The thing that makes culturally thematic jokes funny is that they have an element of truth to them. Add a dollop of exaggeration, a dash of derision, and the ability to laugh at one’s self, and there’s a good belly laugh waiting for someone. My favorite jokes are ones whose punch line rely on a good, lampooned foreign accent or exaggerated reference to a national, ethnic, sexual, cultural or racial characteristic.
Q: Why do American 18-year-olds take sex education courses?
A: So they can learn what they’ve been doing wrong for the past six years.
Now THAT’S funny! (C’mon, people, put on your humor cap.) Like it or not, our comedians have become a harbinger of the prevailing zeitgeist to the people they entertain. One can learn more about how Americans really think by watching the Comedy Channel over MSNBC. (Keith Olberman is neither funny nor factual.)
Recently I was in Italy visiting my girlfriend who is a Venetian. We were having dinner with her university student son, and we happened upon one of my favorite jokes called “Two Men And One Woman On A Desert Islandâ€Â. I first heard this joke over twenty years ago while I was living in Spain, but Davide had come upon it in recent years as it’s apparently still knocking around and still good for a guffaw across many cultures still. The joke goes like this:
On a group of beautiful deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following people (all strangers) are stranded:
two Italian men and one Italian woman
two French men and one French woman
two German men and one German woman
two Greek men and one Greek woman
two English men and one English woman
two Bulgarian men and one Bulgarian woman
two Japanese men and one Japanese woman
two Chinese men and one Chinese woman
two American men and one American woman
two Irish men and one Irish woman
One month later, on these absolutely stunning deserted islands in the middle of nowhere, the following things have occurred:
One Italian man killed the other Italian man for the Italian woman.
The two French men and the French woman are living happily together in a menage-a-trois.
The two German men have a strict weekly schedule of alternating visits with the German woman.
The two Greek men are sleeping with each other and the Greek woman is cleaning and cooking for them.
The two English men are waiting for someone to introduce them to the English woman.
The two Bulgarian men took one long look at the endless ocean and another long look at the Bulgarian woman and started swimming.
The two Japanese have faxed Tokyo and are awaiting instructions.
The two Chinese men have set up a pharmacy/liquor store/restaurant/laundry, and have gotten the woman pregnant in order to supply employees for their store.
The two American men are contemplating suicide, because the American woman endlessly complains about her body, the true nature of feminism, how she can do everything they can do, the necessity of fulfillment, the equal division of household chores, how sand and palm trees make her look fat, how her last boyfriend respected her opinion and treated her nicer than they do, how her relationship with her mother is improving, and how at least the taxes are low and it isn’t raining.
The two Irish men divided the island into North and South and set up a distillery. They do not remember if sex is in the picture because it gets sort of foggy after the first few litres of coconut whiskey. But they’re satisfied because at least the English aren’t having any fun.
Now, depending upon where you hear this joke, other countries are added, others subtracted, but most of the above countries are included. It occurred to me that this joke explains why since my juevo-crushing divorce of years ago I have steered clear from dating American women (despite living in the American Midwest) and find myself now deliriously happy with Mariagrazia and she with me. She is beautiful, intelligent, very feminine, strong, sexy, devoted, appreciative and not a “rompipalle†as they say in the ‘old country’.
Americans have the highest divorce rate in the world. An overwhelming majority of those divorces are initiated by a woman who files for the divorce. In terms of reputation, American women, internationally, fair or not, are largely regarded as overly demanding, always complaining, usually overweight garden tools. American men, while not all prize pigs, are highly valued compared to men of most other countries. Over simplification? Probably but with an imbedded element of truth, like a good joke.
What America really needs is a NAFTA for women, and that’s no joke.
