Jokes and Justice
When the point of comedy is normalizing cruelty...
“It is just a joke!” Except when it isn’t. What do we do when the point of comedy is normalizing prejudice and cruelty? We name it. And we resist it.
The backlash to Tony Hinchcliffe’s comedy at the Trump rally continues. JD Vance defended the joke that referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” in a really telling way:
“America was built by frontiersman who conquered the wilderness. We are not going to restore the greatness of American civilization if we get offended at every little thing. Let’s have a sense of humor. Let’s have a little fun!”
Vance defends the joke by dissolving it in the waters of national myths, of “Manifest Destiny” and progress.
In other words, he retells a story of America that is cherished (and assumed) by millions of Americans. In this retelling, Vance reframes the joke as an inconsequential bump on the path of progress.
But this story is a myth, with its own victims. And Puerto Ricans know this, too.
The westward (and global) expansion of the United States was not the “conquering of wilderness.” This expansion involved the subjugation of native peoples through violence, and land theft across centuries—in countless treaties, made to be broken.
By telling this storied myth of America, Vance preserves the logic of empire at the heart of the so-called “joke.” He also prevents a reckoning that would come in telling the truth about the ways native and othered bodies have been eradicated in the expansion of American greatness.
When the point of comedy is normalizing cruelty and prejudice, it is not “just a joke” but a weapon. Jokes weaponize laughter to ensure the silence of the majority made accessories to the erasure of human beings.
When the point of comedy is normalizing cruelty, we must name it and resist it. This isn’t just existential, but physical, born in the bodies of those who exist on the margins of American society. Bonhoeffer was right when he noted, “the church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering of society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.” Our human solidarity with others demands this resistance. As a Christian, our vocation as agents of reconciliation corresponds to this task.
But I want to show a better way, too. Jokes can actually serve justice. Comedy can be a gift. Even in theology! Because T.S. Eliot gets it right: “people cannot bear much reality.” Comedy helps in this task. In comedy, we can bear reality better, naming and exposing what was previously unspeakable and even unseen.
Vance’s defense of the joke is meant to normalize cruelty and keep the myth of American progress alive. Sacha Baron Cohen’s work (aptly titled “Who Is America?”) shows us another way.
Did you know that the man whose infamous characters include Borat and Ali-G has a history degree from Cambridge? That he studied antisemitism? I learned all this from my PhD supervisor at the time.
Cohen’s comedic project isn’t just for laughs, but for exposure. His comedic genius doesn’t perpetuate racism but exposes the unspeakable and unseen which unites white America. Here’s an example…
In a prank, Cohen holds a focus group of real Americans in a particular community. His character announces plans to build the world’s largest mosque outside the Middle East in their community. The responses his plan elicits are predictably anxious, racist, and vulgar. And here lies the difference between Cohen’s comedy, and the weaponization of comedy by the Trump campaign:
Jokes serve God’s justice when comedy exposes the depths of unnamed, unseen evil.
Comedy can serve justice when it names the unspeakable things endured by those who often go unseen by the majority. This comedy makes us responsible. It says: you can no longer look away, you have been made witnesses.
Jokes can serve justice, they can also perpetuate injustice.
Comedy that normalizes cruelty deserves our condemnation. Comedy that exposes unspeakable and unseen evil demands our attention and our responsibility.
And in times like ours, we must do the work of naming and resisting the weaponizing of comedy to normalize cruelty.
This is something we teach our children by middle school/jr. high. It's discouraging to see adults caught up in this behavior. Thank you for taking the time to write it out.