Table of Contents
Preface to the new edition vii
Acknowledgments xiii
Chapter 1 Introduction: jokes, humor, and taste 1
Researching jokes 2
Jokes and humor 4
Humor as a social phenomenon 6
Humor and taste 10
The context of Dutch humor 15
The design of this book 18
Part I Style and social background
Chapter 2 The joke: Genesis of an oral genre 23
The joke as oral culture 24
The spread of the joke 28
The genesis of the joke 30
The status of the joke 34
High and low humor 36
Conclusion: Changing criteria for judging the joke 40
Chapter 3 Joke telling as communication style 42
Joke telling and social background 43
Jokes and gender 47
Jokes and class 50
Gender roles and class cultures 53
Joking and trade 56
Humorous communication styles 58
Gender and speech 62
Class and speech 65
Conclusion: Objections to jokes and criteria for good humor 69
Chapter 4 The humor divide: Class, age and humor styles 71
Humor styles: High and low, old and young 72
Style, status, and knowledge 78
Highbrow and lowbrow humor styles 82
Arguments for lowbrow humor 83
Arguments for highbrow humor 86
The eye of the beholder? 90
Humor styles and taste variations 92
Conclusion: Humor styles beyond standardized Dutch humor? 99
Chapter 5 The logic of humor styles 102
Distinguishing good humor from bad 102
Coarseness: Objections to bad humor 103
"A good sense of humor": Criteria for good humor 107
Class culture and humor style 113
The sense of humor and the self: humor style and authenticity 117
Conclusion: jokes, taste, and authenticity 119
Part II Taste and quality
Chapter 6 The repertoire: Dutch joke culture 123
Jokes and social boundaries 124
Innocuous jokes: Stupidity and other unseemly behavior 126
Sexual jokes: From allusion to transgression 131
Irreverent jokes: Religion, power, suffering and sickness 136
Hurtful jokes: Jokes at the expense of others 142
Conclusion: The hardening of the humor 147
Chapter 7 Temptation and transgression 150
The balance between funny and offensive 152
Varying viewpoints on offensiveness 156
Tempting the laugh 158
World-class jokes: Joke tellers on joke technique 160
The importance of joke-work 163
"Humor is humor": The incompatibility of humor and morals 165
Conclusion: temptation, transgression, and joke quality 168
Chapter 8 Sense and sociability 170
Personal styles of joke tellers 170
Avoiding or transgressing boundaries 171
Specialists and generalists 176
Transgression, identification, and Dutch joke culture(s) 180
Young and old 180
Men and women 183
Non-college and college-educated people 188
Conclusion: Mechanisms of taste and the sense of sociability 192
Part III Comparing humor styles
Chapter 9 National humor styles: Humor styles, joke telling and social background in the United States 197
Researching humor styles in America 198
Jokes and humor styles in the United States: Survey results 201
Transgression and identification in American jokes 207
American humorous identifications 209
The social status of the joke in America 211
American arguments against the joke 214
American views on a good sense of humor 218
"You gotta have a sense of humor": Humor and the moral self 224
Conclusion: Telling a joke to save your life 230
Chapter 10 Sociology and the joke 232
The appreciation of jokes: Genre and individual jokes 232
Style: Evaluating a humorous genre 233
Form and content: Evaluating individual jokes 235
Gender, age, class and nationality: The dynamics of social differences 237
Gender and role 238
Age and phase 239
Class and culture 240
National differences and cultural logics 242
Distinction and difference 245
Good humor and bad taste 249
Appendix 1 The jokes used in the Dutch survey 253
Appendix 2 Dutch humorists and television programs 259
References 264
Subject index 276
