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Arizona, POLITICS, AND HUMOR

By Alleen Pace NilsenAnd Don L. F. Nilsen

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• We won’t define Arizona because you can just look around you.

• But politics is a more complicated word. It is cognate with such terms as:

POLICE POLITE POLICYMETROPOLITAN and even MINNEAPOLIS.

• It goes back to the 1500s in Latin, Greek, and French, and was soon borrowed into English.

• Its usage grew along with the growth of cities and the need for groups of people to figure out how to get along with each other.

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Humor is even more complicated because what brings pleasure to one person may either irritate, bore, or offend someone else.

Common characteristics include:

SURPRISE and INCONGRUITY resolution,EXAGGERATION in words and pictures,The unexpected RECYCLING of old symbols,Clever expressions of SUPERIORITY,NOSTALGIA, as in Tragedy + Time = Humor, andIN-BONDING vs. OUT-BONDING

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In the recent Super Bowl game, spectators both laughed and gasped at the surprise of Jermaine

Kearse’s “Amazing Catch.”

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The half-time show was also full of surprises and incongruities.

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The biggest surprise of all came in the closing seconds.

• People are still laughing about how the Seahawks decided to pass rather than run from the one-yard line. The pass was intercepted by rookie Malcolm Butler.

• On his Monday night TV show, Jimmy Kimmel remarked that Coach Pete Carroll’s decision…

• “Was the worst decision to come out of Arizona since John McCain chose Sarah Palin for his running mate.”

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There were many different kinds of surprises in the Super Bowl Commercials.

The Mercedes Benz commercial did a re-telling of the old story of the race between the hare and the tortoise.

In this one, the tortoise, of course, started out slow, but then he got a Mercedes Benz and of course won the race.

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This commercial

showed how much people like to recycle well-known symbols.

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For example, the Wizard of Oz has provided cartoonists with unlimited possibilities.

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Rosie the Riveter

A restaurant in Scottsdale proudly displays this poster from World War II.

We’ve seen women smile as they notice it.

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In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson surprised a press conference by showing reporters his scar from gall bladder surgery.

Cartoonist David Levine drew the scar in the shape of Vietnam as a subtle way to say that President Johnson’s lasting scar would be the Vietnam war.

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These visual comparisons amused not only Arizonans but everyone.

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The humor comes from how quickly our minds spot the similarities

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Frontier Exaggeration is part of our Arizona heritage :

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SOME ACTUAL FACTS ARE STRANGER THAN FICTION.

FACT• Phoenix’s first “paved road”

was made from upside-down beer bottles set in sand.

• In 1857-58, a “hump-dinger” idea, brought camels to haul freight across Arizona deserts.

• In 1857, stagecoach passengers on “The Jackass Mail” had to get off and ride mules for part of the way—and sometimes even push the coach.

FICTION

• Cowboy Pecos Bill and Slue-Foot Sue are Southwest folk heroes.

• Mark Twain described our “Dry Heat” as a constant 120 degrees in the shade except when it varies and goes higher.

• Kit Carson testified in Congress that parts of Arizona are so dry that even a wolf can’t survive.

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Once a place or a person gets a reputation, journalists work hard to build on it.

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Grumpy Cat (John Boehner) is Arizona’s contribution to this photo-shopped image.

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These examples of Arizona history are now viewed nostalgically—almost as humor.

• In 1886, one-fifth of the entire U. S. Army was in Arizona Territory rounding up Geronimo and his Apache fighters. Today, Geronimo’s name is recognized around the world as a cry of bravery.

• The mayor of Jerome sadly observed that his town was “A City on the Move—But Always Downhill.”

• People in Tucson claim their citizens are basically smarter because they chose to come to Tucson, while people in the Phoenix Valley were on their way to California, but when their cars broke down, they had to stay.

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Frontier life forced creativity as shown in stories we collected from Arizona teachers in 1985.

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THE TEACHERS HAD TO BE CREATIVE

• Ann Nolan Clark and “Three Little Sheeps.”

• Their “school houses” were unusual, e.g. the jail in Yuma and the slanted auditorium in St. Johns.

• Joel Benedict and his outdoor movies run from his car’s generator.

• Four years for the price of two in Mayer.

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People on their way to California gave named such places as Booze Crossing, Hookers Hot Springs, Skull Valley, Boneyard, and Del Muerto. In contrast, settlers chose such place names as Paradise Valley, Carefree, Phoenix, Sun City, and Inspiration.

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Arizona’s first humor paper (1917) was a mimeographed freebie given to travelers.

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Hall used self-deprecating humor, increasing competition between Arizona and California.

• For example, he told about a girl who ran out of money so she traded her wig for gas because she would rather be bald in California than have enough hair to stuff a mattress in Arizona.

• He also explained that our rivers were just like anybody else’s except they were upside down—”sand on the top, water underneath—probably to keep from getting sunburned.”

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Minor hostilities were often expressed through barbs, so “barbed wire” is both a real and a joking kind of western protection.

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AN EXAMPLE OF TWO CURRENT BARBS WITH HISTORICAL ROOTS:

• One of our students worked in a tourist shop and when the employees were discussing how they should dress for Halloween, a man jokingly suggested to a Native American woman that she could stick a feather in her hair and come as an Indian.

• She retorted: “And you could stick a feather in your ass and come as a turkey!”

Such playfulness was acceptable because everyone knew they were friends; it would have been very uncomfortable if people thought the hostility was real.

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Nevertheless, we often use group identification for humor as in this sign grouping Senators with Nascar

drivers.

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A sign posted outside the ASU Honors College was meant to encourage students to join fraternities.

However, our smart students rejected the idea by pointing out that they wouldn’t want to be part of something with only an 18% approval rating.

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Even before statehood, arizona’s women played a role.

In 1907, the U. S. Senate was going to admit New Mexico (with Arizona included) as one state.

Sharlot Hall, an educated young woman from Prescott, protested with an eight-stanza poem published in the Arizona Republic and delivered to every member of Congress. She also wrote a 64-page article, published in Out West, explaining why Arizona deserved to be its own state.

Not everyone approved of such a politically involved, unmarried woman. A newspaper in Agua Fria referred to her as “Miss Harlot Shawl,” and then blamed it on a “typo.”

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In honor of her help in the campaign to keep Arizona a separate state, she was asked to be Arizona’s

representative at President Cleveland’s inauguration. She was also appointed our first State Historian.

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Carl Hayden, born in 1877 at Hayden’s Ferry (see the painting which used to hang in Monti’s Tempe

restaurant) spent 56 consecutive years representing Arizona in Congress.

• He was known as the “Silent Senator,” but he had a wry sense of humor.

• Before being elected to Congress, Hayden served as Maricopa County Sheriff, and used his gun only once.

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• He has told about his experience as Sheriff, when he had a run-in with a local Indian Chief who had four wives.

• One of Hayden’s favorite stories was about an old Chief who came to see him in Washington, and as he was leaving, warned “Be careful about your immigration policies. We weren’t!”

• When campaigning, Hayden never mentioned a competitor’s

name. However, in 1912 he used California newspaper headlines complaining about his dirty tricks re. the California/Arizona fight over Colorado River water to make his campaign posters.

Hayden Knew When to Keep Still

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Four Students from Carl Hayden Community High School

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Barry Goldwater was Arizona’s Senator from 1953-65 and again in 1969-87

Goldwater was never as funny as was his contemporary, Morris Udall, but he had a dignified way of telling stories, e.g. the one about his brother at an eastern golf club.

• Goldwater and Udall cooperated on a joke saying that “Only in Arizona have mothers stopped telling their sons that they can grow up to be president.”

• In 2008, Governor Napolitano extended the joke by saying, “Barry Goldwater ran for president and lost, Morris Udall ran for president and lost, now John McCain is running for president and I hope he keeps this great Arizona tradition going.”

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Prize-Winning Cartoonist Reg Manning was nationally syndicated between 1948-71

Manning worked for the AZ. Republic FROM 1926 until 1986.

He treated both local and national political issues.

• He signed his drawings with a stubby, smiling cactus next to his name.

• His most famous character was Uno Who, representing each one of us.

• He helped bring Arizona onto the national stage.

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• Leavens the public dialogue.• Invigorates the body politic.• Uplifts the national spirit.• Works as a bridge in

bringing a diverse society closer together.

• Helps individuals roll with the punches.

• Is an antidote to self-importance.

In his 1988 Too Funny To be President, Udall defended humor as necessary to the health of our political

discourse and our private lives because it:

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Erma Bombeck (who moved to Arizona in the early 1970s) wrote the preface to

Udall’s book Too Funny to Be President.She complained about the night she had to follow Udall and

Goldwater when speaking at a banquet. .

I told myself that night that politicians had access to all the funny material: failing economy, nuclear waste dumps, vanishing natural resources . . . . My God, if you couldn’t get a laugh out of all that, you weren’t even trying. . . . I even rationalized that the audience was just being respectful to two politicians with handicaps: A congressman with one eye and a senator with one point of view.

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Such nationally known figures as Morris Udall, Reg Manning, and Erma Bombeck gave the world a positive view of Arizona and its political humor, but then in the 1980s, the mood changed when the world joined Arizonans in ridiculing our newly elected Governor, Evan Mecham. (See the printed examples.)

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Contributing Factors to the Mecham Jokes

1. Mecham was elected in a three-way split so he did not get a majority of the vote.

2. “Political Correctness” had just become fashionable and people were relieved to have an “acceptable” target—a rich, white man—for their jokes.

3. Arizona has a law that elected officials can’t be impeached until six months have passed.

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The MICH Theory of HumorModerate Intergroup Conflict Humor

• The idea of this theory is that people feel inspired to make jokes only when they feel tension.

• However if the tension is really high, people would rather fight than joke.

• Also, it doesn’t take long for listeners to recognize “hate speech” even if it is disguised as a clever riddle or a pun.

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A change today is that more women are getting into politics and they tend to be “more gentle” as with Laurie Roberts’ campaign to “De-Kook” the capitol.

• In the 1980s, feminists developed the concept of “Humane Humor Rules.”

• One is that you don’t make fun of things that people cannot change.

• Another is that you build on people’s successes—rather than their failures.

Additional Humane Humor Rules

1. Some scholars praise humor as a “great social corrective.” But it’s best to target yourself and your own ethnic group or gender because this is where you have some power to bring about change.

2. Never target someone who is already a victim.

3. Also, it’s good to target a strength so that it empowers rather than humiliates whoever you are joking about.

4. And if you are going to joke about a tragedy, be sure there is spatial, temporal, and psychological distance so that you are not sending up a “red flag” message.

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As shown by this quilt-covered military tank, women are also creating a different kind of humor called “yarn bombing.”

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A women’s knitting group created homemade uteruses and sent one to each GOP lawmaker with a message to the effect that “Here is a uterus for you to play with. Now keep your hands off mine.”

Here is a local example of “yarn bombing” from April of 2012.

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In conclusion, here is the Valley of the Sun’s most famous icon: