What makes political jokes funny?
Humor is highly subjective. I know this, but it still surprises me how often I think something is funny when someone else doesn’t, or vice versa.
It’s impossible to avoid the political world at all these days, nor the humor that goes with it. Personally, I think humor is one of the things that saves the human soul, and I’ve greatly enjoyed many of the political jokes I’ve heard lately:
Sarah Palin and McCain are a good pair. She’s pro-life and he’s clinging to life.” –Jay Leno
Q. Why did Joe Biden get a hair transplant?
A. To hide the mark of the beast.Q. Why is Barack Obama so thin and scrawny?
A. If he were any heavier he wouldn’t be able to walk on water.Sarah Palin right now is training for tomorrow night’s vice presidential debate in Arizona. And she says it has really helped her on foreign policy, because from Arizona she can see Mexico. –David Letterman
I’ve seen both of SNL’s Tina Fey parodies of Sarah Palin, too, and thought they were brilliant as well as funny.
The “Sarah Palin Disney Trailer“, however, I’m not quite so sure about. I doubt Sarah Palin was ever a woman who stayed at home making lasagna and sharpening her kids’ ice skates, for one. So why set up this particular image of her, and then make fun of it? What are we really making fun of: Palin, or stay-at-home mothers? Palin, or women who seek (or enjoy) power?
I’d hate to live in a world where it was no longer acceptable to make fun of public figures. I have never been a soccer mom, and never wanted to be. I think politicians are funny. I think people in general are funny. But making a joke of the skills and relevance of stay-at-home motherhood hits me wrong somehow, particularly as “stay at home mother” probably isn’t even a category which ever included Sarah Palin to begin with.
I am suspicious when something is so easy to make fun of that we change a real person to fit the joke, rather than vice versa. In other words, in this video, I’m afraid Sarah Palin may not be the real target.
Could be I’m making too much of nada, though, and it’s all just good, clean fun. What do you think, readers?
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Related Posts:
Sarah Palin’s email and a couple of goats
Palin V Obama: Which one makes me evil, again?
