultures to form bonds or create “in-speak.”
“Humor can be very important that way. It is the way we share joy and the way we share pain,” she added.
As a writer, Rourk has infused a lot of humor into tragic parts of her published writing. A habit that she also practices in her day-to-day life based on a lesson from her mother.
“My mom has the same sense of humor I do,” Rourk said.
“When I was a kid, we had some tough times, but my mother always said, ‘There’s two answers to being in pain or going through times. You can laugh or you can cry. Crying is okay but laughing is more fun.’ I live by that.”
While pairing tragedy and humor together in a close marriage in her work, Rourk became curious about how humor works.
“Laughter is another door through pain. Sometimes you deal with both,” Rourk said.
Program officials agreed that the way people process humor can lead to further understanding of the mind.
“From the young to the old, humor is a universal language. And darker, gallows humor peers into the human psyche in a way that both enlightens and reveals the pain, fear, and struggle of our shared humanity,” said Darryl Owens, Beacon College’s associate vice president of communications and engagement.
Taboo and inappropriate jokes are all a part of humor.
“Whether it is the margins of medieval illuminated texts filled with dirty quips scrawled by bored monks or the comedic war novels and poems, which refuse to treat death with the solemn respect it deserves, literature and pop culture is rich with examples of ‘inappropriate’ jokes and ‘offensive’ humor,” read the series show description.
And inappropriate or offensive jokes can vary across cultures, according to Rourk.
“Anything that cultures have put in the ‘no-no’ box, if you will, the things that we avoid saying or doing, or at least pretend we do. Because we really don’t,” Rourk said. “It also what we are afraid of and try to avoid.”
She explained the only way a joke is successful is having the right timing, place, audience and delivery.
“Because jokes are so culturally specific and our concepts of culture are as big as they are, a good joke teller really has to understand different subcultures. It’s like a good writer,” Rourk said, “The audience is really the most important person in the room.”
It important for intentional joke tellers to be educated, prepared, and able to be flexible when telling a joke — caring more about the audience’s reaction than the joke itself.
“An ego driven joke doesn’t care who the audience is and then blames the audience for not understanding the joke, but a good joke requires considering your audience to be successful and I think that’s where there is a lot of disconnect,” Rourk said.
By the end of Rourk’s speaker series, audience members were able to leave with a bit of empathy for others.
“Because jokes are so cultural, a lot of miscommunication and even meanness can happen through humor. What can start as a (minor) misunderstanding, miscommunication can sometime build into meanness regardless of where we started,” Rourk said. “I hope we walk with a better understanding of the fact that maybe it’s okay to joke about things as long as you respect someone’s boundary that makes them uncomfortable. Also, we need to be a little more careful of who we tell a joke to or which way we are punching.”
The Beacon Salon Speaker Series began in 2017, offering free and open-to-the-public learning experiences for lifelong learning outside of classrooms.
“(The series) builds enriching intergenerational bonds between our students and our neighbors living in communities, such as The Villages — who are the series’ largest and most loyal supporters among our 1,000-plus subscribers,” Owens said.
“After a Salon event, patrons often share their delight at learning something new, rave about the talent and expertise of Beacon faculty when they present, thank us for the opportunity, and confirm their excitement about catching the next Salon event.”
For more information about the Beacon Salon Speaker Series, visit beaconcollege.edu.
Staff writer Brea Jones can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5414, or brea.jones@thevillagesmedia.com.
