Laughing at Ourselves

Think back to your life before college dorm rooms and community bathrooms. Before your 3 bedroom duplex on Wheeler Street, before you had to fight for a parking spot in the middle of a city. Think back to how you grew up. Dwell on the domestic aspects of your past. I am willing to bet that we are all from different homes. Some grew up in apartments while I am sure others lived in a home with a mother, father, brother and a sister in a house with a fence and a dog. Despite the diversity that defines our personal view of what is “domestic”, Webster defines the term as “relating to the running of a home or to family relations.” It refers to the roles played at home, whether it is society’s view of traditional or not. Society has, of course, used the concept of domestic life as the basis for a lot of humor throughout time. From “Leave it to Beaver” to “The Real Housewives of Orange County” we find ourselves laughing at how outlandish and ridiculous the concepts of American’s at home can be.



Take out your copy of Carnivore Diet and look at the cover. If you have the same copy as I do, you see a picture of a white picket fence, the traditional symbol for the American dream home. I wonder why that particular symbol is on the cover of a book that strays as far away from the traditional society-defined home life. Perhaps the illustrator is introducing an aspect of irony. Irony is a form of humor that is not outwardly, knee-slapping funny. It is a clever way for the readers to draw their own conclusion about how upside-down the concept of the book is. A beast in the middle of suburbia U.S.A is funny because it is unexpected. Whether it is fiction or not, it is an opportunity for a reader to use their imagination and any time someone is set free with their imagination, bizarre and funny lines are drawn between their own experiences, those situations presented in the literature, and society’s definition of what is normal.

In a 1958 edition of Time Magazine a domestic housewife defines her experience with the Great Depression. Throughout the article she keeps referring back to her vacuum cleaner, cleaning up after her husband’s den, and keeping her house in order (Housewive’s). To most housewives in modern day America this may not
be so humorous that it would set rise to side splitting laugher, but I am confident that a housewife today would find humor in the comments of this 1950’s homemaker. The fact that a woman would be worried about how clean her home was in the middle of an economic disaster may sound absurd to a modern woman because the concept of what is considered proper has changed. For example, journalist Anges E. Meyer stated
“married women work and neglect their children because the duties of the homemaker become so depreciated that women feel compelled to take a job in order to hold the respect of the community. It is one thing if women work, as many of them must, to help support the family. It is quite another thing—it is destructive of woman’s freedom—if society forces her out of the home and into the labor market in order that she may respect herself and gain the respect of others” (Married).

I believe that in 1953 when Ms Meyer stated this, many women and men would agree with her, but today I am sure that controversy over her opinion would rise. It is appropriate to say even that young women in college, working just as hard as men towards a credible degree, would find this quote funny. The drastic change in what is appropriate and expected is something that causes women to laugh at the way things once were and where we are headed. While observing the differences between housewives today and domestic life of the past an aspect of humor is highlighted in the vast difference between what was, and what is today.

Suburban humor is not so unlike domestic humor. As its name implies, suburban humor emerges from the suburban culture, or suburbia, the latter term used to indicate a cultural class or subculture (Webster). Think of the word ‘suburbia’. Lines of identical houses. Children on bicycles. Mothers watering the flowers. Mercedes parked in the driveway. Fathers getting the newspaper. These are all stereotypes. Stereotypes provide material for humor. Without an idea of what society should look like, there is no box from which to step. Suburban humor plays off of Bergson’s theory that humor is used to ridicule and guide stray members of society back to ‘normal’.

A particular image comes to mind when thinking of suburban culture, “Weeds.” “Weeds” is a drama that thrives exclusively on the pretense that people enjoy laughing at the stereotypes produced by their very own suburban culture. People enjoy laughing at themselves. This particular series interrupts the flow of the typical suburban culture with scenarios that seemingly contradict the environment in which they are coexisting. For example, a mother selling marijuana to support her family instead of seeking traditional employment, does not well parallel society’s idea of the typical stay-at-home mother figure. We as viewers laugh at her struggle to fulfill both the male and female roles in the household, while maintaining a housewife façade, because we understand and have knowledge of what should and should not be.

Suburban humor focuses on individuals’ communal interaction rather than familial interaction or domestic life. Lorrie Moore uses these stereotypes in her short stories. She refers to the way certain individuals believe they are perceived by society, and outlines rules they should follow in order to remain inbounds society’s boundaries of normal. More specifically, What is Seized, provides an excellent example of a family falling apart behind closed doors all the while maintaining its outward appearance, a funny, go-getter father, a cooking, cleaning mother, one son, one daughter.

Suburban life is a stereotype we know does not exist but nonetheless society continues to draw lines and implement rules. As long as we have an idea of what society should look like, and individuals continue trying to fit this or that mold of perfection, suburban humor will not lack in material and we will continue laughing at our own feeble attempt to be ‘normal’.

Works Cited

"Housewive's View." Time 15 Jun. 19 Oct. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,863508,00.html.

"Married Women ." Enotes. 2008. 21 Oct. 2008. http://www.enotes.com/famous-quotes/married-women-work-and-neglect-their-children.



Posted By:
Erika Edwards and Kimberly Klumb