Finally, Something Funny

     I’m so relieved that a few of The 50 Funniest American Writers finally produced something funny.  Honestly, what we’ve read up until now has not been humorous to me.  Some of it has even been disturbing.  After John Hughes’ “Vacation ’58,” I was beginning to think that Andy Borowitz was the Edgar Allan Poe of comedy—strange and only truly appreciated by a select few people. 

     However, things started to look up with Dave Barry’s “Tips for Women: How to Have a Relationship with a Guy.”  This satirical representation of the differences between men and women in relationships was extremely amusing to me.  I was laughing after the first two sentences, which perfectly characterize the tone of this entire story:

“Contrary to what many women believe, it’s fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy.  Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever.”

     The entire story between the characters Roger and Elaine was purely hysterical.  A completely ridiculous situation was made from taking an entirely feasible occurrence and amplifying it.  I was laughing throughout the entire thing. 

     What made the story funny was that it made fun of a very realistic thing: women overanalyze situations.  All women are guilty of this.  I’m one of them.  It just seems to be in our nature to think about what something really means.  Why is that?  Because we rarely say what we really ever mean, so we expect others to do the same. 

     But seriously, props to Barry for pointing out this problem.  Why?  Because the sad truth is: this stuff actually happens.  I’m not kidding.  I might have to pull my hair out if I have to listen to any more girls taking things to the level that Barry describes in his short story.  Yes, I’m guilty of overanalyzing things, but I’m not that extreme.

     As a communications major (and just as a person with an actual brain), I believe the only way to have successful and healthy human relationships is to communicate with people.  So yes, I’m still guilty of following my natural inclination to overanalyze situations, but I think the only way to find answers for yourself is to talk to the people in the situation with you after you’ve had time to reflect on it.

     I’m sorry to say that not all women (or even men) think this way.  I’ve known men and women to do the exact things described by Barry.  I’ve sat and listened to them telling me their interpretations of events over and over again of what something means and why they think the other person reacted a certain way.  My response to them is always the same: STOP.

     “Seriously,” I say to them. “Do you want to know why you’re unhappy?!  Because you won’t talk to the other person about it.”  I’ve listened to way too many people put themselves in these situations, and I’m tired of it.

     I responded positively to Barry’s story because I appreciate his message.  By writing a satire, he’s trying to point out the unnecessary ridiculousness we encounter because we don’t communicate effectively.  He’s showing the extremes we’ll reach if we let ourselves continue down this path of conversations with clueless participants.

     So yes, the situations in Barry’s story are absolutely ridiculous and even sound stupid, but they send an important message: watch what you’re doing and how you communicate.  Actually listen to other people’s words and talk to them about your conversations to make sure you really understand what they mean by what they’re saying.  If you don’t, we’re all doomed to lives of confusion and unhappiness.  

Humor Says it All

     My second meeting with Milla went just as well as the first.  We talked more about cultural differences and got to talk about humor this time.  I asked her about how humor differs between Venezuela and the United States and she actually taught me about France in the process as well.

     According to Milla, humor in the U.S. is extremely different than humor in her country.  Venezuelan humor is much more structured, she said.  She told me jokes in Venezuela are largely similar to those in France—they follow a certain grammatical structure.  There are usually three sentences and then a punch line.  Milla likes the pattern and finds it strange how jokes in America don’t always follow a structure. 

     Venezuelan humor is also much more dark, she said.  Venezuelans apparently like to use humor mostly as comic relief.  A lot of their jokes make fun of the socialist government and the horrible living conditions they’re put in because of the governmental structure.  Milla said people are much more relaxed about their hard times in Venezuela, and decide to make the best of their situations by laughing at them.  In America, however, she’s noticed that jokes that try to poke fun at difficult situations will offend a lot of people.  For example, Milla said, someone who is suffering from poverty here will likely think that someone making a joke of the situation is trying to belittle it, whereas in Venezuela, everyone would just laugh it off to keep spirits high.

     Milla gave me an example of this type of humor for context.  A recent joke she heard went like this: “Chavez has cancer, our country is still getting worse, and meteors are hitting Russia.  Who is playing Jumanji?!”  To provide some analysis for why this joke is funny: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President, has spent a large part of his time in Cuba getting cancer treatments recently and yet the country is still getting worse.  According to Milla, he is the source of all of Venezuela’s problems; therefore, it’s ironic that the country is still getting worse without the source of the problem being there to manipulate the country into bad situations.  We can see how this joke is providing comic relief when it seems like the world is getting worse as a whole.

     Since American humor is so different, I asked, what is one aspect she relates to with humor in this culture?  Milla responded that she really loves watching the show “Seinfeld.”  We all know that this show largely pokes at the idea that life is all around meaningless.  It’s my speculation that Milla relates to this show because it makes fun of situations in which characters try to take life events too seriously.  So, much like Venezuelan humor is based on comic relief, “Seinfeld” plays on this source of laughter as well.

     Milla also said she enjoys watching the show Friends, but doesn’t find it really funny.  “When I want to just relax, I watch Friends.  When I want to laugh, I watch Seinfeld,” she told me.  She doesn’t find “The Big Bang Theory” funny, and doesn’t get a chance to watch much else because most of her time is consumed with school and taking care of her family.

     I found it really interesting to discuss cultural differences in humor with Milla.  You never really think about how much a person’s humor is influenced by his or her background.  Your sense of humor doesn’t change just because you learn a different culture and understand why something is funny in that culture (like Milla has done in America).  Your sense of humor is truly a sign of who you are as a person, and says a lot about how you grew up and react to life’s different situations.  I understand now why Milla seems like a regularly happy person even though she’s not optimistic about all situations in life: her source of humor is rooted in comic relief, so she can find joy in life even in the darkest of times.  I’d like to thank Milla for the realization that humor does define us as people, and can give us a lot to think about in our own lives.

Culture Shock

     Last week, I met with my conversation partner for the first time.  She’s a student in TCU’s Intensive English Program.  She’s also a mother of two beautiful boys.  Her name is Milla, and she’s here to learn. 

     Milla moved to the United States from Venezuela, where she was a lawyer and a businesswoman.  She and her husband decided to move because they wanted their boys to have a better life, she said.  The socialist government there was becoming too oppressive, so they decided to leave.

     When they came here, Milla said, she couldn’t speak a word of English.  She knew if she was going to build a better life for her family, she needed to learn the language.  That brought her to the Intensive English Program at TCU. 

     When Milla told me she’d only begun speaking English in August, I was shocked.  She sounded as though she’d been speaking the language for several years, and had only come to TCU to improve upon her grammar skills (which, by the way, are extremely good.  I’ve never heard any of my peers who grew up speaking English casually discuss auxiliary verbs.).

     As we talked, it quickly became apparent that Milla is an intelligent and engaged woman who is eager to learn about a new culture.  As I asked her more about the Venezuelan government, she began to discuss what true socialism is.  She told me about the government controlling everything—especially citizens’ money.  She has to put in an application to the government requesting a withdrawal from her own bank account to pay for education and living expenses here.  It doesn’t matter what she requests, the government will decide how much she needs.  They do this for all citizens, without regarding the fact that some have families to take care of.  Milla will get the same amount to care for her family of four as a single person will. 

     She talked about American citizens calling our government socialist, saying that nobody here truly understands what socialism is.  When she began to ask me about my own political beliefs, she quickly stopped and corrected herself.  Apparently her English teacher told her it was impolite to openly discuss politics and religion in America.

     I found this to be an extremely curious statement.  I grew up in the Bible Belt.  My hometown newspaper still has the Bible verse of the week on the front page of our weekly paper.  It was always okay to talk about religion in passing or in depth in my hometown.  In addition, I’m from a conservative Texas small town, where everyone argues about politics all the time.  What’s more, I’m on the debate team at TCU, where we regularly discuss politics both leisurely and in debate rounds.  I can see where Milla’s professor was coming from in telling her that these subjects could bring about sticky situations with extremists or people who don’t want to discuss them, but I think it was incorrect to tell her that it’s always a bad idea to bring them up.

     I told Milla that it isn’t always impolite to talk about religion and politics, that they were probably just subjects she should reserve for people who she knew a little better—not complete strangers.  But learning this sparked my curiosity.  Milla is obviously perceptive and very aware of her words and actions.  She had probably picked up on some more cultural differences that she has to be aware of.  So I decided to ask her about any more culture shocks she had in coming to the United States.

     She told me more about cultural differences such as warmth and displays of affection.  It’s pretty commonly known that Hispanic cultures are very warm.  People often greet each other with a kiss on each cheek and a hug, whereas the social norm in the U.S. is to shake someone’s hand.  What I found more interesting to learn is that the American culture is even colder in comparison than I had thought it to be.  Milla told me that in Hispanic cultures, if you walk into a restaurant and see a friend, it’s common to sit down and join him or her.  It would be rude not to, seeing as though you both will be eating in the same place anyway.  Everyone likes their own space and table in America.  Similarly, if you see someone you know walking around town in Venezuela, it’s custom to stop and ask them how they’re doing, how their family is, etc.  Milla found it odd that people only say hello in passing here.

     It felt strange for Milla to integrate herself into the American culture, she told me.  Not only does she have to learn the main differences discussed above between her culture and Americans’, she must also become adjusted to all the differences in Americans in general.  She’s not used to seeing so many races and cultural identifiers mixed into one place.  What’s more, she’s not used to all the division between cultures.  For example, she explained to me that she understands the history of the civil rights movement and why racial issues were a sore issue in America’s past, but she doesn’t understand why people are still holding grudges.

     Talking to Milla helped me see society through different eyes.  Her culture shocks raised some serious questions.  Why aren’t Americans past racial divisions yet?  Sure, we’ve progressed, but racial issues are still being brought up.  What’s more, why is the American culture so reserved and cold?  Could it be because we’re all going through a continuous culture shock in trying to integrate everyone into this society?  Perhaps.  Maybe we don’t want to upset people and don’t know what’s acceptable to different persons, so we keep ourselves at a distance.  It’s an interesting thought to ponder.