Transcript
9/11 HUMOUR AS A MEANS OF WORKING THROUGH TRAUMA IN
FAMILY GUY, SOUTH PARK AND THE SIMPSONS
9/11 HUMOR , MINT A TRAUMAFELDOLGOZÁS ESZKÖZE A FAMILY
GUY, SOUTH PARK ÉS THE SIMPSONS SOROZATOKBAN
MA Thesis
Majláth Annamária
Supervisor: Dr. Schandl Veronika
2012
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I, the undersigned, Annamária Majláth, candidate for the M.A. degree in English Language
and Literature declare herewith that the present thesis is exclusively my own work, based
on my research and only such external information as properly credited in notes and
bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of
others, and no part of the thesis infringes on any person's or institution's copyright. I also
declare that no part of the thesis has been submitted in this form to any other institution of
higher education for an academic degree.
Budapest, 9 November 2012.
___________________________ Signature
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Contents
Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3
1. Cultural Trauma and Coping Mechanisms ...................................................................... 9
1.1 Trauma on the Personal Level .................................................................................. 9
1.2 Why Can We Consider 9/11 As a Cultural Trauma for the USA? ........................... 10
2. The Role of Humour in Working Through Trauma ........................................................ 20
2.1 What to Forget and What to Remember? ............................................................. 20
2.2 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour .................................. 24
2.3 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour ........................................................... 25
2.4 Jokes That Make a Statement ................................................................................ 27
2.5 Different Attitudes Towards the Healing Power of (Disaster) Jokes ..................... 28
3. Case Studies (Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons) ................................................. 31
3.1 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour .................................. 33
3.2 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour ........................................................... 38
3.3 Jokes That Make a Statement ................................................................................ 48
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 52
Works Cited ........................................................................................................................... 53
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Introduction
“Twenty-two point three years. That's how long it takes for something tragic to
become funny, ”says Kyle in the second episode of season six in South Park (2002). In the
aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11 2001, this statement seemed to be true.
Comedy shows stopped making jokes, any reference to the twin towers or bombs
disappeared from the media. Still, eleven episodes after stating the appropriate time “for
something tragic to become funny”, the same show made a joke about 9/11. This was not
twenty-two point three years, but roughly five months after the tragic events, on 6 March
2002. And South Park is not the only animated situational comedy (later: sitcom) that used
9/11 humour more than once.
Animated sitcoms are usually provocative, they often use social satire and taboo
topics. As a result, it is not surprising that something as tragic as the World Trade Center
(WTC) attacks is present in them. However, even these programmes can lose viewers, be
cited by the Federal Communications Commission, and perhaps even forcibly cancelled, if
their content is considered as inappropriate for the channel. Nevertheless, 9/11 jokes can be
found in almost all of them. The question arises as to why 9/11 jokes can be on air,
whereas other topics dealt with in some episodes can only be found on DVDs. The main
purpose of this paper is to show that the 9/11 jokes used in animated sitcoms help US
citizens work through the cultural trauma of September 11.
The reason for choosing animated sitcoms as a focus for exploring Americans’
reactions to this trauma is because such TV programmes have big relevance when dealing
with the American psyche in general. The main goal of these programmes is commercial:
they try to have the biggest possible number of viewers, thus to be able to sell advertising
time at the highest possible price. This also means that the producers have to know their
audience to be able to serve them. If they broadcast something against the audience's taste,
they have to pay the price of losing their viewers. As a result, when a programme is very
popular, it can mean that a notable amount of people share at least some of the programme's
views. This, of course, does not work with reality shows like The Jersey Shore, where the
biggest appeal of the show is its shocking nature. However, I will not use these shows as
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reference in any way.1
Animated sitcoms also have the advantage of appearing regularly in the viewers'
homes, with familiar characters that may represent different points of views. Over time the
viewers have the possibility to build up their attitude towards each character. Consequently,
some characters might be more convincing to them than others.2 And when, from week to
week, a well-known, even fictional, character emphasises an opinion which would not be of
particular importance, this opinion will have a bigger influence than it would otherwise
have had. For instance, as I will discuss in more length later in this chapter, the
explanations and symbols attached to an event have a huge impact on the fact whether the
event will be considered a trauma or not. Namely, when an event is repeatedly called
“tragedy” or “trauma” in the media, or when these events are compared to previous
traumas, it can strengthen the traumatic experience of the viewers.
There is another reason for choosing popular cultural products as the center of my
attention, and that is connected to their cultural background. As Karin Kukkonen describes
it in her article entitled “Popular Cultural Memory – Comics, Communities and Context
Knowledge” (Kukkonen 261-273), media texts are understood in a context knowledge.
Gaining this knowledge is part of a socialisation process. People who read the same media
texts and have the same context knowledge make up an audience community, regardless of
where they live. Moreover, with the appearance of globalised mass media, and especially
the Internet, the reaction to any social and political changes can be reflected in a fast way,
reaching more people than ever before possible. Kukkonen argues that this omnipresent,
globalised quality of mass media has made it possible to create a community, whose
members do not necessarily have to live in the same country to have the same cultural
background, thus the same context knowledge, to be able to understand a given media text.
(Kukkonen 261-273)
American animated sitcoms reflect upon the current cultural, social and political
situation of the US. This factor makes it crucial for the reader to have basic background
knowledge of the given state of affairs. When analysing American animated sitcoms, this
1 I have chosen TV shows like Friends, Dexter, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad!, because they represent the American society either by criticizing it, or by painting a lovable and funny picture of its citizens.
2 This is also true to other TV shows, but animated sitcoms tend to deal more with current political issues.
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paper will only concentrate on the producers of the TV shows and their main target
audience, the American citizens, with whom they share the same context knowledge. I will
not take into consideration other nations' viewers, because the main goal of this paper is to
understand the traumatic process of US citizens regarding the events of 9/11.
Even though the context knowledge needed to understand a film for example is
available to almost everyone due to the globalised mass media, not all the layers of
meaning are easily understandable by foreigners. I would like to mention the film
Extremely Loud Incredibly Close, which is the adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel
which has the same title, as an example here. This is a story of a young boy whose father
was lost in the WTC attacks. There are layers in the film which are excellent examples for
the different cultural context knowledge audiences might have. Such a layer is the possible
meanings of the word “jumper”. The movie ends in the playground, where in the beginning
the boy, Oskar, had been afraid of sitting in a swing. His father, Thomas, shows him how to
do it, and tells him a story:
“You know, Grandma brought me to this place. My favorite, the one..., two..., the third from the right, because I thought it would go higher than any other one. So when everyone had gone home, I would swing. It was just me and the swings. I'd do a lot of thinking up here, especially when I learned how to pump. I would go as high as I could go, until I couldn't go any higher, and then I would jump. Ahh... And for a moment, I would feel as free as a bird. You should give it a whirl Oskar. It might change the way you look at things.” “It is not safe.” “You don't have to jump.” (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)
This monologue about swings and the joy of jumping is said by a man who later
perishes in the North Tower, and his son is quite sure that his father had jumped to avoid a
more horrible death of burning. In the movie, the shows his grandfather the photo of a man
falling from the tower, which is not a false image, but an actual picture of someone who
had jumped to his death on 9/11. Oskar, the son says: “This is probably him. Or it might be
him. He's dressed like he was. When I magnify it until the dots are so big it stops looking
like a person... sometimes I can see glasses on him. Or I think I can. Probably the other kids
see their dads too.”
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For Hungarians, or really any non-American viewer, these things do not convey the
same controversial message as for Americans. In the USA, the appearance of a photo like
that, the son claiming that other kids see their dads on photos of falling people from the
WTC, and the jumping described as a pleasant feeling of freedom might invoke special
connotations which give an extra
meaning for these scenes. In other
countries, it is sad; in America, it is a
hotly-contested scene of trauma. Indeed,
even the term for the victims in such
images is contested. There have been
fights over whether those who jumped
can be called “jumpers” or not3, as the word “jumper” has the connotation of a suicide
jumper in American English. For many Americans, attaching such a word then implies that
the victims had a choice, and minimizes the full responsibility on the attacker.
Furthermore, the question of the publication of the photos of the tragedy caused
public outrage. The most famous (or infamous) photo which has been known as the
“Falling Man”, taken by Richard Drew appeared on 12 September 2001 in The New York
Times among other papers. In the photo, viewers can see a man falling headfirst from the
tower, with the building of the WTC in the background. The picture is rather disturbing, not
only because we know that the man is going to die a horrible death soon, but also because
he seems at ease, almost willing to die4, and all these things are captured in an aesthetically
pleasing form. This publication caused such anger and criticism from the readers that the
photo disappeared from the printed media. Eleven years later, however, such photographs
are used in a Hollywood film, which is not even a documentary, but an adaptation of a
fiction novel.
In Kevin Ackerman's documentary of this picture (2006), the identity of the man in
the photo is the mystery they aim to solve. When members of the family of a 9/11 victim
3 “And yet if one calls the New York Medical Examiner's Office to learn its own estimate of how many people might have jumped, one does not get an answer but an admonition: "We don't like to say they jumped. They didn't jump. Nobody jumped. They were forced out, or blown out." (Junod, 2003)
4 From the other frames taken from the same man we can see that the way he fell was obviously not a headfirst fall all the way through. The famous photo only caught a moment when it seemed as if he had fallen that way, creating the illusion of a deliberate jump to death.
0-1 A falling man photo from the movie "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"
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are questioned whether they can recognize their relative, Norberto Hernandez, in the photo,
the wife and one of the daughters refuse even to look at the picture. They did not accept the
possibility that their loved one could have jumped. In Tom Junod's article entitled “The
Falling Man” Jacqueline Hernandez, the oldest daughter of Norberto Hernandez says after
briefly looking at the picture: “That piece of shit is not my father” (Junod 2003). Later,
when the younger daughter,
Catherine eventually looks at the
photo in question, she sighs: "They
said my father was going to hell
because he jumped. They said my
father was taken to hell with the
devil. I don't know what I would
have done if it was him. I would
have had a nervous breakdown, I
guess. They would have found me
in a mental ward somewhere..."
(Junod 2003)
Furthermore, Thomas's
speech above is obviously not only
about the playground swing for an
American viewer, but also about
the question of jumping, with the
positive connotation of freedom,
which again is not simply a sentimental remark about freedom. For many relatives of the
victims their loved one's jumping would have meant that s/he had given up on them, and
had not fought to get home. (Junod 2003)
Another argument for the products of popular culture is that they speak to a large
audience and they are based on cultural knowledge which is most easily understood by the
country in which they were made. Thus, in the analysis of a cultural phenomenon, such as
cultural trauma, the study of popular cultural products is justifiable. Having presented the
reasons for my choice of popular cultural products in my discussion of cultural trauma, let
0-2 Figure "Falling Man." Photo by Richard Drew.
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me now turn to the question of trauma first on the personal and then on the collective level.
The first chapter, will discuss trauma and coping mechanisms first on the personal,
then on the collective level. This section will mostly follow the arguments of Cathy
Caruth's Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Caruth 3-12). On the collective level the impact
of 9/11 will be discussed, from the point of view whether it can be considered a cultural
trauma. The theoretical background for proving that the effects of September 11 are
traumatic is the volume of collected essays entitled Cultural Trauma and Collective
Identity. (Alexander ed.)
The second chapter concentrates on the role of humour in working through trauma.
First of all, the importance of remembering will be emphasised in the case of cultural
traumas, then different ways how jokes can help the coping process. As there are scholars
who doubt the positive effects of disaster jokes (Kuipers, Lewis), after presenting their
arguments, this paper will point out how those arguments do not apply to sitcoms.
The case studies will be presented in the last chapter, with a brief introduction of the
selected sitcoms. They will be analysed from three aspects. The first is the narrative aspect
of the therapeutic effect of humour, which emphasises the importance of different
narratives of a traumatic event. The second aspect discusses how jokes might help
overcoming fear. The third aspect examines those jokes that make a statement about the
tragedy, thus helping the healing process.
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1. Cultural Trauma and Coping Mechanisms
This chapter first of all will present the definition of cultural trauma. Secondly, it
will discuss the events of 9/11 regarding its effects, claiming that it is a valid claim to call it
a cultural trauma, not so much because of the mere events of that day, but mainly because
of the meanings and symbols attached to the destruction of the WTC towers. Later, the
second part of this chapter will concentrate on those coping mechanisms of trauma which
do not only work on an individual level, but also on a social level.
1.1 Trauma on the Personal Level
Trauma in itself is not easy to define, as evidenced by the voluminous literature
written about it. This section will mostly follow the arguments of Cathy Caruth's Trauma:
Explorations in Memory (Caruth 3-12). She puts great emphasis on the relationship
between the traumatic recollection and memory. According to her, a traumatic event cannot
be fully experienced when it occurs, rather it becomes a part of memories later, through a
process of coping. Before traumatic recollections become memories, the subject
experiences so-called reenactments. These reenactments are unwillingly performed actions
which were caused by the traumatic event. They can vary from compulsive gestures to
reliving some aspect of the traumatic event, but their most important feature is that they
happen without the subject's control over them and somehow they are related to the
traumatic event. The more victims wish to forget what had happened to them and not to
cope with their trauma, the closer they are to induce a situation which is, in some ways,
similar to the terror they had experienced.
Unwillingness is quite important here, as this is one of the most remarkable
differences between a traumatic recollection and a memory. Recalling a memory is a
conscious decision, and the subject is able to tell it in different ways to different audiences,
whereas a traumatic recollection cannot be recalled on purpose, and when it escapes the
unconscious, it is usually unchanged, and narrated almost the same way on each occasion.
The identity of the audience is completely indifferent in this case, since the flashbacks of
the trauma are not narrated to anyone; they simply appear for the victim. Narration is a
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crucial key in coping with trauma, because when a traumatic recollection is put in diverse
narratives – to diverse audiences, we no longer speak about traumatic recollection, but a
memory of a traumatic event. Once it is turned into a memory, the traumatic recollection
can be understood by the victim, it is no longer as incomprehensible as in the beginning.
Consequently, it seems valid to claim that if one can make a joke about the traumatic
experience one has had, he/she is in the stage of cure: altering the story in a new narrative,
thus testifying, eliding, distorting, and maybe later forgetting it.
1.2 Why Can We Consider 9/11 As a Cultural Trauma for the USA?
Having discussed trauma on the personal level, this section will now concentrate on
cultural trauma, which is even more difficult to deal with, as it pertains to groups of people,
and claiming that all members of a community experience the same psychological
symptoms seems far-fetched at first sight. Another problem I had to face concerns the very
events of 9/11. When talking about cultural trauma, the vast majority of studies are dealing
with the Holocaust, and genocides like the ones that happened in Kosovo and Rwanda, the
communist regime in Eastern Europe, and the slavery of African Americans (Caruth 1995,
LaCapra 1999, Alexander 2004, Eyeman et al., 2004, Giesen et al., 2004, Smelser et al.,
2004), where the number of people killed is incomparable to the three thousand victims of
the WTC attacks, and the duration of those genocides was also much longer than the few
hours of the attacks on September 11. As Slavoj Žižek expounds in his writing, Welcome to
the Desert of the Real, even the media coverage of the tragedy differs from the previously
mentioned ones:
[W]hile the number of victims – 3,000 – is repeated all the time, it is surprising how little of the actual carnage we see — no dismembered bodies, no blood, no desperate faces of the dying people… in clear contrast to the reporting from the Third World catastrophes where the whole point was to produce a scoop of some gruesome detail: Somalis dying of hunger, raped Bosnian women, men with throats cut. These shots were always accompanied with the advance-warning that "some of the images you will see are extremely graphic and may hurt children" — a warning which we never heard in the reports on the WTC collapse. (Žižek 13)
As Žižek’s argues, it is neither the number of the victims, nor the duration of terror,
which defines an event as cultural trauma. I would go even further, quoting Alexander that
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“events in themselves are not enough to cause cultural trauma” (10). A single event cannot
cause pain in every member of a given society. In most cases, for example, not all the
members of the given collectivity are physically hurt, neither are they all relatives or
friends of the victims. Still, we can talk about a traumatised community. The meanings
which are given to these events are able to traumatise a group of people. As Alexander
claims, “[t]rauma […] is the result of this acute discomfort entering into the core of the
collectivity's sense of its own identity. Collective actors “decide” to represent social pain as
a fundamental threat to their sense of who they are, where they came from, and where they
want to go” (10). The death of approximately three thousand people is not enough to
traumatise a whole nation. But the narrative in which it happened can in fact create a
permanent change in a nation's collective identity. This change is the core of cultural
trauma, and the aspect the present paper will rely on the most.
In this chapter I am bound to mention Neil J. Smelser's “September 11, 2001, as
Cultural Trauma” (Alexander ed., 264-282), which is the epilogue of the volume of
collected essays entitled Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, and which has the same
purpose as this chapter, namely to prove that 9/11 can be considered as cultural trauma.
However, Smelser's article was written just four months after the attacks, which has
advantages and disadvantages at the same time. On the one hand, the earliest reactions to a
tragedy are rather genuine in the sense that they are not influenced by other writings,
opinions or events. On the other hand, when dealing with cultural trauma, one ought to
concentrate on the time having passed after the traumatic event, to be able to examine the
process of coping with trauma in full. Moreover, the first stage of this coping mechanism is
usually denial, which means that the victims do not want to accept what has happened to
them and they are often in a state of numbness, not yet fully comprehending the given
event. Bearing this in mind, I will first present the main points of Smelser's discussion, and
then complete them with further arguments.
The traumatic ingredients of September 11 according to Smelser (Alexander ed.
266-7) include “an initial reaction of shock, disbelief, and emotional numbing”, which can
be seen in the initial media presentation of the events, or rather the lack of media
presentation of certain aspects of the events, for instance. This phenomenon could also be
found in the entertainment industry, and since the focus of my thesis is the representation of
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cultural trauma in animated sitcoms, the examples will be drawn from this field of the
media.
First of all, I would like to mention the poster of the newest Spiderman movie at that
time that had to be recalled, as it contained a New York landscape with the WTC towers
standing in the reflection of the protagonist's eyes. Secondly, I am bound to present one of
the most popular American TV shows of all time, Friends. The producers of the show paid
attention to the correspondence between the date of the storyline of the TV show and the
date of 'the real world'. This is most apparent in the 'holiday episodes', where the Valentine's
Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve episodes were aired shortly
before the day of the given holiday. Nevertheless, in the world of Friends, there is nobody
affected by the events of 9/11, even though the first episode of the eighth season was aired
on September 27, 2001. Later, in the third episode of this season, entitled The One Where
Rachel Tells Ross, aired on 11 October 2001, the whole episode was rewritten so as not to
contain anything that could be related to the events of 9/11. The original script included the
newlywed couple, Monica and Chandler going through security in an airport. A sign warns
passengers that federal law prohibits any joking regarding aircraft hi-jacking or bombing
which Chandler ignores stating that he takes his bombs very seriously. As a result, he and
Monica are questioned by the police. These scenes were completely rewritten, but later
became available as extra scenes in the DVD (released in 2004), with a comment written
before it:
The following scenes were deleted from the episode "The One Where Rachel Tells Ross" and are being presented here for the first time. The story involved Chandler joking with security at an airport and was to air two weeks after the events of September 11, 2001. In light of this, we decided to replace the original story, as part of the history of the show, we hope that the scenes can now be viewed in the spirit which they were originally intended.
This is a clear example how sensitive the American audience was to the subject of
the terror attacks – or how sensitive the producers of the show thought the audience was. In
either case, the silence about the matter is obvious. I will discuss this total silence in greater
length later in this chapter.
At the same time, as Smelser continues, there is widespread collective mourning, a
sense of the indelibility of the trauma, which has been expressed by the slogan “never
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forget” borrowed from the Holocaust narrative, with a compulsory brooding over the tragic
events and a sense of sacredness. And last but not least, “[a] culminating sense that
American identity had been altered fundamentally”. (Smelser 266)
This altered identity is not necessarily a negative thing, as it has several benefits as
well. Just to take a few examples, after the attacks there was an increased feeling of
solidarity among US citizens, especially in their support for the rescue team. What is more,
patriotic sentiments became stronger, which was reflected in the use of flags and other
national symbols in the most diverse places and platforms. Here, I have to mention the
unexpected emergence of these symbols and at the same time the absence of mentioning
9/11 in Friends. As Luke John
Howie pointed out in Representing
Terrorism: Reanimating Post-9/11
New York City (2009), on the one
hand, this TV program was never
concerned with politics, so it is not
that strange if there is no mention
of the Bush administration or such
among the six main characters. On
the other hand, the total silence
about 9/11 in Central Perk, which
in the TV show is situated in
downtown Manhattan, is more
than uncanny. One could say that
this is not by all means a surprise, but rather the choice of the producers to have the whole
series set in a pre-9/11 world. But this is simply not the case. In episode thirteen of season
eight – titled ‘The One Where Chandler Takes A Bath'5 , Joey wears a T-shirt with the words
'Capt. Billy Burke' written on it.
Billy Burke was a member of the 9/11 rescue team, who died when Tower One
collapsed, while he was going back for people who were still in the building. Bearing this
5 While Luke John Howie claims that the T-shirt appeared in episode twelve of season eight, 'The One Where Joey Dates Rachel', it actually can be seen on Joey an episode later.
1-1 Figure Joey in a T-shirt with the name of "Capt. Billy Blurke" on it.
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in mind, we can exclude the theory that Friends is simply set in a pre-9/11 world. Instead, it
is a rather conspicuous example of trauma being present in popular culture – whether
intentionally or not. Even though the writers of the TV show did not deal with 9/11
explicitly, the topic and the coping is present. Howie re-watched all ten seasons and made a
chart which contains these hidden elements of a post-9/11 Friends. His conclusion was that
while national symbols were absent in the first seven seasons (1994-2001), from the eighth
season onwards there was a clear appearance of US flags, images of the Statue of Liberty,
Uncle Sam, the Empire State Building, and FDNY T-shirts. (Howie 14)
It is true that these images were not present in the foreground, but rather in the
background of the set, as they appeared on / next to the fridge of Monica's apartment, on
the message board of Joey's door, on the clothes the characters were wearing, or in the
emblematic coffee house's decoration, but their relevance is still present. There was no
explanation for their suddenly increased sense of patriotism. These symbols are like
reenactments. As if Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe would like to
pretend that 9/11 had not happened, but meanwhile they would constantly remember it
through these reenactments.
Having listed the elements of cultural trauma, I will move on to its definition. I
have chosen Alexander's definition of cultural trauma out of the many, because it is very
useful for my purposes in this thesis. “Cultural trauma occurs when members of a
collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks
upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future
identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways.” (Alexander 1) The most important aspect of
this definition for me in writing this thesis is the mark which is left by the tragic event upon
the group consciousness, since this is what can be tracked while analysing cultural
products, such as animated sitcoms. Furthermore, based on this definition, 9/11 can be seen
as a cause of cultural trauma.
As Tuval-Mashiach points out an important aspect of trauma, “[t]rauma, by its
nature, breaks the continuity and smooth flow of daily life.” (281) And the flow of daily life
has been changed. The United States had not been attacked inland by other nations before.
This means that in the pre-9/11 USA there had been a false sense of safety, which collapsed
with the towers. And this is not only an abstract idea, this feeling of being threatened all the
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time was also reinforced by increased safety measures, not only in airports, but also in the
citizens' everyday life, as individual rights have been curtailed for the sake of safety.
Another crucial change in US citizens' future identity concerns their perception of
Manhattan. As Howie notes “After 9/11, Manhattan could no longer be viewed as just a
cultural, financial, fashionable and sexual metropolis – we are now only too aware that it is
also a terrorist target.” (Howie 9-10) Within this metropolis the twin towers of the World
Trade Center had also been loaded with connotations, which were modified after the
attacks, mostly with a sense of nostalgia. By nostalgia here I mean restorative nostalgia
which “dwells [...] in longing and loss, [...] it lingers on ruins, the patina of time and
history, in the dreams of another place and another time.” (Boym 41) This longing to a past
era, a golden age which, in retrospect, is flawless. In the pre-9/11 USA, New Yorkers were
not really fond of the view of the WTC towers, but after they were demolished, a new sense
of admiration appeared for them.
Moreover, the towers of the World Trade Center had been
symbols even before the attacks. Not just because as their name
suggests, they were the center of world trade but also simply
because they were buildings. As George Lakoff claims in his
article entitled “Metaphors of Terror”, buildings can be seen as
human heads, and windows and doors can be seen as mouths or
eyes. (Lakoff) Thus, the planes entering them can be sensed as
bullets hitting the heads' temples. This works with every one of
us with the help of what are called “mirror neurons” in the prefrontal cortex of our brains.
He notes “Our systems of metaphorical thought, interacting with our mirror neuron
systems, turn external literal horrors into felt metaphorical horrors.” (Lakoff) This
phenomenon works on different levels, also in the case of watching the WTC towers
collapse.
Lakoff presents metaphorical examples to support his argument. What he calls
“Control Is Up” which is, as the name suggests, about the loss of control. Height has
always been a most important characteristic of skyscrapers, especially in New York. As
such tall buildings, skyscrapers also have a phallic imagery, filled with male -power, so
when they collapse, it strengthens the idea of loss of power. Another metaphor that should
1-2 Figure Buildings as Humans.
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be considered here is “A Society Is A Building” with the image of a crumbled, fallen
society. Buildings also represent stability, standing at the same place over time. The World
Trade Center was built to last for 10,000 years (Lakoff), and with its disappearance, the
stability of American society got questioned. In addition, landmarks also play an important
role in the inhabitants' sense of home, making it easier for them to orient themselves within
their home city. As a consequence, the loss of the towers could cause a loss of direction, the
absence of the familiar skyline.
Besides these important changes in the American group identity, the other crucial
factor is the meaning, which is attached to the given event. I would like to refer to Piotr
Sztrompka's example here who the importance of the imagination of the masses. (457) He
states that if enough people believe in an attack from the planet Mars, it can trigger mass
panic. And this works both ways. A tragic event which has the potential to traumatise a
whole community will not be considered as traumatic if it is explained in a way which
convinces people that what happened was not as tragic, nor as harmful as it may seem at
first.
This meaning-making is done by carrier groups according to Alexander, who claims
that “[c]arrier groups are the collective agents of the trauma process. Carrier groups have
both ideal and material interests, they are situated in particular places in the social structure,
and they have particular discursive talents for articulating their claims – for what might be
called “meaning making” - in the public sphere.” (Alexander 11) The power of these groups
should not be underestimated. When talking about carrier groups, the role of mass media in
the emergence of cultural trauma cannot be omitted. With the help of the Internet,
information can reach audiences in a never before-seen speed. This obviously helps the
carrier groups to convince the US citizens to consider the events of September 11 as
traumatic.
There is another factor I have to mention here which is the date of the attacks.
Shortly after the tragedy, people started referring to that day as 9/11, since it happened on
the eleventh day of the ninth month. This seems simply as a quite logical choice at first. But
taking a closer look, we cannot ignore the fact that the emergency telephone number in the
USA is 9-1-1. By constantly referring to a tragic event with the code of help, people remain
in the narrative of emergency. Furthermore, this also goes the other way round, as when
17
people are referring to the emergency telephone number, even if subconsciously, they keep
the memory of the attacks alive. Thus, even the label 9/11 becomes a symbol which
convinces US citizens that what happened on September 11 was a cultural trauma.
A good example for the importance of these numbers is from the first episode of the
seventh season of an American animated sitcom, American Dad!, where the main hero, CIA
agent Stan Smith describes his average day at his workplace to his wife, claiming that from
9:10 to 9:11 he thinks about 9/11, and we can see him sitting at his desk, next to a digital
clock with the time – 9:11 – staring into the distance with a depressed expression. Although
this episode was aired almost exactly ten years after the attacks, on 25 September, 2011, it
depicts a psychological symptom of the PTS (post-traumatic-syndrome), when the victims
fall back a few stages in the recovery when the anniversary of the traumatic event
approaches. However, in this episode
this phenomenon is exaggerated and thus
ridiculed by the fact that Stan spends an
entire minute every day at the time
lamenting over the tragedy of his
country. By making fun of remembering
9/11, the show makes the point that
people cannot live their lives in constant
grief, but they must move on.
As Smelser points it out, the American society must have had a certain sense of guilt
over the events which it tried to eliminate. (271-276) Quoting Mead, Smelser uses the
playground imagery to emphasise the importance of the 'Who started it?” question. In this
sense, the USA had a chip on its shoulder – showing that it was always ready to fight, but
smart enough not to start it. In this case, when one side “only” fights back, taking revenge,
it seems legitimate, even respectful. To give an example of this from the entertainment
industry again, we should think of Hollywood action movies, depicting American ideals.
Killing people is generally wrong, but when a loved one of the protagonist is lost in violent
actions, the murderer has to be killed too, only this time with the exception that the
audience can forgive even a more horrid murder of the villain.
The most extreme version of this is the hype of the TV show Dexter, where the
1-3. Figure “American Dad!": Stan thinking of 9/11 at 9:11
18
main hero is a serial killer. At first, it should seem unrealistic that the well civilized
American audience would feel for a cold blooded murderer who literally does not have any
emotions, but lust for killing. But again, we have a built up rationale: as a boy, Dexter had
to witness his mother being killed (the murderer dismembering her with a chainsaw), and
wait for the police to find him several days later, sitting in a blood-pool of his dead mother.
This horrendous experience killed all his emotions, and left a deep desire in him for killing.
His foster father, the policeman who had found him, noticed that something was wrong in
Dexter, so he trained him to kill those serial killers who could find leaks in the system and
escape imprisonment. As a result, Dexter saves innocent lives by killing. His recurring
dilemma is whether he is a bad person doing good things or a good person doing bad
things.
The reason this section deals with this TV show in such length is the parallel
between the moral dilemma of Dexter and the American actions in Iraq after 9/11. It is not
an accident that this series has gotten so popular in the USA; Dexter shares the American
people's doubts about their actions
towards those who were responsible for a
horrendous, traumatic event the US
citizens had to witness. In this narrative,
the American people cannot be blamed
for their actions in Iraq, because the Al
Qaeda started the fight, and as a
consequence, they must fight back, just
like after Pearl Harbor. But also as in the
case of Pearl Harbor, the US citizens must
remember their overcompensation regarding Pearl Harbor, namely dropping the atomic
bombs, which, at the time, felt completely reasonable, only regretted later. (Smelser) Thus,
they cannot really feel innocent, rather they are on a slippery slope like Dexter. The
dualistic narrative of good vs. evil therefore is not valid in this case, even though President
Bush used it in his public utterances a lot.
The purpose of this chapter is to present the key factors of trauma first on the
personal, later on the collective level, proving that the events of 11 September 2001
1-4. Figure "Dexter"
19
resulted in cultural trauma for the citizens of the USA. I have taken examples from popular
culture, claiming that they can represent the most common attitudes of US citizens. I have
argued that events are not enough to cause cultural trauma in a given society, but the
narrative in which they reach the nation is able to traumatise them.
20
2. The Role of Humour in Working Through Trauma
The healing power of humour is almost commonplace. Kuipers, for instance calls it
“a coping strategy for America.” (Kuipers 27) But if the belief in the positive impact of
humour is indeed so strong in the American way of thinking, then why were humour and
comedy suspended in the media after the events of 9/11? Many people even called
September 11 as the “death of comedy”. (Kuipers 20) The present chapter will first take a
closer look at the controversy about forgetting or remembering the thing(s) lost in a
traumatic event, then it will emphasise the dangers of forgetting the positive aspects of
something whose loss is a traumatic experience. At first it may seem that when the victims
remember such positive factors they risk working through their trauma, but in fact the
commemoration of the lost thing is part of the healing process. Secondly, the present
chapter will concentrate on three aspects of the healing power of humour. The first aspect
considers jokes as narrative forms which retell the story of the traumatic experience, thus
helping the victims cope with their loss. The second is overcoming fear with the help of
jokes. The third aspect focuses on those jokes which make a statement, thus help the
victims find some meaning in what has happened to them.
Later, as part of the discussion about negative opinions on disaster humour I will
present some theories which claim that 'sick jokes' are not able to help in working through
trauma, moreover, they are downright aggressive and harmful. I will then defend my point
that the disaster jokes in American animated sitcoms are parts of the healing process of the
American psyche. It is very important to emphasise that I do not think that a given joke
only fulfills one function. I believe that different jokes have different functions for different
audiences and finding all the options is impossible. This chapter's aim is to concentrate on
one specific function, namely, humour's role in coping with trauma, and in the next chapter
I will present how 9/11 jokes in three animated sitcoms (The Simpsons, South Park and
Family Guy) can help American audiences in their healing process.
2.1 What to Forget and What to Remember?
Soon after the tragedy of September 11, pictures of the burning WTC towers, people
jumping to their deaths, horrified faces of passers-by flooded the media. There was an
21
aspect absent from the programmes of TV channels: humour, or anything that could have
been connected to the twin towers in a positive or neutral way. It seemed as if even the
appearance of the towers in their everyday status would have been able to upset the
audiences. As a result, everything ordinary about the towers disappeared from the media,
and what remained was terror. This also meant altering some of the products of the
entertainment industry simply because they showed images of the WTC towers. One
altered film among others was the movie Zoolander, where the images of the World Trade
Center were digitally deleted, even though the production of the film had started before 11
September 2001, and the trailer was rolling and cut into when the first report of the attack
arrived. (Germain)
Deleting the image of the towers from a pre-9/11 world carries the message that the
terrorists were capable of destroying more than just two buildings. They were also able to
demolish these buildings from the imagination of American film-makers. Making the
Americans pretend that the WTC towers did not exist in their dignity is more threatening
than the mere act of devastating those buildings and taking thousands of lives. The motto
“never forget” refers only to the tragic aspects of September 11, but not their pre-9/11
world. This means that when American citizens talk about the World Trade Center, they
should never forget what has happened to it. There is, on the one hand, the understandable
urge to commemorate those who have been affected by the tragedy. On the other hand,
forgetting about the other aspects of the towers can be rather harmful.
Sam Raimi, the director of Spider-Man portrayed this ambiguity when he deleted
some scenes from the movie where pictures of the trade towers could be seen, but left them
in some other shots.“I didn’t want to erase the image of the twin towers. They’re seen
throughout the course of the movie, because we didn’t want the terrorists to win.”, - he said.
(Germain) Because deleting the towers from history does mean that the terrorists have won
by achieving to make the pre-9/11 world a taboo. Only when the American society finds a
way to commemorate the twin towers and the events of 9/11 with all their features – good
and bad – does the healing process start.
22
From the total silence about the twin towers' positive aspect to joking about the
attacks the path is long, but the steps that lead from one to the other are stages of the
healing process. Such a step was the short animation The Man Who Walked Between the
Towers, by Michael Sporn in 2005. This is the film version of a children's picture book with
the same title written by Mordicai Gerstein in 2003. Both tell the true story of Philippe
Petit's walk between the towers in
1974, and they both end with the
following lines: " Now the towers are
gone. But in memory, as if imprinted
on the sky, the towers are still there.
And part of that memory is the joyful
morning, Aug. 7, 1974, when Philippe
Petit walked between them in the air."
(The Man Who Walked Between the
Towers) As the book and the film were
made after the attacks, they both have
been active participants of the healing process by highlighting positive memories attached
to the towers. Thus, the towers have not been mentioned only as places of terror, but also as
scenes of joy and freedom, as Phillippe frequently said how free he felt up there.
Besides recalling good memories, another step of commemorating the good sides of
a tragically lost thing or person is joking about it. Jokes about loss are not modern
inventions, they can be found in many different cultures' traditions. Both in Ireland and
Newfoundland, for instance, wakes were places for practical jokes, drinking and
merrymaking (Ilana, Narváez), not to mention the old-Irish tradition, Halloween, which
“provides for licentious behavior that attracts parade participants” (Narváez 9), or The
Mexican Day of the Dead (Stanley). In addition to grief, disasters have provided reasons
for jokes, which are usually called “sick jokes”. As the name suggest, these jokes are
usually considered the products of a sick state of mind, even by some folklorists. (Ellis 6)
2-1. Figure "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers." Illustration by Mordicai Gerstein. 2003.
23
There is also a widespread
assumption that those who joke
about disasters are insensitive
people who cannot be moved by
tragedies. Contrary to this belief,
those who circulate topical sick
humour are able to find closure
faster than those who do not.
(Ellis 2) Based on this, Ellis
concludes that what can be
considered as deviant behaviour is
the absence of disaster jokes in the media, and not their presence.
As Ellis explains in his essay, “A Model for Collecting and Interpreting World Trade
Center Disaster Jokes” and later in “Making a Big Apple Crumble”, emergency workers are
in a difficult position when it comes to working through the horrors they must experience.
They use humour to cope with the terror they witness, but they feel they cannot share these
jokes with anyone outside the circle of their colleagues, not even their friends and family,
since the common attitude towards such humour would make them seem soulless.
As we can see from the previous examples, the attitude towards humour about
disaster is a rather ambivalent one. On the one hand, it seems inappropriate to joke in times
of grief, especially when the joke is on the victims of the catastrophic event, as such
humour is considered depraved. On the other hand, as Kuipers (25) writes, “[t]he belief in
the healing power of humor, which is central to American thinking about humour, was
invoked often in the period after 9/11”. In this case humour is regarded as therapeutic. As
Elliott claimed,
[n]either the depraved nor the therapeutic hypothesis depend upon a close reading of the jokes themselves. Both positions are equally based upon the fact that people are laughing at horrific disaster. It seems solely a matter of formulating opinion as to the motives that inform that laughter – cruel and depraved or therapeutic and liberating? But [...] there are other possibilities. (281)
The recent chapter does not aim at the impossible, which is covering all possible
2-2. Figure Irish Wake
24
interpretations, but rather, to focus on one aspect: the therapeutic reading. It will
concentrate on three aspects of the therapeutic effects of jokes on disasters.
The first aspect is working through trauma with the help of narration. In this case,
jokes are different narrations of a traumatic event, and as I have explained it in the first
chapter, once the traumatic experience can be narrated in different ways to different
audiences, it means that the healing process has already started. The second aspect is
overcoming fear by ridiculing the very thing we are terrified of. One of the many
mechanisms of humour is superiority/disparagement which means that the notion of
humour derives from a sense of superiority over the butts of the joke. (Neuendorf 1) The
third aspect is finding something meaningful in tragedy. Obviously, these disaster jokes do
not celebrate a disaster, rather what they do is highlight those things that were gained rather
than lost. This has special importance in the healing process, as one component of the
traumatic experience is that its events are incomprehensible. (Caruth 153) Thus, when a
conclusion can be drawn from a disaster, it stops being a traumatising experience and
becomes a tragic event.
2.2 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour
Jokes are mini stories (or sometimes situations) that produce mirth in the audience.
As narrated stories, they have more layers of interpretation. First of all, jokes have specific
performance meanings, which are modified meanings of the intended message, altered by
the context in which they appear or by the assumptions the members of the audience might
have connected to the subject of the joke. (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 120) Here I will rely on
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning, because even
though she writes about proverbs, her observations are absolutely valid for jokes, too.
As for multiple meanings based on the intentions of the speaker and the context in
which the proverb is told, Kirshennlatt-Gimblett's example is “A friend in need is a friend
indeed (in deed)”, which can be interpreted in two ways. In the case of the literal meaning a
real friend is somebody you can count on in times of need, or somebody who acts when
you need them. The sarcastic meaning appears when the speaker uses the word “indeed”
with a sense of irony, thus suggesting that a friend who is only there when they are in
trouble is not really your friend. These were just a few examples for the countless multiple
25
meanings a proverb or even a joke might have based on the context they appear in. In the
case of a trauma, this is of special importance, as the more meanings and versions a
narration of the tragic event might have, the closer it is to memory than to traumatic
experience. (Caruth 153)
At this point, I have to touch upon what are called jokes in this thesis. As the centre
of this paper's attention is the world of American animated sitcoms, I will call certain
scenes or sketches jokes, even though they do not appear on their own, but they are
embedded in an episode. Still, they have the characteristics necessary to be regarded as
jokes. They are short narratives with a punchline, they have joke-tellers and an audience. In
my view, the characters of the TV shows are the joke-tellers, and the audience of the series
is the audience of a joke. I regard the episode as the context in which the joke is told. The
cultural background is the one the producers of the show share with the American viewers.
Jokes are stories, and as a consequence, they are different narratives of a certain event.
Based on the importance of narration in the healing process, when the American society re-
tells some aspects of 9/11 in the form of jokes, it means that they are already able to apply
various narratives, thus working through their cultural trauma.
2.3 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour
There are three main theories about what makes a joke successful. (Gournelos &
Greene xvii) The first is the incongruity theory, where “humor results from the unexpected
but appropriate juxtaposition of two or more frames of interpretation usually not associated
with one another”. (et. al. xvii-xviii) The second is the catharsis theory, where “humor
comes from a momentary eruption of relief of psychological and/or social tension (e.g.,
laughing during a funeral or at a faux pas).” (et. al. xviii) The last and most important
theory for the present argument is called superiority theory. This “suggests that people
laugh at those they find to be inferior to themselves (whether that is a person, a race, a
class, or even a place or experience).” (et. al. xviii) These three theories often appear
together, as we can see in the following joke which was found the world's funniest joke
according to Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire), in collaboration with the
26
British Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002.6
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?”. The operator says “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”
We can find the incongruity in the fact that the hunter kills the other hunter contrary
to his original intention: saving his friend's life. The catharsis comes from the fact that we
laugh at a terrible situation: a man killing his friend. And finally, we laugh because we feel
superior to the hunter who shoots somebody out of stupidity. The man who sent in this
particular joke to LaughLab is
Gurpal Gosall, a psychiatrist from
Manchester. He claims to tell this
joke to his clients, because he finds
that it makes people feel better,
“[b]ecause it reminds them that
there is always someone out there
who is doing something more
stupid than themselves."
(“Psychiatrist's joke 'world's
funniest'”) Furthermore, the
research differentiated between nationalities and it was found that “Americans and
Canadians much preferred gags where there was a sense of superiority – either because a
person looked stupid, or was made to look stupid by another person” (“Humour across the
globe”)
Given that Americans particularly enjoy jokes at the expense of someone or some
group thatthat can be considered as inferior, it is no wonder that in 2009 “The Achmed
sketch is the fourth most watched online video ever, according to the Web-tracking service
6 “Richard created LaughLab – a year long project that aimed to discover the world’s funniest joke. The project was set-up in collaboration with The British Science Association, and involved people sending in their favourite jokes, and rating how funny they found the jokes submitted by others. The project attracted attention from the international media, resulting in the website receiving over 40,000 jokes and 1.5 million ratings.” (www.laughlab.co.uk/: October 20, 2012)
2-3. Figure Gurpal Gosall
27
Visible Measures.” (“The Puppet Master”) Achmed is a skeletal
puppet figure of an incompetent suicide bomber who claims to
work for Osama Bin Laden used by Jeff Dunham. Achmed's
catchphrase is 'Silence! I kill you!” (The word 'kill' is pronounced
as /ki:l/.) When he shouts this sentence the audience bursts out in
laughter.
They are not frightened, nor offended by the threat of a
“terrorist”. By laughing at him, they feel superior to somebody
that is supposed to represent something they should be terrified
of. Achmed would not have been able to achieve the same effect in the immediate aftermath
of 9/11, but a few years later he became really popular, especially as he helped the
Americans work through their trauma and fear by ridiculing what they had been terrified of.
2.4 Jokes That Make a Statement
There is another theory in traditional studies of humour, which is called
communication theory. As Arthur Asa Berger defines it in his essay “Coda: Humor,
Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies,” (Berger) “communication theories […] deal with the way
the human mind processes information and deal with such matters as play frames and
paradoxes in communication and the way they generate humor.” (Berger 235) For
communication theorists, humour “is a form of communication that forces us to confront
paradoxical aspects of reality. One way we deal with the paradoxical nature of reality, […]
is to laugh at it.” (236) As I have mentioned it before, one important aspect of the traumatic
experience is that, for the victim, it is not coherent, so it is like a paradox. When a joke
sheds light upon a paradoxical situation, thus making the audience laugh, it also offers
solutions by offering at least two interpretations. In the case of disaster jokes this has a
therapeutic value, as these jokes convey something that is beyond grief and terror.
The interpretations a disaster joke might offer are not necessarily deep and
profound, but the depth of such an interpretation is not so important. For instance, there is a
9/11 joke in the eighth episode of the third season of American Dad!, where Roger, the
alien pet of the family could convince Stan, the father to buy a popcorn machine.
Steve: Kudos to the way you conned my dad into getting us this popcorn machine.
2-4. Figure Jeff Dunham and Achmed
28
Roger: It was just a matter of finding the right way to combine the words "tasty," "low-fat," and "9/11." (American Dad!)
The paradox here is the fact that 9/11 has nothing to do with a popcorn machine,
thus it cannot be a good argument next to “tasty” and “low-fat”, both of which can be
characteristics of the given snack. The solution of the incongruity is finding the connection
between the tragedy of September 11 and a CIA agent's persuasion to buy a popcorn
machine. A possible link is the way 9/11 is used at times as a slogan to influence American
citizens about something which, in fact, might have little to do with 9/11. This little piece of
information enriches the narration about 9/11, and thus helps to integrate it into a narrative
memory, within the schemes of prior knowledge. And this is a key factor in working
through trauma. (Caruth 153)
2.5 Different Attitudes Towards the Healing Power of (Disaster) Jokes
The book I will rely on most in this part is A Decade of Dark Humor – How
Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America (Gournelos and Greene 2011). This
collection of essays concentrates on several jokes made about 9/11. Most of the writers are
rather critical of the positive side of such jokes, claiming that the main message this kind of
comedy aims to convey is hostility. (Lewis 220)
What most of these authors are dealing with is a rather specific genre: what they call
jokes, are mostly digitally altered pictures, caricatures, and comedians' sketches. Neither
Lewis nor Kuipers consider sitcoms, let alone animated sitcoms in their articles. Yet, I
argue there is a huge difference between these genres. In the case of the images, the author
is usually anonymous. Caricatures have their authors, and comedians give their faces to the
jokes, which make them more vulnerable to criticism, thus increasing the risk they take by
making the jokes. This might also be the reason why the anonymous Internet jokes are the
most aggressive ones. And aggression and hostility are some of the above mentioned
authors' main accusations against humor aimed at disasters or minorities. In addition,
Davies suggests,
It may be that the Internet simply makes the jokes appear more numerous by enabling these otherwise scattered and forbidden items to be assembled in one place, but it seems more likely that the use of e-mail and web sites has a snowball effect, since the existence of an accessible core of jokes stimulates further jokes through imitation,
29
modification, inspiration, emulation, and legitimation. (30)
This phenomenon can hardly ever happen with situational comedies. Even when
such TV programmes do influence each other, this cannot happen as fast as in the case of
Internet jokes, as an episode of an animated sitcom usually takes three weeks to make –
with the exception of South Park, where an episode is produced within three days in most
cases.
Furthermore, these sitcoms are the work of a bigger team – writers, actors, artists,
musicians, and so on. If a joke appears in an animated sitcom, it is rarely a sudden idea. It
goes through many people, which means many opportunities of editing and cutting. The TV
channel that airs the programme also has a say in whether the content of the episode is
appropriate for the viewers or not – and it goes without saying that these commercial TV
channels have their broadcast standards, which means that they are mainly interested in
ratings and thus their income, so they would not risk losing viewers for the sake of a joke.
As Davies argues, “[t]elevision is a form of centralized and homogenized mass production,
from which anything that offends the management, the sponsors, or any significant section
of the audience to whom they choose to defer, is excluded. The Internet is decentralised,
international, and diverse.” (Davies 30) Thus, if a 9/11 joke appears in a commercial TV
channel one may rightfully assume that its impact is bigger, than in the case of
“consequence-free” Internet jokes. Even in the case of the highly satirical, provocative and
controversial Family Guy, there are strict rules about what can and cannot be broadcast. For
instance, the twenty-first episode of the eighth season entitled Partial Terms of Endearment
which deals with the ethical question of abortion7 was called back before it would have
been aired, and it only appeared on DVD. Based on this we can assume that the producers
of these sitcoms do not aim to hurt minorities.
Another scholar who doubts that humour can be a means to cope with the events of
9/11 is Giselinde Kuipers. According to her, using disaster jokes as a way of coping with
trauma is problematic, because “many people who in no way can be said to suffer
7 In this episode Lois is asked by old friends to become a surrogate mother. Lois agrees to do so, however, when she is already pregnant, the biological parents die in an accident. The fate of the fetus is in question. Peter tries to persuade Lois to get an abortion, but later he changes his mind due to pro-life activists who convince him that abortion is murder. In the end, however, when everyone is sitting at the dinner table, Peter suddenly announces that they aborted the baby, and the episode ends immediately.
30
personally from the disaster appreciate them.” (Kuipers 22) But if we take this point into
account, we have to question the whole concept of cultural trauma. As I discussed in the
previous chapter, an event, which later becomes cultural trauma, in most cases does not
affect every member of the group as a personal trauma would do. But as their sense of
identity is questioned, they do suffer from it and they do need to cope with it in order to
work through it. Kuipers also claims that “[t]hese humorous clash jokes8 are deliberately
amoral. They do not contain any empathy, nor do they make any statement.” (31) This may
be true for some pictures circulating on the Internet, but in the case of animated sitcoms, it
definitely does not stand, since they do make statements, as I argued earlier in this chapter.
As the main characters of these sitcoms are the representations of the typical American
family living in the suburbs, even when they make a simple dull statement about 9/11, the
show makes a statement, in this case, about the ignorance of U.S. citizens of Arab culture,
or the events of 9/11. Making the American family the butts of these jokes, the (American)
audience is invited to admit their similarity to the characters: 'Yes, it is true that I know
little about Iraq, though my country is in war with it. Yes, this is rather embarrassing, this
can be made fun of. I should learn more about this issue.' Thus, they can defend themselves
against the assumption… However, I do agree with Kuipers that “the same joke might have
different functions for different people” (22), and in the recent thesis I only deal with
American citizens, who watch the three animated sitcoms I have chosen.
In conclusion, disaster jokes are used for a variety of reasons, and one of them is
coping with trauma. However, some sick jokes may not serve this purpose, because they
can be misunderstood by their audience, they can intensify hostility, or they might use harsh
ridicule, and thus they can do more harm than good. Animated sitcoms, on the other hand,
are able to help the audience work through their trauma. They use ridicule to help the
viewers overcome their fear, they offer different narrations so that a traumatic experience
can become a memory, and they may make a statement in order to help the victims find
some meaning in tragedy. In the following chapter I will take a closer look at these three
aspects and I will support them with examples of certain 9/11 jokes from Family Guy,
South Park and The Simpsons.
8 A clash joke is “humor based on a clash of incongrous domains.” (Kuipers 30)
31
3. Case Studies
(Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons)
First of all, this section will
introduce the situational comedies discussed
later in this chapter in order of their debuts.
The oldest running sitcom is The Simpsons
(on air since 1989), whose central family,
the Simpson family, is a caricature of the
middle class American lifestyle, in the
imaginary town of Springfield. The family
consists of the stupid, lazy, Homer as the
father with a drinking problem, and his
wife, Marge, who is the stereotypical TV
mother with high morals. They have three
children: the infant Maggie, the genius Lisa and the rebellious and disrespectful Bart. The
TV show makes fun of nearly every aspect of culture, politics and everyday life.
The second oldest sitcom in the
present thesis is South Park (on air since
1997), which is set in the fictional small
town of South Park and follows the days of
four 4th graders: Stan, Kyle, Cartman,
Kenny and their families. Stan is a typical
American 4th grader. His best friend is
Kyle, who is Jewish and as a result often
criticised by the racist, obnoxious and
selfish Cartman. Their friend, Kenny is very poor and his parka hood is so tight that what
he says is usually incomprehensible. The show often uses course language, violence and
social satire. Almost every episode ends with a moral voiced by one of the boys, usually
started as “You know, I've learned something today.”
3-1. Figure The Simpson family: Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie and Bart
3-2. Figure South Park: Cartman, Stan, Kenny and Kyle
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The newest sitcom presented here
is Family Guy, (on air since 1999) which
concentrates on the life of the Griffin
family. Peter, the father is quite similar to
Homer from The Simpsons in the sense
that he is dull, while his wife Lois, who
fulfills the role of a typical housewife, is
smarter than him. They also have three
children. Stewie is the youngest, a genius
infant who can only be heard by the very
intelligent dog, Brian, who can talk, as
well. The middle child is Meg, often
picked on by her family. The oldest son is Chris, who takes after his father. The show is
famous for its cutaways, usually not connected to the main storyline. Such as the other two
sitcoms, Family Guy also uses social satire. Furthermore, all three of them used more 9/11
jokes.
As I have presented in the previous chapter, the attitude towards disaster jokes is
rather ambivalent. Many form the opinion that the time passed between the tragedy and the
joke about it should not be little, although nobody can tell exactly what amount of time is
“too soon”. (Holt, 2011) What Jim Norton, an American comedian, answered to the
negative comments will be a motto for this part of my thesis. He said: “None of us wanted
to start making fun of people jumping from the buildings, the victims, shit like that. We
made fun of our own reactions to the tragedy.” (Pilot, 2011) The clearest example for this
is a cutaway in Grumpy Old Man from Family Guy, where Peter says to Lois: “Oh. Look at
that smile, Lois. Reminds me of that guy who was way too happy he didn't get killed on
9/11.” (Family Guy, s10e09)9 And we can see a businessman arriving to the scene of the
WTC attacks, and shouting in the middle of the devastated crowd in an ecstatic mood : “I'm
ten minutes late for work. Look at that! I stayed up late watching Monday night football
and that saved my life. Isn't that awesome?” - Then he realises disapproving looks from the
9 For the sake of clarity, the reference I will use for the episodes is the sXXeXX form, where “s” is for season, “e” is for episode. So s10e09 means the ninth episode of the tenth season.
3-3. Figure The Griffin family ("Family Guy"): Lois, Stweie, Peter, Meg, Chris and Brian
33
people around him and
changes his tone to sad:
“Ah, but ooh...” (Family
Guy, s10e09) This shows
how grief was almost
compulsory in the
aftermath: even when
somebody could have been
happy because they had
survived a tragic death,
they were supposed to celebrate behind closed doors, not to upset people in their grief. The
three sitcoms used as reference here have not been affected by such taboos, since they have
used 9/11 as subjects to some of their jokes. However, similar to Jim Norton’s claim, they
have not made fun of actual victims. They ridicule people's reactions to the events and the
way 9/11 has been exploited by politics or merchandise.
3.1 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour
This part of my thesis will study those 9/11 jokes which help working through
trauma by presenting the traumatic event in a different light, thus in a different narrative. In
the case of cultural trauma, it is crucial to have other narratives and points of views present
apart from the repetition of the facts of the traumatic event. This section consists of two
parts: in the first, the jokes that will be presented make fun of the reactions people have had
to 9/11. The second part will discuss jokes that aim at the exploitation of the attacks.
The first example will come from The Simpsons episode entitled Rednecks and
Broomsticks, in which the initial reaction of the people affected by the attacks is ridiculed.
Selma, Marge’s chain-smoking, sarcastic sister, makes TV reporter Kent Brockman admit
that they were involved in a sexual relationship. Kent Brockman's explanation to sleeping
with the undesirable woman is: “We all did crazy things on 9/11.” (s20e07) This statement
evokes a kind of end-of-the-world panic, when people acted without thinking. This joke
presents a rather undignified aspect of the events by emphasising how careless some people
got due to their shock. Besides heroism, tragedy and grief, which are aspects that have been
3-4. Figure "[T]hat guy who was way too happy he didn't get killed on 9/11.” (Family Guy, s10e09)
34
mostly connected to 9/11, recklessness was also present on that day. Shedding light on this
not so noble aspect helps working through trauma by presenting a narrative that has been
missing from the discussion of the events.
Some people might have acted thoughtlessly, other people on the other hand might
not have been able to understand the impact of the events, such as Peter Griffin in Padre de
Familia from Family Guy, where Brian criticises him for being overly-patriotic.
Brian : Peter, you do realize there's a difference between loving America and being swept up in post-9/11 paranoia.
Peter: Brian, are you suggesting that 9/11 didn't change everything?
Brian : What? No, I was just... Peter: 'Cause 9/11 changed everything, Brian! 9/11 changed
everything! Brian : Peter, you didn't even know what 9/11 was until 2004. Peter: That's not true, Brian. I remember 9/11. [We see Peter
coming in the room where Lois is watching the news on 9/11, crying.] He! Must have been a woman pilot, he? [Nudges Lois.] (s06e06)
Peter is the ignorant butt of the joke. His assumption that the pilot was a woman,
and that is why the plane hit the WTC tower is a joke on its own, but there is another level
of the joke. When Peter thought that the planes hitting the towers had been only accidents,
he was not devastated by the fact that thousands of Americans died. The incongruity comes
from the fact that years later he believes that the impact of that day has been exceptional,
and it has changed everything. His credibility is clearly lost when the audience can see his
initial reaction. Brian points out this controversy, thus signaling that even though the most
repeated opinion about 9/11 is that “it changed everything”, there are people who miss to
feel this honestly. And those who are “swept up in post-9/11 paranoia” are not necessarily
those who have been affected most by the events of that day. By criticising some of the
overly-patriotic, Brian points out that being too emotional about 9/11 is not the only
legitimate reaction. You can love America using a different narrative, and sometimes it is a
more honest reaction.
Besides the reaction to the attacks, people's feelings towards the loss of the towers
have also been commemorated in the form of jokes. In Moonshine River (The Simpsons)
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Bart tries to convince his father to travel to New York. His main argument involves an
implicit reference to the twin towers: “Come on, Dad, you love New York, now that your
two least favorite buildings have been obliterated: [long pause] Old Penn Station and Shea
stadium.” (s24e01) Although in the end the obliterated buildings turn out to be others than
the WTC towers, for the viewer the reference is quite obvious.
This reference may seem a bit gratuitous at first, but I think it is rather beneficial. As
I have briefly mentioned it in the first chapter, the towers had not been very popular in the
pre-9/11 world. But in the post-9/11 world, the opinions that argued against the towers'
aesthetic value have disappeared. The main context in which the looks of the towers are
present is the altered cityscape, the loss of the towers. By presenting another narrative, one
which has not been changed by the terrorist attacks, The Simpsons helps the viewers work
through their trauma.
Having presented some of the jokes that ridicule people's reaction to the events, this
section will turn to jokes about the exploitation of 9/11 for selfish purposes. In the next
example, 9/11 is an argument that cannot be refuted, and it does not have to be connected to
the original subject of the argument. Lois has to use this tool when she wants to be a mayor,
and even though she is more intelligent than her opponent, Mayor West seems to win the
campaign. Brian, her advisor, helps her by saying that “undecided voters are the biggest
idiots on the planet. Try giving short, simple answers.” (Family Guy, s05e17) So to the
question about what she wants to do about crime in their city, she replies “A lot. Because
that's what Jesus wants. 9/11 was bad.” As the audience is ecstatic, Lois answers simply
“9/11” to both questions “Mrs. Griffin, what are your plans for cleaning up our
environment?” and “Mrs. Griffin, what about our traffic problem?” And the audience finds
9/11 the best answer possible.
It is likely that this joke caricatures the early stages of Rudy Giuliani's presidential
campaign in 2007, since in his public speeches he used 9/11 to gain popularity many times.
(Buettner) Even if one butt of the joke is Giuliani, so too is the audience that accepted –
moreover, cheered – at the usage of 9/11 in a context, where it was not necessarily
appropriate, is ridiculed, too. When people feel they have only one socially acceptable
reaction to hearing the word 9/11, it becomes a catchphrase and its dignity is lost. Thus, it is
important to have more narratives about it, and to let different arguments be heard about it.
36
The US administration's rationale to invade Iraq is ridiculed in a cutaway from the
episode entitled Baby Not on Board from Family Guy (s07e04), where Peter and Brian are
standing next to Ground Zero.
Peter: Ground Zero. So this is where the first guy got AIDS. Brian : No, Peter, this is the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks! Peter: Oh, so Saddam Hussein did this? Brian : No. Peter: The Iraqi army? Brian : No. Peter: Some guys from Iraq? Brian : No. Peter: That one lady who visited Iraq that one time? Brian : No, Peter, Iraq had nothing to do with this. It was a bunch of Saudi Arabians, Lebanese, and Egyptians financed by a Saudi Arabian guy living in Afghanistan and sheltered by Pakistanis. Peter: So... you're saying we need to invade Iran? (s07e04)
At first, the butt of this joke appears to be Peter, and his ignorance about what really
happened on 9/11. This ignorance is in contrast with Brian's summary of the events, which
is too to the point, as most Americans would not be able to tell the details with such
accuracy. Peter, given all the necessary information, draws a conclusion that the USA
should attack Iran, a country which Brian has not mentioned. This conclusion mocks
today's political trend with the same purpose. Taking this a step further, if we consider that
the country the USA chose to invade was Iraq, a country that “had nothing to do with” 9/11,
it becomes clear that the real butt of the joke is the American administration. The
therapeutic effect here comes from the alternative to Bush's good vs. evil narrative, as it
suggests that the situation is more complex.
The above-mentioned episode from Family Guy aired in 2009, but South Park used
this idea a year after the tragedy, in A Ladder to Heaven, where the children try to build a
ladder to Heaven to be able to see their dead friend, Kenny. People are very touched by this
initiation, as they think the motivation behind the children's action is their love for their lost
friend, but in fact they just want to know where Kenny hid a ticket with which they can get
the candy they won. As a result, the boys without actually realising it exploit the adults'
sentiments to help them. But when Alan Jackson appears, he does the same thing on
purpose. As the commentator introduces him:
37
Even country singer Alan Jackson has shown up with a song he has written about
the ladder. Alan Jackson is, of course, the man who wrote the song, Where Were You When
the World Stopped Turning, about the tragedies on September 11. And now he's here once
again to capitalize on people's emotions. Let's listen in:
Where were you, when they built the Ladder to Heaven? Did it make you feel like crying? Or did you think it was kinda gay? Well I for one believe in the Ladder to Heaven Ooh yeah yeah yeah, 9-11 I said 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9, 9-11 Thank you! I have a new CD out with all my 9-11 songs for sale right here! (s06e12)
The beginning of these lyrics refers to the ambivalent feelings one might have about
the kids building the ladder, as it can be seen either as moving or too sentimental. Then, all
of a sudden, he sings about 9/11, which is irrelevant to the original subject, and in this
context the same question rises about the usage of 9/11 in songs, whether it is moving or
over-sentimental. And since he uses this song as a commercial for his 9/11 CDs, he appears
as a hypocrite, who does not really care either about 9/11 or the ladder to Heaven.
When Japan starts to build another ladder to Heaven to compete with the America,
the US military arrives to help the children. Their purpose is not noble, either, as it is not
caused by sympathy, but by the wish to defeat Japan. Later, the US government finds
evidence of threats from Saddam Hussein, who is building weapons of mass destruction in
Heaven (which turns out to be true), and seek UN approval to military action. As Randy,
Stan's father says “If Saddam is building weapons, we have to stop him. With our
weapons.” (s06e12) This ridicules the USA's desire to be the only powerful country in the
world.
When the children finally find the ticket for candy in Kenny's room and stop
building the ladder, people learn that their true motivation was only candy, they lose
interest and go home. Alan Jackson gets furious because the kids ruined his latest song, and
he breaks his guitar: another sign that his original motivation was no more noble than
theirs. The moral, voiced by Stan and Kyle doubts the existence of a Heaven with fluffy
38
clouds, and suggests that Heaven is more of an idea. Bush concludes that he was wrong for
believing that Saddam Hussein could be up building weapons and he also goes home.
Throughout this episode, people act out of selfish reasons, disguising them as noble
goals. However, when they hear the truth which is not as touching as the lie, they lose
interest, even though they could be able to prevent Saddam Hussein from using weapons of
mass destruction. This emphasises the importance of other narratives besides mainstream
ones.
In the previous examples jokes offer some help to the viewers by presenting
alternative narratives to those that have dominated the media. They also draw the attention
to the danger of letting only one reaction be appropriate about 9/11.
3.2 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour
This part will begin with the presentation of fear based on Shiping Tang's
paper entitled “The Social Evolutionary Psychology of Fear (and Trust): Or why is
international cooperation difficult?”, because he focuses on the fear and trust among
different nationalities. Fear is one of the core emotions of humankind, originally present to
help survival. When people have to make judgments under uncertainty, the two typical
errors they make is false positive, which means the “elicitation of a fear response toward a
stimulus that eventually turned out to be harmless”, or false negative, i.e., “failure to elicit
the defense response toward a stimulus that eventually turned out to be harmful.” (Tang 5)
The brain prefers the false positive one. Another technique people use to avoid danger is
simplistic thinking, which means that “we generally do not ask whether the other side’s
“unfriendly” and “undesirable” behavior may be a rational reaction to a situation he faces.”
(Tang 10)
Another characteristic of fear of other groups is the difference between how insiders
look at their own group and the way they see the outsiders belonging to other groups.
Individuals pay more attention to their own group's interests and motivations than to the
others'. This means that when another group is unfriendly in a way, individuals usually do
not take into consideration the possible reasons that could have led to the not preferred
behaviour. Consequently, they can easily miss the factors that would shed some positive
light on the other group's supposedly malign deeds. (Tang 9)
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Jokes are able to point out the unseen motivations and interests of other groups, e.g.
Muslims in a light and non-threatening way. They are also capable of highlighting
ambivalences between American's perceptions of outsiders and the truth. As Paul Atcher
described this phenomenon in his essay entitled “Comedy in Unfunny Times”, there are
jokes that “pick up on the perceived sense of U.S. American ignorance regarding the
motives and history of Islamic radicals and seek to fill perceived gaps in audience
knowledge about Islam:” (Achter 295) Achter calls this an education-gap, which he
explains with the “lack of Arab speakers in the U.S., a lack of appreciation or
understanding of Islam among majority U.S. Americans, and a lack of knowledge about
ongoing tensions between Arab nation states and the U.S.”, for example the Gulf War.
(Achter 297) When talking about The Onion's10 news parodies, Achter claims that “[b]y
reframing news of the attacks as mediations, The Onion's carnivalesque meta-discourse
created opportunities to address racism, to address fundamental questions about the motives
behind the attacks, and to lay out an agenda for learning about the cultures and political
histories of the people involved in the war on terror.” (Achter 298) The present chapter's
aim is to show how animated sitcoms are also capable of achieving the same effect.
In the following part of this chapter I will present two episodes that deal with the
fear of American citizens regarding Muslims. These episodes (Mypods and Boomsticks
from The Simpsons and The Snuke from South Park) do not only present these fears as
unjustified in most cases, but they also point out the lack of knowledge which causes these
fears. By drawing the attention to this lack of information they may also make people want
to learn more about the given topics, or at least the audience is provided with information,
which is different from the mainstream stereotypes, while making fun of these stereotypes
at the same time.11 Another reason why these sitcoms can be educational is that they are
more easily digested by wider audiences than, for instance newspaper articles. Especially in
the case of younger audiences, who are more likely to follow comedy formats with news
focus when is turns to politics. (Sella 2000)
In the seventh episode of the twentieth season of The Simpsons, entitled Mypods
10 The Onion is a news satire newspaper and website. 11 By stereotypes here I mean “the problematic assumptions about [...] the hijackers as religious zealots.”
(Achter 294)
40
and Boomsticks the main topic is intolerance. The basic situation is rather typical: a new
family moves into the suburban neighbourhood. This motif is rather common in American
TV shows.12 These outsiders are rarely honest people; they are trouble. So, everyone who
moves into suburbia is a bit suspicious, at least at first, in the American TV world. The
Simpsons uses this tradition, when Bashir, the son of the outsider family appears, and
introduces himself in a very polite, and actually very suburban fashion, as he is cooking
something which is similar to a hamburger “with an exotic aroma” (Bart Simpson) in his
garden.
Bashir My family and I just moved here, from Jordan. Bart Jordan. That's on some map somewhere, right?
Bart here seems to miss the typical suspicion of the average suburban neighbour,
although he is aware that Bashir might get in trouble because of his otherness, he even
warns him that coming from another religion might get him into trouble. Still, he shows
very little interest in his new friend's background, he does not even ask which religion he is.
Bashir's faith is eventually revealed when the school bullies attack Bashmir, as it was
expected by Bart.
Bully I'm going to punch you extra hard 'cause I secretly think you're cute.
Bart You can't just whale on him because he's-- What religion are you anyway? Bashir Muslim. Bart Oh boy! Bully You're the reason I can't carry toothpaste on an airplane!
The bully's reasoning for his violence towards Bashir is funny, firstly, because such
a boy usually lacks the insight needed to explain a motive like that. It is also funny because
it highlights a basic human reaction: people who are insecure use aggression to defend
themselves. Anyone who has ever been attacked by a bully may find some kind of relief in
knowing that there is a frightened little boy or girl behind the mask of cruelty, as it suggests
12 The popular series Desperate Housewives, for instance, builds each season on a newcomer who moves into the neighbourhood in the first episode, carrying a dark secret, which is revealed bit by bit towards the end of the season, usually hurting the people living close to them.
41
that the bully may be disarmed. And this does not only stand for bullies, it can also be
adapted to other aggressive groups, as well.
The mention of the Muslim faith seems to have more meaning to Bart than that of
Jordan, and he knows that it means trouble. The bully's comment clearly shows that his
problems with the Muslim faith are not based on religious or political views, he is not even
worrying about the threat of a suicide bomber, but he is frustrated because of a common
annoyance that followed 9/11, the strengthened security measures. The therapeutic value of
this bit is that is lessens the terrifying image of a Muslim with the mention of a banal
impediment, especially considering the example the bully mentions is one of the smallest
measures experienced at an airport.
I have already written about individuals' unwillingness to examine the outsiders'
motivations and background. The less two groups have in common, the harder it is for them
to understand and expect benign behaviour from each other. This is especially true about
Muslims, as they come from very far away from the USA and their culture is rather
different from the American culture. Homer is an ignorant citizen who at first does not even
realise that Bashir is an outsider, and he mistakes him for Bart's best friend, Milhouse. With
this mistake, he fails to approach him with all the stereotypes he might have towards an
outsider. Thus, he interprets his unfamiliar behaviour as something new and cool.
Bart Salaam alaikum! (to Bashir) Homer Milhouse is looking good! He's got contacts, changed
color, got a cool new catchphrase. Salaam alaikum! Bart Dad, that's Bashir, my new friend. Bashir (doorbell rings) Bart forgot this, sir. Homer Sir? That's the kind of respect you'd have to strangle out
of an American kid.
Homer's ignorance does not turn into fear when he learns that Bashir is Muslim,
because his – positive – experience of the boy preceded the realisation of his religion, thus
his presumptions could not work. His friends, however, who did not meet Bashir are able to
convince Homer that he should be more cautious.
Moe Homer, this is serious. This Bashir kid is Muslim, and therefore up to something.
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Homer Oh, I can't believe that till I see a fictional TV program espousing your point of view.
(On TV)
Investigator (mutters) For the last time, Fayed, where did you hide the nerve gas?!
Muslim Guy Under your Statue of Liberty's dress! And she loved it!
Homer Oh, my God. What can I do? Carl Well, if you want to stop Bashir and his war on
American principles, you could discriminate against his family in employment and housing.
Lenny That's pretty patriotic, but I got a better idea. Invite 'em over. A little dinner, a little dessert, and then you Jack Bauer 'em into giving you all their secrets.
The rationale of Moe is typical of a prejudiced and scared person. According to him,
somebody's religion is enough evidence that they are threats to the country, which is
exaggerated by the fact that he is talking about a young boy, aged 10, so the chances of him
being a dangerous terrorist are exceptionally slight. Homer's reaction that he needs to see a
TV programme to share his friend's opinion refers to the persuasive power of the
entertainment industry. The fact that Homer asks for a fictional TV programme and not a
documentary suggests that he is not looking for actual data, but mostly emotions, thus
making the joke into a critique of American critical thinking skills. And the power of
emotions and peer pressure should not be underestimated, as it is one of the most effective
persuasive weapons. (Darrow 167)
The dinner turns out to be a disaster and Homer fails to get any secrets out of
Bashir's family. The viewers, on the other hand, learn that the last name of Bashir and his
family is Bin Laden, which is a clear warning sign and can raise doubts in the viewers
whether Homer is entirely wrong when he is suspicious of the newcomers:
Marge So, how did you two meet? Bashir's Father (chuckles) We met while studying at Jordan
University of Science and Technology. Homer Ah, interesting. Why, just the other day, I was
reading that science is used to make bombs. [Al in Homer's head: Now, bait the trap.] Why don't I get us dessert? (chuckles) I made us a little cake. (Brings in a cake made in the form of the American flag) Care to cut?
43
Bashir's Father No, thank you. Homer What's the matter? Don't like the taste of
freedom? Bart Dad, these people are my friends. Don't fear them
just because they have a different religion, a different culture, and their last name is Bin Laden.
Bashir's Father Young man, you do not respect us by disrespecting your father.
Abe I like the way you Italians think. Homer Shut up, old man.
Homer's fast connection between science and bombs is another good example of
how people choose what piece of information they pay attention to when it comes to an
outsider group. If Bashir's father, Amid, is a scientist, he must use his knowledge to make
bombs. Homer's trap, which is performed as a result to Al's instruction in his head, is a
catch-22. Either Amid accepts Homer's offer and cuts the cake, thus violates the American
flag as a proof of his anti-Americanness, or he refuses to cut and then he is accused of not
liking “the taste of freedom.”
Seeing this, Bart tries to step up to his friend's family, but Amid draws his attention
to the need to respect his father. This urge to correct Bart is likely to come from a religious
point of view. Still, it does not contain anything that an American citizen could have
anything against, as there is nothing anti-democratic in it. Grandfather Abe's comment,
which reveals that he mistakes the Bin Laden family for Italians, confirms this, too.
Homer's response, however, raises the question who should be a role-model for family
values. This scene helps the viewers to notice the positive sides of Muslim culture, thus
making them seem as less of a threat. Marge points out to Homer the mistake he made, and
he replies with an unusual insight:
Marge You're teaching Bart a terrible lesson of intolerance. Homer I'm sorry. It's just so fun and easy to judge people based on
religion.
Her husband promises Marge that he will go to apologise to the Bin Laden family.
Doing so, he overhears a conversation between the parents. He cannot hear every sentence
that is being told, but based on the bits he hears, he jumps to conclusions. And those
44
conclusions fit his original assumption that the Bin Ladens are terrorists. This overheard
dialogue is an excellent example about what I discussed in the beginning of this chapter,
namely, that individuals do not consider the other groups' motivations and interests, only
those of their own group's. In the following extract I will quote those words that Homer
cannot hear in italics.
Bashir's Father Off to work. Bashir's Mother Sometimes I wish you would quit that awful
business. Bashir's Father But I love blowing up buildings. Homer Oh, my God. Bashir's Father Safely and legally, in order to make room for new
buildings. Bashir's Mother Darling, I think you are working too much hard
(sic!). Bashir's Father Yes, I am killing myself, but it is all for the profit,
and after the explosion, I will be in a better place. That corner office with the downtown view.
The unheard words are exactly those factors that are not recognised by outsiders
according to Tang: motivation and interest. (Tang, 2010:9) Homer misses the motivation his
actions: that he is a construction worker who is a part of the building process. Homer also
misinterprets his interest: Homer relies on his previous knowledge of suicide bombers and
he concludes that Bashir's father wishes to get to paradise.13 For a viewer who is afraid of
Muslims as a result of the WTC attacks, laughing at this bit might bring some relief by
making fun of the too stereotypical way of thinking.
When Bashir's mother is not willing to let Homer in, because she is still offended by
the happenings at the dinner, Homer uses another stereotype about Muslims, which turns
out to be true in this case:
Homer I read somewhere your people are hospitable to guests. Is that true?
Bashir's Mother (sighing): Yes. Homer Praise be Oliver.
13 The common view about Muslim suicide bombers is that after dying in the explosion they go to paradise, where 72 virgins are waiting for them. However, the translation of the Quran is ambiguous, and whether it promises virgins or not is questionable. (Warraq, 2002.)
45
Bashir's Mother That's Allah. Homer Eh... we'll look it up in the Corona. So... now that
we're alone, um... death to America, right?
Homer's ignorance and arrogance at the same time is another example of how little
some people may know about other religions, but still act as if they understood everything.
The way his lack of knowledge on Islam is exaggerated, and thus ridiculed makes his
suspicion of the Bin Laden family being anti-American seem ridiculous too.
At the end of this episode Homer has to face the facts that Amid Bin Laden is a
construction worker, not a suicide bomber. But before he does so, he blows up a bridge in
an attempt to protect the local mall, which he believes to be the target of Amid's “terrorist
attack”. Unfortunately, because the bridge is the only connection between the Duff beer
brewery and the land, two trucks filled with beer fall into the river. Witnessing this, Homer
jumps into the river in a heroic attempt. When he reaches the truck, we can see an old
driver drowning, but instead of him, Homer saves some Duff beer. The humour here arises
from the incongruity of Homer's choice, namely that he rather saves beer than a man,
especially because there is nothing to be saved in the case of beer, as it does not even get
ruined under water. But if one takes a closer look at this episode, it turns out that this
ending gives an extra twist to the plot. What happens throughout the episode is that Homer
tries to prove that the Bin Ladens are cold blooded murderers, still, in the end, he ends up
killing an old American man14, and the Bin Ladens behave as model citizens. This contrast
might help to diminish the fears and stereotypes that appeared in the aftermath of 9/11.
South Park approached the question of stereotypes in a slightly different way in the
fourth episode of season 11, entitled The Snuke. The main difference between the two
episodes is that the members of the Muslim family in South Park are rather passive subjects
of the events: they are accused of being terrorists (mostly by Cartman), and even though
they turn out to be innocent, we do not know much more about them. In the case of the Bin
Laden family, on the other hand, we learn about the parents that they are well-educated, the
14 Actually, we cannot see the driver dead, and as it happens in many episodes in situational comedies, characters once killed can reappear without any explanation. The most typical example for this is Kenny's death in almost every episode In South Park. In Mypods and Boomsticks, however, even though we cannot see the old man dead, and he returns in the following episodes, the humour arises from the assumption that he is left there to die, when the lifeless beer is saved.
46
father is hard-working, the mother is hospitable, and their son is well-behaved.
The Snuke starts with Ms. Garrison, the teacher, introducing a new student to the
class, Baahir Hassan Abdul Hakeem, who is obviously Muslim. Cartman loses control over
the newcomer in a rather eccentric way. His reaction is funny, first because it is
exaggerated, like a caricature, and also because Cartman acts the way many Americans
might secretly wish to do.15 He immediately comes up with the subject of terrorism:
Cartman Has he been checked for bombs? Ms. Garrison Eric, that's enough! Not all Muslim people are
terrorists! Cartman No, but most of them are. And all it takes is most
of them.
His rationale corresponds to the false positive error type of the brain. (Tang, 2010:5)
Based on the experience of 9/11, he concludes that most Muslims are terrorists, and he
treats this assumption as a fact, which needs no more proof. So, to be able to report Baahir
to the police, he is looking for evidence which turns out to be a lie Baahir tells about what
his favourite band is, because in class he says Blink 182, but on his Myspace page it is
White Stripes. Obviously, this fact should not be enough to raise the suspicion of terrorist
activity, but Officer Barbrady from the South Park Police Station is convinced, and the
elementary school is evacuated.
Even though the school is evacuated because of Cartman's phone call, he finds it
odd that terrorists would blow up a school, so he asks Kyle, who is at home sick, to check
on the Internet whether there is an important up-coming event in South Park. And since
Hillary Clinton is having a campaign there, Cartman is sure that is where they have to be
prepared to meet the terrorists. He is right, nevertheless as the audience learns, the terrorists
are not Muslims, but Russians, whose role is to distract the Americans while the British
navy is approaching in order to end the American Revolution.
As with every South Park episode, this also ends with a lesson to be learnt stated by
Kyle: “It just proves we need to learn not to profile one race of people. Because, actually,
15 Cartman has always been the TV show's most ignorant, aggressive and intolerant character, who gives voice to the repressed and frowned-upon opinions loud and clear, without the smallest sense of shame. In most cases, however, he turns out to be wrong and often humiliated.
47
most of the world hates us.” This conclusion is not so far away from the one that can be
drawn from Mypods and Boomsticks, with the exception that here the emphasis is not on
Muslims not being terrorists, but on the fact that terrorists can come from every nationality.
Both episodes are against profiling, but while The Simpsons suggests that not every Muslim
is a terrorist, South Park actually states that not every terrorist is Muslim. Both claims are
against the stereotypes evolved after 9/11.
However, The Snuke does not end with Kyle's conclusion, because Cartman tries to
convince everyone that his distrust actually saved the day: “If I hadn't called you [Kyle],
you wouldn't have been on your computer checking out the Clinton rally. That means my
intolerance of Muslims saved America.” Kyle tries to prove that this reasoning is missing
the point, but Cartman gets the last word:
Cartman: If I hadn't called you, you wouldn't have been on your computer checking out the Clinton rally. That means my intolerance of Muslims saved America.
Kyle: That is so missing the point. Cartman: Me being a bigot stopped a nuclear bomb from
going off, yes or no?! Kyle: The-that's not the right way to look at it, I- Cartman YES OR NO, KYLE?! Kyle: No! ...Not... not like you're saying. Cartman: But that's all I'm saying: today, bigotry and
racism saved the day. Baheer, you get this, right? [Baheer's parents approach, looking around at all the activity in front of their house]
Mr. Hakeem: Baheer! Get away from that disgusting child! Get back home and start packing your things! We are leaving this whole intolerant country!
[Mr. Hakeem nudges Baheer forward, and the family leaves] Cartman Okay. Who got rid of the Muslims, huh? [raises
his own hand] That was all me. Simple thank you will suffice.
On the one hand, this ending may seem like Cartman was really the hero of the day,
as Kyle is not able to defend his point. On the other hand, the audience is invited to decide
whether Cartman's bigotry and racism was what really saved America. Because it is true
48
that being suspicious of everyone might be safer than welcoming everybody based on the
'better safe than sorry' principle, but following it in the long run might turn out rather anti-
American. For example, Basheer's family leaves the country, because they have found
America, which is supposed to be the land of freedom, intolerant. Thus, by treating every
outsider as an outcast out of fear, America can chase away good citizens in a rather anti-
democratic fashion.
This section focused on two animated sitcom episodes from the aspect of how they
might help their viewers cope with the fear of Muslim people that arose after 9/11. The
strategy both episodes used was the caricature of this fear and the possible side effects they
might cause.
3.3 Jokes That Make a Statement
This section of my thesis focuses on those jokes that draw some kind of a
conclusion of the traumatic experience, thus helping the sufferers of cultural trauma cope
with their loss. The tools these episodes use are usually harsh and provoking, but as I have
already discussed it in the beginning of this chapter, the repressed narratives can be rather
helpful in the case of cultural traumas.
Back to the Pilot was a rather controversial episode from the tenth season of Family
Guy. Some critics praised it (McFarland, Moon), others have found that it crossed a line
(Andreeva, Semigran). This controversy was caused by the episode's conclusion that 9/11
should not have been prevented. Stewie agrees to go back to 1999 with Brian to find his
dug ball, but he warns his dog friend not to do anything that could alter the past in any way.
Brian refuses to believe that altering the past could be dangerous, thus he tells his past-self
about 9/11, so that he could prevent it.
49
When they arrive back to 2011,
they realise that preventing 9/11 was a big
mistake, since George W. Bush did not
win the elections in 2004, because “he
could not exploit people's fears with no
9/11” (s10e05), and as a result, he
declared civil war on the Northern States.
At least the second al-Qaeda attack after
the failed terrorist attempt on 9/11 was not successful either, as the target this time was
Saint Louis, and the plane just flew through the Gateway Arch.
The TV news reader, Tom Tucker cannot read properly the word “al-Qaeda”, as its
impact was not big enough for people to remember it: “This amateur video captured
Griffin's heroism in the face of a shadowy terrorist organization called—[going off script]
Holy shit, look at all those vowels. [squinting to try to read the teleprompter] Al Kwa-ay-
ee-duh?” Even though al-Qaeda does not threaten the USA any more, Americans have to
face another, and actually a bigger danger: the civil war. Five years later America is in a
post-apocalyptic state due to the Second Civil War. Although it is not said explicitly, the
Civil War suggests that lacking a common enemy, Americans would turn against each other.
One of the things that have been gained thanks to 9/11 was a newly found unity.
Eventually, Stewie and Brian go
back in time to prevent preventing 9/11.
When they check online in 2011 to
determine whether or not they were able to
let 9/11 happen, they high five each other
in their relief. Stewie notes that this move
“wouldn't look very good out of context.”
They have to go back to 1999 again, since
it turns out that Brian made another alternation in the past: he plagiarised the Harry Potter
novels.
They are stopped by a Stewie and a Brian from the future who claim that what they
are planning to do will have terrible consequences, but more and more Brians and Stweies
3-5. Figure Al-Qaeda's second failed terrorist attempt (“Family Guy”)
3-6. Figure Stewie and Brian high-fiving ("Family Guy")
50
keep appearing until there are 50 Brians and 50 Stewies shouting. A Stewie stands on a
trash can and proposes a vote: “How many think we should prevent 9/11, raise your hands?
Alright, looks like 42. Alright, who votes "yes" 9/11? Okay, alright, 57. Alright, 9/11 wins.”
(s10e05) So everybody goes back in the time they came from, and history is not altered
after all.
Despite the angry reviews Family Guy offers some comfort with this result, as it
turns away from the wishful thinking of 'what if 9/11 had not happened?' Instead of
depicting a beautiful world where 9/11 was prevented, this episode actually shows some of
the possible negative consequences of a 9/11-free world, which is more realistic than the
idyllic alternative. As I have already discussed in the first chapter, after a traumatic loss,
victims tend to idealise the lost thing(s). The more aspects they are able to recall about what
has been lost, the easier it is for them to have closure. This, of course does not mean that
people should celebrate the terrorist attacks, but they ought to accept that they happened,
and they have changed many things, not all of these changes being entirely bad.
The paranoia that followed 9/11 is portrayed in Imaginationland from South Park.
This is a trilogy, where the world of all the made-up creatures is in danger. This world,
called Imaginationland, is under a terrorist attack, and a suicide bomber kills many of its
inhabitants. This is a rather apt characterisation of the fear that Americans might have
experienced after the attacks. The way some imaginary creatures were killed by the
terrorists can represent the disappearance of some narratives after 9/11: all the pictures of
the towers, TV comedies for some time, and so on.
In the Pentagon, a US General turns to Hollywood film-makers for help, because
“Muslim terrorists hijacked [their] imagination.” (s11e10) As they do not know what their
next move should be or how to stop them, they count on Hollywood's creative ideas.
Instead of ideas, Michael Bay suggests special effects that mostly involve buildings
blowing up. The images of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were compared to films many times,
which made it difficult for the witnesses to accept that what they watched was real. (Žižek)
Some viewers might find comfort in the way that eventually Mel Gibson is able to help
with an idea, thanks to his knowledge on story structure.
After all, the US government tries to use nuclear weapons to stop their imagination
running wild, but Kyle convinces the General that imaginary things sometimes have more
51
impact than real people, so they should not be destroyed. By accident, Imaginationland
does suffer a nuclear attack, but Butlers manages to rebuild it with his imagination. All in
all, Muslim terrorists made America's imagination run wild, but it could be stopped by the
fantasy of a child.
If we accept what this trilogy tries to prove that imagined things are real because of
the impact they make on people, it shows how dangerous it can be if we let our imagination
run wild. On the other hand, the opposite is true, namely that if we create something
positive in our fantasy, it has a positive effect on us and on our environment.
American animated sitcoms are creations of American people's imagination, and
they have an impact on their viewers. By presenting repressed or rarely expressed views,
they offer alternative narratives and make people consider the most possible points of view.
And even if the viewers do not agree with what has been said by a character on TV, they
will be able to defend their original opinion in a more sophisticated fashion and in a better-
informed way. As a conclusion, their social role is unquestionable.
52
Conclusion
The foregoing chapters aimed at showing how humour can be a tool of the coping
mechanisms of cultural trauma. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 caused a cultural trauma for the
USA, as they have left inedible marks on the American group consciousness, marked their
memory forever and changed their future identity. (Alexander 1) The chosen animated
sitcoms provided several examples for how American citizens might work through this
experience. In order to cope with this trauma, it is important for the American society to be
able to re-tell the events and consequences of the day in different narratives, so that the
traumatic experience can be turned into a memory. Their fear of Muslim terrorists caused
by 9/11 is also something that can be helped by the usage of ridicule. Finally, some jokes
can point out those things that have been gained rather than lost, thus offering a kind of
closure for the American society.
53
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