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Political Humor and Youth Engagement
Dr. Terri Jett
Department of Political Science
Butler University
317-940-8451
## email not listed ##
In a recent article in The Chronicle Review (“Knock, Knock. Who’s Not There?
College Humor.” 3/5/2004) critic Carlin Romano lamented the lack of humor in
academia these days. He stated, “…Possibly it’s delayed PC fallout. If nobody can take a
joke anymore, no one wants to try one either – at least not without the protection of web
anonymity. Maybe it’s the daunting reality of the hypercorporatized campus.” His article
could not have been timelier for me as I pondered for a considerable amount of time how
to use humor as a way to engage our students in the study of politics.
While humor is important in a democratic society because it allows for free
expression that is often used as a voice of critical dialogue, especially in the realm of
dissent, on a more intimate level it also simply breaks down barriers which are often
artificially and socially imposed. Humor can forge a subsequent intellectual dialogue on
real issues because it often assumes prior knowledge or substantive knowledge of an
issue in order to impart a certain informed punchline. Rose observes,
Following in the British tradition, American political jokes are mostly
partisan jabs and tend to reduce politicians to an irreducible essence, a
cliché, a buzzword. Thus, Nixon is incorrigibly shifty and sinister, Ford is
an amiable bumbler, Carter is nice but out of his depth, Reagan is just
dumb, Bush Senior is a cold WASP, Clinton is a sex maniac, Quayle is
stupid, Gingrich is strange admixture of Reagan, Quayle, and Ford, Bush
Junior was until September 11 depicted as a fool prone to malapropisms.
(“When Politics is A Laughing Matter” p. 61)
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