Humour and the student press
As of the coming fall semester, the Peak Humour Desk has officially moved from volunteer to elected editor status. This means that humour content is now considered important enough to the paper that some of its financial resources will be allocated to ensuring that a humour section appears in the paper on a weekly basis.
This is a very bold move on the part of The Peak, considering the paper’s generally negative attitude towards humour content throughout the 90s. To commemorate this blessed event, I thought this would be a good time to discuss the role of humour in the student press, and in society as a whole.
Many people do not realize it, but humour is in fact an intensely political medium. Every society has an always-changing set of norms and values that govern what is appropriate to talk about, or even think about—and humour, which by its very nature tends to be irreverent to what is good and proper, is a major element in the process of challenging these norms and values.
Humour is an important tool of social and political subversion, and some of the best, most socially progressive humour is that which offends as many people as it amuses.
Lenny Bruce was a Jew who, among other things, went up in front of Catholics and told dirty jokes about the pope. He made a lot of people laugh, and many more people very angry. His court battles went straight to the heart of the issues of freedom of speech, and what is and isn’t acceptable to make jokes about in American society.
And now, only a few decades later, any stand-up comic can do that kind of material and nobody bats an eye. What once was unspeakable is now acceptable, or at least tolerated. This is a vivid example of how humour pushes the boundaries of what can be publicly said and thought in contemporary society.
And so, it would seem that humour, especially of the more abrasive and subversive nature, should be an important part of the student press. If humour is a tool to social progress, then should it not be utilized?
However, it has traditionally been very difficult to get offensive and/or politically charged humour content in The Peak. Peak editors have generally preferred “harmless” material that won’t offend the public, or more importantly, themselves.
Thankfully, this attitude is slowly starting to change. A couple of weeks ago, I ran one of the more abrasive humour articles I’ve written for the paper, “Children of the Porn.” That article was originally censored by two of the other editors when I first wrote it a couple of months ago, and it was allowed to run two weeks ago, with minor misgivings, when I brought back a lighter, toned-down version.
And whaddaya know? It actually got a letter.
Not a particularly clever or insightful letter, in my view. In fact, I think my critic completely missed the point of the piece. But to complain about this would be to miss the point myself.
My critic has an opinion, and here it is before you. The piece pissed him off and he wrote a letter, and as a result a discourse is established. Awareness is generated, opinions are formed, and hopefully the audience comes away from the experience a little wiser, all because something ran in the Humour section that actually offended someone.
I believe that humour is a vital part of a student newspaper, because humour taps at the jugular of society’s changing norms and values. I would just like to say thank you to the editors and collective members of The Peak for ratifying the Humour Desk as an elected editorial position. I believe that this is an excellent investment in the future of the paper.
The next great step is to try and open our minds to more challenging material.
I think that a student newspaper should be a place where a future Lenny Bruce can cut his teeth. It must be a place where the unthinkable can be thought and the unprintable can be printed, on and off the humour pages. I believe that if a student paper fails to be such a place, then it has in large part failed in its mission to promote positive social change.
I look forward to seeing the Peak Humour section make a lot of people laugh, and a lot of people very annoyed. •
Originally published in The Peak, July 26 1999.
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