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.