The Class Struggle

I had my first class of the new semester yesterday and one of my professors said something that just floored me:

"Class is the last taboo in America."

And here I was thinking it was bestiality. Once again, I owe a sincere appology to Eddie Munster. And John Travolta. And possibly Catherine the Great.

There's only one way to find out if class is a taboo or not: the comedy test. As Wikipedia tells me:

"When done as a parody or comedy, said or done by comedians, taboo topics and subject matter can induce comical reaction by the general public..."

There were several bestiality jokes in the beginning of this post. I thought they were funny. So it's probably still taboo. And a fun one at that.

So is class still taboo? I've got two reasons to think it isn't.

1. Aren't we all poor now? I mean I guess you can still have bragging rights about the 6-figure job you used to have, but when unemployment runs out, we'll all be in line at Walmart together buying irregular Oreos in bulk.

2. Aren't we all going to be rich soon? Maybe this is just the privileged white grad student in me talking, but I'm pretty sure we're all going to become internet sensations raking in millions, just as soon as we agree on the currency conversion from YouTube hits to dollars. (Ed: Actually, there's already a conversion rate, it's just fixed at $0.)

But the proof of the taboo is in the funny. And class jokes... you see it's tough because class jokes are all wrapped up in other taboos. Like making fun of rednecks could simultaneously be dealing with religious and political conservativism, racism, classism, inbreeding, poor hygiene, and bestiality. There are just too many variables at work and I don't know what I'm laughing at.

But here's a framework of a class joke.

Rich person meets poor person.

Rich person: Passing observation.

Poor person: Puzzling response.

Rich person: Question?

Poor person: Clarifying response which makes the rich person look stupid.

You can reverse the roles and it works equally well. So yes, it looks like there's a sincere possibility for humor here. But what about with the middle class?

Comfortable person: I drive a Honda Civic.

Other comfortable person: I hear that's a reliable car.

Comfortable person: Yes, and it's moderately priced.

Not so funny.

Two more tries:

Richie #1: Time for our money enemas!

Richie #2: Huzzah!

Hilarious!

Peasant #1: Let's share this leg of rat for dinner.

Peasant #2: (dies from bubonic plague)

Also funny.

Of course, the observant reader will notice that I pulled my punch(lin)es. The only way I could safely make fun of poor people is by making them extremely poor and 650 years old. It's too soon to make fun of people who are poor now, which means that there's a pretty strong taboo there. Rich people, I think are always okay to make fun of, because there's not much of a taboo against throwing rocks up, just against throwing them down.

Lastly, the middle class joke. There's not a lot of point to making fun of the middle class, since odds are, you're in it. It's hard to make fun of what's normal.

So in conclusion, it's not exactly true that class is a taboo. There's no taboo against being middle class, since that wasn't too funny. But the rich and poor jokes are funny enough for me to say that there are a bunch of taboos wrapped up in having too little or too much money.

But when it comes down to it, I'm not convinced that these taboos are fundamentally different from any other taboos where you make fun of the extremes at the far ends of the bell curve.

Would there be any bestiality jokes if everyone did it on a daily basis? No, for the same reason there are no jokes about breathing. Humor is like a hunter, picking out the isolated members of a heard to catch, wrestle to the ground and mock. And, since it isn't taboo anymore, have sex with them.