Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict

by Paul Lewis

What do Jon Stewart, Freddy Krueger, Patch Adams, and George W. Bush have in common? As Paul Lewis shows in Cracking Up , they are all among the ranks of joke tellers who aim to do much more than simply amuse. Exploring topics that range from the sadistic mockery of Abu Ghraib prison guards to New Age platitudes about the healing power of laughter, from jokes used to ridicule the possibility of global climate change to the heartwarming performances of hospital clowns, Lewis demonstrates that over the past thirty years American humor has become increasingly purposeful and embattled. 

Navigating this contentious world of controversial, manipulative, and disturbing laughter, Cracking Up argues that the good news about American humor in our time—that it is delightful, relaxing, and distracting—is also the bad news. In a culture that both enjoys and quarrels about jokes, humor expresses our most nurturing and hurtful impulses, informs and misinforms us, and exposes as well as covers up the shortcomings of our leaders. Wondering what’s so funny about a culture determined to laugh at problems it prefers not to face, Lewis reveals connections between such seemingly unrelated jokers as Norman Cousins, Hannibal Lecter, Rush Limbaugh, Garry Trudeau, Jay Leno, Ronald Reagan, Beavis and Butt-Head, and Bill Clinton. The result is a surprising, alarming, and at times hilarious argument that will appeal to anyone interested in the ways humor is changing our cultural and political landscapes.

Genres: Politics

240 pages, Hardcover

First published October 2, 2006

About the author

Paul Lewis is the president of the Poe Studies Association and an English professor at Boston College where he teaches courses on American literature, gothic fiction, and nonfiction writing. He brought a career-long interest in dark humor to the writing of A Is for Asteroids, Z Is for Zombies: A Bedtime Book about the Coming Apocalypse (2017), Cracking Up: American Humor in a Time of Conflict (2006), and articles on gallows humor, political humor, and humor and terrorism. The neologist who coined the word “Frankenfood,” Lewis has also published op-ed, feature, and humor pieces in leading newspapers.

Reviews

[Bruce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Lewis has written a scholarly study of humor and its use by setting up a dichotomy of killing joke vs. healing laughter. The former being the use of individuals or groups as the butt of the joke, (often in the form of name-calling) the latter essentially gags to get laughter. The author notes campaign humor has a tendency to promote group thinking and relax logical thought making its contribution to democratic process mixed at best, unfortunate at worst. He advises that since marginal influences can be important in close elections and other decision-making processes every one should pay attention to how it is meant to affect them. Whether or not people want to quibble about words having an effect; it is interesting that while Jay Leno joked about National No Name-Calling Week by asking what stupid dork came up with the idea, results from 2004 bullying surveys in schools indicated students reported a significant decrease in the amount of bullying and harassment in school after taking part in the first No Name-Calling Week and its activities.

[leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite his scholarly syntax, Lewis was both witty and informative. I'm glad I revisited and finished this book.

[Sparker Pants · Rating 4 out of 5]

For Le Thesis- should be interesting.