Does making jokes about a cannabalistic serial killer, for instance, somehow lessen the horror and allay our fears and revulsion? Or have we become hardened? If so (to either) why? & how?
I doubt it's only the times we live in with so much media coverage.
In Victorian England, for example, people joked about awful crimes
(excepting the Whitechapel murders (Jack the Ripper)--even the running patterers, who brought the news to the common people and the illiterate, with embellishments and jokes as well as drama, made no jokes about that, though sensationalism & humor were necessary to their jobs.)
2007-03-18 13:48:14 · 7 answers · asked by Cynthia_Secular_n_SillyHatState 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Other - Society & Culture
It makes the knowing of such crimes bearable.
Q) What did Jeffrey Dahmer say to Lorenna Bobbitt?
A) Are you gonna eat that?
Q) Did you hear that a man was found floating in the river with a banana stuck up his butt and a mouthfull of cornflakes ?
A) They think it was a "cereal killer"
Q) What did Jeffrey Dahmer tell his mother when she told him that she didn't like his friends?
A) "That's Ok, Mom, Just eat the vegetables!"
2007-03-23 22:26:10 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Comic relief, simply put. Something so heinous and nearly unfathomable can really put some people over the edge. A joke helps someone actually cope with the understanding that this crime was done.
When people are scared of something, they sometimes make jokes, whistle, hum ... try to soothe their own nerves.
No, it is not just our times, but we have become accustomed to the sensationalism that the media gives. Jack the Ripper now would not be the front page news today because other murders like it happen enough.
Murderers likes Jeffrey Dahmer don't happen as often ... a bit scarier and almost surreal.
2007-03-18 13:56:09 · answer #2 · answered by aivilo 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Doubt it all you want, it is still the truth.
Of course it is not the fault of the media that you trust the media and allow your kids to watch TV from birth on, it is the fault of the parents who are already programmed.
Wake up, or is it too late already?
I don't find it funny and I know it is possible.
I personally stayed 100% away from media for ten years and I found that this experiment was healthy.
2007-03-26 13:23:09 · answer #3 · answered by canron4peace 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Same reason basically good people started making jokes about starving Biafra babies some time ago. Just a way of avoiding facing a horrible truth, dealing with perceived impotence or perhaps avoiding acknowledging our own dark sides.
2007-03-18 13:57:55 · answer #4 · answered by Skeff 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
People, I think, need black humour in order to survive the grimness and unpredictability of everyday life. Humour, in general, is used to deal with uncomfortable subjects. Why are so many jokes about sex, gender relations, or racial stereotypes, because we feel far more comfortable discussing those subjects indirectly rather than head-on
2007-03-18 13:58:50 · answer #5 · answered by Cybele 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It is a way for us to laugh with others to relieve the fact that one of our human brothers or sisters could have done something that maybe we could do too. It relieves us from that. It comforts us to think we are not able to do what some of the most troubled of us did. It is anesthetic to us.
2007-03-18 13:57:55 · answer #6 · answered by Kelly K 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
because people now adays lack sensitivity to behaviors outside their envirnment. And that violence is so readily accepted media wide.
2007-03-26 09:48:19 · answer #7 · answered by bulldog65 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋