A commonly accepted truth holds that to explain a joke ruins it.

But is it true?

Humor depends upon some level of shared ground — a shared communal or cultural background that helps give the joke meaning.  Whatever theory of humor you ascribe to, or whichever theory is appropriate to a particular joke (the exposure of incongruities, aggression, assertion of superiority, masked aggression, suspended defense mechanism, surprise, etc.), it is the shared experience, assumptions, and vocabulary that together create the joke.  Humor reveals, therefore, the boundaries of a particular community.  Further, humor draws or re-draws those communal lines based on who “gets” the joke and who does not.  But whether the joke’s purpose is to more firmly draw the line between “us” and “them” or whether it seeks to bridge communal gaps and make “us” a larger set of people, explaining a joke works only when it is successful in inviting more people into the joke’s particular community.

Explaining a joke means taking a risk.  It is a way of reaching out and trying to make a connection with someone who does not “get” it, someone who is outside the domain of the joke because he or she lacks some particular shared ground with you.  The fear that explaining a joke will ruin it reveals a fear that you don’t have as much in common with someone as you may have hoped.  The failure to actually explain the joke forces you to admit it.

Let’s look at this almost axiomatic quip on the subject, paraphrased from E.B. White¹:

“Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog.  Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”

Personally, I have always found this to be a silly formulation in itself, because dissecting a frog does not kill it.  Think about it.  Can you imagine more a ludicrous slapstick routine than a bunch of students trying to dissect live frogs?  What makes anyone think that the frog would stand still for it?  A frog is dead before dissection, either preserved in formaldehyde; etherized or chloroformed; or, if a beating heart or reactive nervous system is required, pithed (the process of rendering the frog “brain dead” by inserting a needle and “scrambling” the brains).  No matter how you slice it, a frog is already dead before you dissect it.

White’s formulation shifts when we think of humor as founded in shared ground.  Analyzing humor becomes like dissection only if you assume that the joke is already dead, that there is no common ground between those who “get it” and those who don’t — and no way to create it.  His statement becomes, then, not a statement about the futility of analyzing humor, but about the lack of willingness to expand one’s community — or the profound pessimism and insecurity about whether the recipient of the explanation would want to join that community:   “Few are interested.”  I’m reminded of Groucho Marx’s quip, “I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.”

But setting aside for a moment the question of whether a joke can really be a frog, let’s examine the idea of analysis and dissection.  Dissecting a frog teaches us about frog anatomy, which is something relatively “few” people might be “interested” in, true.  But actually, the most important things we learn from such a dissection are about our own anatomy and physiology, or about the impacts of environmental or pollutant factors on one of the most vulnerable partners in any ecosystem.  In other words, if we’re willing to learn from it, dissecting a frog can teach us much about ourselves and about context.

So can analyzing humor, or explaining a joke.  Sometimes, explaining the joke can even become the joke.  Continue reading →