9/11 HUMOUR AS A MEANS OF WORKING THROUGH TRAUMA IN

FAMILY GUY, SOUTH PARK AND THE SIMPSONS

9/11 HUMOR , MINT A TRAUMAFELDOLGOZÁS ESZKÖZE A FAMILY

GUY, SOUTH PARK ÉS THE SIMPSONS SOROZATOKBAN

MA Thesis

Majláth Annamária

Supervisor: Dr. Schandl Veronika

2012

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I, the undersigned, Annamária Majláth, candidate for the M.A. degree in English Language

and Literature declare herewith that the present thesis is exclusively my own work, based

on my research and only such external information as properly credited in notes and

bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of

others, and no part of the thesis infringes on any person's or institution's copyright. I also

declare that no part of the thesis has been submitted in this form to any other institution of

higher education for an academic degree.

Budapest, 9 November 2012.

___________________________ Signature

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Contents

Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3

1. Cultural Trauma and Coping Mechanisms ...................................................................... 9

1.1 Trauma on the Personal Level .................................................................................. 9

1.2 Why Can We Consider 9/11 As a Cultural Trauma for the USA? ........................... 10

2. The Role of Humour in Working Through Trauma ........................................................ 20

2.1 What to Forget and What to Remember? ............................................................. 20

2.2 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour .................................. 24

2.3 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour ........................................................... 25

2.4 Jokes That Make a Statement ................................................................................ 27

2.5 Different Attitudes Towards the Healing Power of (Disaster) Jokes ..................... 28

3. Case Studies (Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons) ................................................. 31

3.1 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour .................................. 33

3.2 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour ........................................................... 38

3.3 Jokes That Make a Statement ................................................................................ 48

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 52

Works Cited ........................................................................................................................... 53

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Introduction

“Twenty-two point three years. That's how long it takes for something tragic to

become funny, ”says Kyle in the second episode of season six in South Park (2002). In the

aftermath of the terror attacks of September 11 2001, this statement seemed to be true.

Comedy shows stopped making jokes, any reference to the twin towers or bombs

disappeared from the media. Still, eleven episodes after stating the appropriate time “for

something tragic to become funny”, the same show made a joke about 9/11. This was not

twenty-two point three years, but roughly five months after the tragic events, on 6 March

2002. And South Park is not the only animated situational comedy (later: sitcom) that used

9/11 humour more than once.

Animated sitcoms are usually provocative, they often use social satire and taboo

topics. As a result, it is not surprising that something as tragic as the World Trade Center

(WTC) attacks is present in them. However, even these programmes can lose viewers, be

cited by the Federal Communications Commission, and perhaps even forcibly cancelled, if

their content is considered as inappropriate for the channel. Nevertheless, 9/11 jokes can be

found in almost all of them. The question arises as to why 9/11 jokes can be on air,

whereas other topics dealt with in some episodes can only be found on DVDs. The main

purpose of this paper is to show that the 9/11 jokes used in animated sitcoms help US

citizens work through the cultural trauma of September 11.

The reason for choosing animated sitcoms as a focus for exploring Americans’

reactions to this trauma is because such TV programmes have big relevance when dealing

with the American psyche in general. The main goal of these programmes is commercial:

they try to have the biggest possible number of viewers, thus to be able to sell advertising

time at the highest possible price. This also means that the producers have to know their

audience to be able to serve them. If they broadcast something against the audience's taste,

they have to pay the price of losing their viewers. As a result, when a programme is very

popular, it can mean that a notable amount of people share at least some of the programme's

views. This, of course, does not work with reality shows like The Jersey Shore, where the

biggest appeal of the show is its shocking nature. However, I will not use these shows as

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reference in any way.1

Animated sitcoms also have the advantage of appearing regularly in the viewers'

homes, with familiar characters that may represent different points of views. Over time the

viewers have the possibility to build up their attitude towards each character. Consequently,

some characters might be more convincing to them than others.2 And when, from week to

week, a well-known, even fictional, character emphasises an opinion which would not be of

particular importance, this opinion will have a bigger influence than it would otherwise

have had. For instance, as I will discuss in more length later in this chapter, the

explanations and symbols attached to an event have a huge impact on the fact whether the

event will be considered a trauma or not. Namely, when an event is repeatedly called

“tragedy” or “trauma” in the media, or when these events are compared to previous

traumas, it can strengthen the traumatic experience of the viewers.

There is another reason for choosing popular cultural products as the center of my

attention, and that is connected to their cultural background. As Karin Kukkonen describes

it in her article entitled “Popular Cultural Memory – Comics, Communities and Context

Knowledge” (Kukkonen 261-273), media texts are understood in a context knowledge.

Gaining this knowledge is part of a socialisation process. People who read the same media

texts and have the same context knowledge make up an audience community, regardless of

where they live. Moreover, with the appearance of globalised mass media, and especially

the Internet, the reaction to any social and political changes can be reflected in a fast way,

reaching more people than ever before possible. Kukkonen argues that this omnipresent,

globalised quality of mass media has made it possible to create a community, whose

members do not necessarily have to live in the same country to have the same cultural

background, thus the same context knowledge, to be able to understand a given media text.

(Kukkonen 261-273)

American animated sitcoms reflect upon the current cultural, social and political

situation of the US. This factor makes it crucial for the reader to have basic background

knowledge of the given state of affairs. When analysing American animated sitcoms, this

1 I have chosen TV shows like Friends, Dexter, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad!, because they represent the American society either by criticizing it, or by painting a lovable and funny picture of its citizens.

2 This is also true to other TV shows, but animated sitcoms tend to deal more with current political issues.

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paper will only concentrate on the producers of the TV shows and their main target

audience, the American citizens, with whom they share the same context knowledge. I will

not take into consideration other nations' viewers, because the main goal of this paper is to

understand the traumatic process of US citizens regarding the events of 9/11.

Even though the context knowledge needed to understand a film for example is

available to almost everyone due to the globalised mass media, not all the layers of

meaning are easily understandable by foreigners. I would like to mention the film

Extremely Loud Incredibly Close, which is the adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel

which has the same title, as an example here. This is a story of a young boy whose father

was lost in the WTC attacks. There are layers in the film which are excellent examples for

the different cultural context knowledge audiences might have. Such a layer is the possible

meanings of the word “jumper”. The movie ends in the playground, where in the beginning

the boy, Oskar, had been afraid of sitting in a swing. His father, Thomas, shows him how to

do it, and tells him a story:

“You know, Grandma brought me to this place. My favorite, the one..., two..., the third from the right, because I thought it would go higher than any other one. So when everyone had gone home, I would swing. It was just me and the swings. I'd do a lot of thinking up here, especially when I learned how to pump. I would go as high as I could go, until I couldn't go any higher, and then I would jump. Ahh... And for a moment, I would feel as free as a bird. You should give it a whirl Oskar. It might change the way you look at things.” “It is not safe.” “You don't have to jump.” (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)

This monologue about swings and the joy of jumping is said by a man who later

perishes in the North Tower, and his son is quite sure that his father had jumped to avoid a

more horrible death of burning. In the movie, the shows his grandfather the photo of a man

falling from the tower, which is not a false image, but an actual picture of someone who

had jumped to his death on 9/11. Oskar, the son says: “This is probably him. Or it might be

him. He's dressed like he was. When I magnify it until the dots are so big it stops looking

like a person... sometimes I can see glasses on him. Or I think I can. Probably the other kids

see their dads too.”

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For Hungarians, or really any non-American viewer, these things do not convey the

same controversial message as for Americans. In the USA, the appearance of a photo like

that, the son claiming that other kids see their dads on photos of falling people from the

WTC, and the jumping described as a pleasant feeling of freedom might invoke special

connotations which give an extra

meaning for these scenes. In other

countries, it is sad; in America, it is a

hotly-contested scene of trauma. Indeed,

even the term for the victims in such

images is contested. There have been

fights over whether those who jumped

can be called “jumpers” or not3, as the word “jumper” has the connotation of a suicide

jumper in American English. For many Americans, attaching such a word then implies that

the victims had a choice, and minimizes the full responsibility on the attacker.

Furthermore, the question of the publication of the photos of the tragedy caused

public outrage. The most famous (or infamous) photo which has been known as the

“Falling Man”, taken by Richard Drew appeared on 12 September 2001 in The New York

Times among other papers. In the photo, viewers can see a man falling headfirst from the

tower, with the building of the WTC in the background. The picture is rather disturbing, not

only because we know that the man is going to die a horrible death soon, but also because

he seems at ease, almost willing to die4, and all these things are captured in an aesthetically

pleasing form. This publication caused such anger and criticism from the readers that the

photo disappeared from the printed media. Eleven years later, however, such photographs

are used in a Hollywood film, which is not even a documentary, but an adaptation of a

fiction novel.

In Kevin Ackerman's documentary of this picture (2006), the identity of the man in

the photo is the mystery they aim to solve. When members of the family of a 9/11 victim

3 “And yet if one calls the New York Medical Examiner's Office to learn its own estimate of how many people might have jumped, one does not get an answer but an admonition: "We don't like to say they jumped. They didn't jump. Nobody jumped. They were forced out, or blown out." (Junod, 2003)

4 From the other frames taken from the same man we can see that the way he fell was obviously not a headfirst fall all the way through. The famous photo only caught a moment when it seemed as if he had fallen that way, creating the illusion of a deliberate jump to death.

0-1 A falling man photo from the movie "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"

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are questioned whether they can recognize their relative, Norberto Hernandez, in the photo,

the wife and one of the daughters refuse even to look at the picture. They did not accept the

possibility that their loved one could have jumped. In Tom Junod's article entitled “The

Falling Man” Jacqueline Hernandez, the oldest daughter of Norberto Hernandez says after

briefly looking at the picture: “That piece of shit is not my father” (Junod 2003). Later,

when the younger daughter,

Catherine eventually looks at the

photo in question, she sighs: "They

said my father was going to hell

because he jumped. They said my

father was taken to hell with the

devil. I don't know what I would

have done if it was him. I would

have had a nervous breakdown, I

guess. They would have found me

in a mental ward somewhere..."

(Junod 2003)

Furthermore, Thomas's

speech above is obviously not only

about the playground swing for an

American viewer, but also about

the question of jumping, with the

positive connotation of freedom,

which again is not simply a sentimental remark about freedom. For many relatives of the

victims their loved one's jumping would have meant that s/he had given up on them, and

had not fought to get home. (Junod 2003)

Another argument for the products of popular culture is that they speak to a large

audience and they are based on cultural knowledge which is most easily understood by the

country in which they were made. Thus, in the analysis of a cultural phenomenon, such as

cultural trauma, the study of popular cultural products is justifiable. Having presented the

reasons for my choice of popular cultural products in my discussion of cultural trauma, let

0-2 Figure "Falling Man." Photo by Richard Drew.

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me now turn to the question of trauma first on the personal and then on the collective level.

The first chapter, will discuss trauma and coping mechanisms first on the personal,

then on the collective level. This section will mostly follow the arguments of Cathy

Caruth's Trauma: Explorations in Memory (Caruth 3-12). On the collective level the impact

of 9/11 will be discussed, from the point of view whether it can be considered a cultural

trauma. The theoretical background for proving that the effects of September 11 are

traumatic is the volume of collected essays entitled Cultural Trauma and Collective

Identity. (Alexander ed.)

The second chapter concentrates on the role of humour in working through trauma.

First of all, the importance of remembering will be emphasised in the case of cultural

traumas, then different ways how jokes can help the coping process. As there are scholars

who doubt the positive effects of disaster jokes (Kuipers, Lewis), after presenting their

arguments, this paper will point out how those arguments do not apply to sitcoms.

The case studies will be presented in the last chapter, with a brief introduction of the

selected sitcoms. They will be analysed from three aspects. The first is the narrative aspect

of the therapeutic effect of humour, which emphasises the importance of different

narratives of a traumatic event. The second aspect discusses how jokes might help

overcoming fear. The third aspect examines those jokes that make a statement about the

tragedy, thus helping the healing process.

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1. Cultural Trauma and Coping Mechanisms

This chapter first of all will present the definition of cultural trauma. Secondly, it

will discuss the events of 9/11 regarding its effects, claiming that it is a valid claim to call it

a cultural trauma, not so much because of the mere events of that day, but mainly because

of the meanings and symbols attached to the destruction of the WTC towers. Later, the

second part of this chapter will concentrate on those coping mechanisms of trauma which

do not only work on an individual level, but also on a social level.

1.1 Trauma on the Personal Level

Trauma in itself is not easy to define, as evidenced by the voluminous literature

written about it. This section will mostly follow the arguments of Cathy Caruth's Trauma:

Explorations in Memory (Caruth 3-12). She puts great emphasis on the relationship

between the traumatic recollection and memory. According to her, a traumatic event cannot

be fully experienced when it occurs, rather it becomes a part of memories later, through a

process of coping. Before traumatic recollections become memories, the subject

experiences so-called reenactments. These reenactments are unwillingly performed actions

which were caused by the traumatic event. They can vary from compulsive gestures to

reliving some aspect of the traumatic event, but their most important feature is that they

happen without the subject's control over them and somehow they are related to the

traumatic event. The more victims wish to forget what had happened to them and not to

cope with their trauma, the closer they are to induce a situation which is, in some ways,

similar to the terror they had experienced.

Unwillingness is quite important here, as this is one of the most remarkable

differences between a traumatic recollection and a memory. Recalling a memory is a

conscious decision, and the subject is able to tell it in different ways to different audiences,

whereas a traumatic recollection cannot be recalled on purpose, and when it escapes the

unconscious, it is usually unchanged, and narrated almost the same way on each occasion.

The identity of the audience is completely indifferent in this case, since the flashbacks of

the trauma are not narrated to anyone; they simply appear for the victim. Narration is a

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crucial key in coping with trauma, because when a traumatic recollection is put in diverse

narratives – to diverse audiences, we no longer speak about traumatic recollection, but a

memory of a traumatic event. Once it is turned into a memory, the traumatic recollection

can be understood by the victim, it is no longer as incomprehensible as in the beginning.

Consequently, it seems valid to claim that if one can make a joke about the traumatic

experience one has had, he/she is in the stage of cure: altering the story in a new narrative,

thus testifying, eliding, distorting, and maybe later forgetting it.

1.2 Why Can We Consider 9/11 As a Cultural Trauma for the USA?

Having discussed trauma on the personal level, this section will now concentrate on

cultural trauma, which is even more difficult to deal with, as it pertains to groups of people,

and claiming that all members of a community experience the same psychological

symptoms seems far-fetched at first sight. Another problem I had to face concerns the very

events of 9/11. When talking about cultural trauma, the vast majority of studies are dealing

with the Holocaust, and genocides like the ones that happened in Kosovo and Rwanda, the

communist regime in Eastern Europe, and the slavery of African Americans (Caruth 1995,

LaCapra 1999, Alexander 2004, Eyeman et al., 2004, Giesen et al., 2004, Smelser et al.,

2004), where the number of people killed is incomparable to the three thousand victims of

the WTC attacks, and the duration of those genocides was also much longer than the few

hours of the attacks on September 11. As Slavoj Žižek expounds in his writing, Welcome to

the Desert of the Real, even the media coverage of the tragedy differs from the previously

mentioned ones:

[W]hile the number of victims – 3,000 – is repeated all the time, it is surprising how little of the actual carnage we see — no dismembered bodies, no blood, no desperate faces of the dying people… in clear contrast to the reporting from the Third World catastrophes where the whole point was to produce a scoop of some gruesome detail: Somalis dying of hunger, raped Bosnian women, men with throats cut. These shots were always accompanied with the advance-warning that "some of the images you will see are extremely graphic and may hurt children" — a warning which we never heard in the reports on the WTC collapse. (Žižek 13)

As Žižek’s argues, it is neither the number of the victims, nor the duration of terror,

which defines an event as cultural trauma. I would go even further, quoting Alexander that

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“events in themselves are not enough to cause cultural trauma” (10). A single event cannot

cause pain in every member of a given society. In most cases, for example, not all the

members of the given collectivity are physically hurt, neither are they all relatives or

friends of the victims. Still, we can talk about a traumatised community. The meanings

which are given to these events are able to traumatise a group of people. As Alexander

claims, “[t]rauma […] is the result of this acute discomfort entering into the core of the

collectivity's sense of its own identity. Collective actors “decide” to represent social pain as

a fundamental threat to their sense of who they are, where they came from, and where they

want to go” (10). The death of approximately three thousand people is not enough to

traumatise a whole nation. But the narrative in which it happened can in fact create a

permanent change in a nation's collective identity. This change is the core of cultural

trauma, and the aspect the present paper will rely on the most.

In this chapter I am bound to mention Neil J. Smelser's “September 11, 2001, as

Cultural Trauma” (Alexander ed., 264-282), which is the epilogue of the volume of

collected essays entitled Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, and which has the same

purpose as this chapter, namely to prove that 9/11 can be considered as cultural trauma.

However, Smelser's article was written just four months after the attacks, which has

advantages and disadvantages at the same time. On the one hand, the earliest reactions to a

tragedy are rather genuine in the sense that they are not influenced by other writings,

opinions or events. On the other hand, when dealing with cultural trauma, one ought to

concentrate on the time having passed after the traumatic event, to be able to examine the

process of coping with trauma in full. Moreover, the first stage of this coping mechanism is

usually denial, which means that the victims do not want to accept what has happened to

them and they are often in a state of numbness, not yet fully comprehending the given

event. Bearing this in mind, I will first present the main points of Smelser's discussion, and

then complete them with further arguments.

The traumatic ingredients of September 11 according to Smelser (Alexander ed.

266-7) include “an initial reaction of shock, disbelief, and emotional numbing”, which can

be seen in the initial media presentation of the events, or rather the lack of media

presentation of certain aspects of the events, for instance. This phenomenon could also be

found in the entertainment industry, and since the focus of my thesis is the representation of

12

cultural trauma in animated sitcoms, the examples will be drawn from this field of the

media.

First of all, I would like to mention the poster of the newest Spiderman movie at that

time that had to be recalled, as it contained a New York landscape with the WTC towers

standing in the reflection of the protagonist's eyes. Secondly, I am bound to present one of

the most popular American TV shows of all time, Friends. The producers of the show paid

attention to the correspondence between the date of the storyline of the TV show and the

date of 'the real world'. This is most apparent in the 'holiday episodes', where the Valentine's

Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve episodes were aired shortly

before the day of the given holiday. Nevertheless, in the world of Friends, there is nobody

affected by the events of 9/11, even though the first episode of the eighth season was aired

on September 27, 2001. Later, in the third episode of this season, entitled The One Where

Rachel Tells Ross, aired on 11 October 2001, the whole episode was rewritten so as not to

contain anything that could be related to the events of 9/11. The original script included the

newlywed couple, Monica and Chandler going through security in an airport. A sign warns

passengers that federal law prohibits any joking regarding aircraft hi-jacking or bombing

which Chandler ignores stating that he takes his bombs very seriously. As a result, he and

Monica are questioned by the police. These scenes were completely rewritten, but later

became available as extra scenes in the DVD (released in 2004), with a comment written

before it:

The following scenes were deleted from the episode "The One Where Rachel Tells Ross" and are being presented here for the first time. The story involved Chandler joking with security at an airport and was to air two weeks after the events of September 11, 2001. In light of this, we decided to replace the original story, as part of the history of the show, we hope that the scenes can now be viewed in the spirit which they were originally intended.

This is a clear example how sensitive the American audience was to the subject of

the terror attacks – or how sensitive the producers of the show thought the audience was. In

either case, the silence about the matter is obvious. I will discuss this total silence in greater

length later in this chapter.

At the same time, as Smelser continues, there is widespread collective mourning, a

sense of the indelibility of the trauma, which has been expressed by the slogan “never

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forget” borrowed from the Holocaust narrative, with a compulsory brooding over the tragic

events and a sense of sacredness. And last but not least, “[a] culminating sense that

American identity had been altered fundamentally”. (Smelser 266)

This altered identity is not necessarily a negative thing, as it has several benefits as

well. Just to take a few examples, after the attacks there was an increased feeling of

solidarity among US citizens, especially in their support for the rescue team. What is more,

patriotic sentiments became stronger, which was reflected in the use of flags and other

national symbols in the most diverse places and platforms. Here, I have to mention the

unexpected emergence of these symbols and at the same time the absence of mentioning

9/11 in Friends. As Luke John

Howie pointed out in Representing

Terrorism: Reanimating Post-9/11

New York City (2009), on the one

hand, this TV program was never

concerned with politics, so it is not

that strange if there is no mention

of the Bush administration or such

among the six main characters. On

the other hand, the total silence

about 9/11 in Central Perk, which

in the TV show is situated in

downtown Manhattan, is more

than uncanny. One could say that

this is not by all means a surprise, but rather the choice of the producers to have the whole

series set in a pre-9/11 world. But this is simply not the case. In episode thirteen of season

eight – titled ‘The One Where Chandler Takes A Bath'5 , Joey wears a T-shirt with the words

'Capt. Billy Burke' written on it.

Billy Burke was a member of the 9/11 rescue team, who died when Tower One

collapsed, while he was going back for people who were still in the building. Bearing this

5 While Luke John Howie claims that the T-shirt appeared in episode twelve of season eight, 'The One Where Joey Dates Rachel', it actually can be seen on Joey an episode later.

1-1 Figure Joey in a T-shirt with the name of "Capt. Billy Blurke" on it.

14

in mind, we can exclude the theory that Friends is simply set in a pre-9/11 world. Instead, it

is a rather conspicuous example of trauma being present in popular culture – whether

intentionally or not. Even though the writers of the TV show did not deal with 9/11

explicitly, the topic and the coping is present. Howie re-watched all ten seasons and made a

chart which contains these hidden elements of a post-9/11 Friends. His conclusion was that

while national symbols were absent in the first seven seasons (1994-2001), from the eighth

season onwards there was a clear appearance of US flags, images of the Statue of Liberty,

Uncle Sam, the Empire State Building, and FDNY T-shirts. (Howie 14)

It is true that these images were not present in the foreground, but rather in the

background of the set, as they appeared on / next to the fridge of Monica's apartment, on

the message board of Joey's door, on the clothes the characters were wearing, or in the

emblematic coffee house's decoration, but their relevance is still present. There was no

explanation for their suddenly increased sense of patriotism. These symbols are like

reenactments. As if Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica, Joey and Phoebe would like to

pretend that 9/11 had not happened, but meanwhile they would constantly remember it

through these reenactments.

Having listed the elements of cultural trauma, I will move on to its definition. I

have chosen Alexander's definition of cultural trauma out of the many, because it is very

useful for my purposes in this thesis. “Cultural trauma occurs when members of a

collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks

upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future

identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways.” (Alexander 1) The most important aspect of

this definition for me in writing this thesis is the mark which is left by the tragic event upon

the group consciousness, since this is what can be tracked while analysing cultural

products, such as animated sitcoms. Furthermore, based on this definition, 9/11 can be seen

as a cause of cultural trauma.

As Tuval-Mashiach points out an important aspect of trauma, “[t]rauma, by its

nature, breaks the continuity and smooth flow of daily life.” (281) And the flow of daily life

has been changed. The United States had not been attacked inland by other nations before.

This means that in the pre-9/11 USA there had been a false sense of safety, which collapsed

with the towers. And this is not only an abstract idea, this feeling of being threatened all the

15

time was also reinforced by increased safety measures, not only in airports, but also in the

citizens' everyday life, as individual rights have been curtailed for the sake of safety.

Another crucial change in US citizens' future identity concerns their perception of

Manhattan. As Howie notes “After 9/11, Manhattan could no longer be viewed as just a

cultural, financial, fashionable and sexual metropolis – we are now only too aware that it is

also a terrorist target.” (Howie 9-10) Within this metropolis the twin towers of the World

Trade Center had also been loaded with connotations, which were modified after the

attacks, mostly with a sense of nostalgia. By nostalgia here I mean restorative nostalgia

which “dwells [...] in longing and loss, [...] it lingers on ruins, the patina of time and

history, in the dreams of another place and another time.” (Boym 41) This longing to a past

era, a golden age which, in retrospect, is flawless. In the pre-9/11 USA, New Yorkers were

not really fond of the view of the WTC towers, but after they were demolished, a new sense

of admiration appeared for them.

Moreover, the towers of the World Trade Center had been

symbols even before the attacks. Not just because as their name

suggests, they were the center of world trade but also simply

because they were buildings. As George Lakoff claims in his

article entitled “Metaphors of Terror”, buildings can be seen as

human heads, and windows and doors can be seen as mouths or

eyes. (Lakoff) Thus, the planes entering them can be sensed as

bullets hitting the heads' temples. This works with every one of

us with the help of what are called “mirror neurons” in the prefrontal cortex of our brains.

He notes “Our systems of metaphorical thought, interacting with our mirror neuron

systems, turn external literal horrors into felt metaphorical horrors.” (Lakoff) This

phenomenon works on different levels, also in the case of watching the WTC towers

collapse.

Lakoff presents metaphorical examples to support his argument. What he calls

“Control Is Up” which is, as the name suggests, about the loss of control. Height has

always been a most important characteristic of skyscrapers, especially in New York. As

such tall buildings, skyscrapers also have a phallic imagery, filled with male -power, so

when they collapse, it strengthens the idea of loss of power. Another metaphor that should

1-2 Figure Buildings as Humans.

16

be considered here is “A Society Is A Building” with the image of a crumbled, fallen

society. Buildings also represent stability, standing at the same place over time. The World

Trade Center was built to last for 10,000 years (Lakoff), and with its disappearance, the

stability of American society got questioned. In addition, landmarks also play an important

role in the inhabitants' sense of home, making it easier for them to orient themselves within

their home city. As a consequence, the loss of the towers could cause a loss of direction, the

absence of the familiar skyline.

Besides these important changes in the American group identity, the other crucial

factor is the meaning, which is attached to the given event. I would like to refer to Piotr

Sztrompka's example here who the importance of the imagination of the masses. (457) He

states that if enough people believe in an attack from the planet Mars, it can trigger mass

panic. And this works both ways. A tragic event which has the potential to traumatise a

whole community will not be considered as traumatic if it is explained in a way which

convinces people that what happened was not as tragic, nor as harmful as it may seem at

first.

This meaning-making is done by carrier groups according to Alexander, who claims

that “[c]arrier groups are the collective agents of the trauma process. Carrier groups have

both ideal and material interests, they are situated in particular places in the social structure,

and they have particular discursive talents for articulating their claims – for what might be

called “meaning making” - in the public sphere.” (Alexander 11) The power of these groups

should not be underestimated. When talking about carrier groups, the role of mass media in

the emergence of cultural trauma cannot be omitted. With the help of the Internet,

information can reach audiences in a never before-seen speed. This obviously helps the

carrier groups to convince the US citizens to consider the events of September 11 as

traumatic.

There is another factor I have to mention here which is the date of the attacks.

Shortly after the tragedy, people started referring to that day as 9/11, since it happened on

the eleventh day of the ninth month. This seems simply as a quite logical choice at first. But

taking a closer look, we cannot ignore the fact that the emergency telephone number in the

USA is 9-1-1. By constantly referring to a tragic event with the code of help, people remain

in the narrative of emergency. Furthermore, this also goes the other way round, as when

17

people are referring to the emergency telephone number, even if subconsciously, they keep

the memory of the attacks alive. Thus, even the label 9/11 becomes a symbol which

convinces US citizens that what happened on September 11 was a cultural trauma.

A good example for the importance of these numbers is from the first episode of the

seventh season of an American animated sitcom, American Dad!, where the main hero, CIA

agent Stan Smith describes his average day at his workplace to his wife, claiming that from

9:10 to 9:11 he thinks about 9/11, and we can see him sitting at his desk, next to a digital

clock with the time – 9:11 – staring into the distance with a depressed expression. Although

this episode was aired almost exactly ten years after the attacks, on 25 September, 2011, it

depicts a psychological symptom of the PTS (post-traumatic-syndrome), when the victims

fall back a few stages in the recovery when the anniversary of the traumatic event

approaches. However, in this episode

this phenomenon is exaggerated and thus

ridiculed by the fact that Stan spends an

entire minute every day at the time

lamenting over the tragedy of his

country. By making fun of remembering

9/11, the show makes the point that

people cannot live their lives in constant

grief, but they must move on.

As Smelser points it out, the American society must have had a certain sense of guilt

over the events which it tried to eliminate. (271-276) Quoting Mead, Smelser uses the

playground imagery to emphasise the importance of the 'Who started it?” question. In this

sense, the USA had a chip on its shoulder – showing that it was always ready to fight, but

smart enough not to start it. In this case, when one side “only” fights back, taking revenge,

it seems legitimate, even respectful. To give an example of this from the entertainment

industry again, we should think of Hollywood action movies, depicting American ideals.

Killing people is generally wrong, but when a loved one of the protagonist is lost in violent

actions, the murderer has to be killed too, only this time with the exception that the

audience can forgive even a more horrid murder of the villain.

The most extreme version of this is the hype of the TV show Dexter, where the

1-3. Figure “American Dad!": Stan thinking of 9/11 at 9:11

18

main hero is a serial killer. At first, it should seem unrealistic that the well civilized

American audience would feel for a cold blooded murderer who literally does not have any

emotions, but lust for killing. But again, we have a built up rationale: as a boy, Dexter had

to witness his mother being killed (the murderer dismembering her with a chainsaw), and

wait for the police to find him several days later, sitting in a blood-pool of his dead mother.

This horrendous experience killed all his emotions, and left a deep desire in him for killing.

His foster father, the policeman who had found him, noticed that something was wrong in

Dexter, so he trained him to kill those serial killers who could find leaks in the system and

escape imprisonment. As a result, Dexter saves innocent lives by killing. His recurring

dilemma is whether he is a bad person doing good things or a good person doing bad

things.

The reason this section deals with this TV show in such length is the parallel

between the moral dilemma of Dexter and the American actions in Iraq after 9/11. It is not

an accident that this series has gotten so popular in the USA; Dexter shares the American

people's doubts about their actions

towards those who were responsible for a

horrendous, traumatic event the US

citizens had to witness. In this narrative,

the American people cannot be blamed

for their actions in Iraq, because the Al

Qaeda started the fight, and as a

consequence, they must fight back, just

like after Pearl Harbor. But also as in the

case of Pearl Harbor, the US citizens must

remember their overcompensation regarding Pearl Harbor, namely dropping the atomic

bombs, which, at the time, felt completely reasonable, only regretted later. (Smelser) Thus,

they cannot really feel innocent, rather they are on a slippery slope like Dexter. The

dualistic narrative of good vs. evil therefore is not valid in this case, even though President

Bush used it in his public utterances a lot.

The purpose of this chapter is to present the key factors of trauma first on the

personal, later on the collective level, proving that the events of 11 September 2001

1-4. Figure "Dexter"

19

resulted in cultural trauma for the citizens of the USA. I have taken examples from popular

culture, claiming that they can represent the most common attitudes of US citizens. I have

argued that events are not enough to cause cultural trauma in a given society, but the

narrative in which they reach the nation is able to traumatise them.

20

2. The Role of Humour in Working Through Trauma

The healing power of humour is almost commonplace. Kuipers, for instance calls it

“a coping strategy for America.” (Kuipers 27) But if the belief in the positive impact of

humour is indeed so strong in the American way of thinking, then why were humour and

comedy suspended in the media after the events of 9/11? Many people even called

September 11 as the “death of comedy”. (Kuipers 20) The present chapter will first take a

closer look at the controversy about forgetting or remembering the thing(s) lost in a

traumatic event, then it will emphasise the dangers of forgetting the positive aspects of

something whose loss is a traumatic experience. At first it may seem that when the victims

remember such positive factors they risk working through their trauma, but in fact the

commemoration of the lost thing is part of the healing process. Secondly, the present

chapter will concentrate on three aspects of the healing power of humour. The first aspect

considers jokes as narrative forms which retell the story of the traumatic experience, thus

helping the victims cope with their loss. The second is overcoming fear with the help of

jokes. The third aspect focuses on those jokes which make a statement, thus help the

victims find some meaning in what has happened to them.

Later, as part of the discussion about negative opinions on disaster humour I will

present some theories which claim that 'sick jokes' are not able to help in working through

trauma, moreover, they are downright aggressive and harmful. I will then defend my point

that the disaster jokes in American animated sitcoms are parts of the healing process of the

American psyche. It is very important to emphasise that I do not think that a given joke

only fulfills one function. I believe that different jokes have different functions for different

audiences and finding all the options is impossible. This chapter's aim is to concentrate on

one specific function, namely, humour's role in coping with trauma, and in the next chapter

I will present how 9/11 jokes in three animated sitcoms (The Simpsons, South Park and

Family Guy) can help American audiences in their healing process.

2.1 What to Forget and What to Remember?

Soon after the tragedy of September 11, pictures of the burning WTC towers, people

jumping to their deaths, horrified faces of passers-by flooded the media. There was an

21

aspect absent from the programmes of TV channels: humour, or anything that could have

been connected to the twin towers in a positive or neutral way. It seemed as if even the

appearance of the towers in their everyday status would have been able to upset the

audiences. As a result, everything ordinary about the towers disappeared from the media,

and what remained was terror. This also meant altering some of the products of the

entertainment industry simply because they showed images of the WTC towers. One

altered film among others was the movie Zoolander, where the images of the World Trade

Center were digitally deleted, even though the production of the film had started before 11

September 2001, and the trailer was rolling and cut into when the first report of the attack

arrived. (Germain)

Deleting the image of the towers from a pre-9/11 world carries the message that the

terrorists were capable of destroying more than just two buildings. They were also able to

demolish these buildings from the imagination of American film-makers. Making the

Americans pretend that the WTC towers did not exist in their dignity is more threatening

than the mere act of devastating those buildings and taking thousands of lives. The motto

“never forget” refers only to the tragic aspects of September 11, but not their pre-9/11

world. This means that when American citizens talk about the World Trade Center, they

should never forget what has happened to it. There is, on the one hand, the understandable

urge to commemorate those who have been affected by the tragedy. On the other hand,

forgetting about the other aspects of the towers can be rather harmful.

Sam Raimi, the director of Spider-Man portrayed this ambiguity when he deleted

some scenes from the movie where pictures of the trade towers could be seen, but left them

in some other shots.“I didn’t want to erase the image of the twin towers. They’re seen

throughout the course of the movie, because we didn’t want the terrorists to win.”, - he said.

(Germain) Because deleting the towers from history does mean that the terrorists have won

by achieving to make the pre-9/11 world a taboo. Only when the American society finds a

way to commemorate the twin towers and the events of 9/11 with all their features – good

and bad – does the healing process start.

22

From the total silence about the twin towers' positive aspect to joking about the

attacks the path is long, but the steps that lead from one to the other are stages of the

healing process. Such a step was the short animation The Man Who Walked Between the

Towers, by Michael Sporn in 2005. This is the film version of a children's picture book with

the same title written by Mordicai Gerstein in 2003. Both tell the true story of Philippe

Petit's walk between the towers in

1974, and they both end with the

following lines: " Now the towers are

gone. But in memory, as if imprinted

on the sky, the towers are still there.

And part of that memory is the joyful

morning, Aug. 7, 1974, when Philippe

Petit walked between them in the air."

(The Man Who Walked Between the

Towers) As the book and the film were

made after the attacks, they both have

been active participants of the healing process by highlighting positive memories attached

to the towers. Thus, the towers have not been mentioned only as places of terror, but also as

scenes of joy and freedom, as Phillippe frequently said how free he felt up there.

Besides recalling good memories, another step of commemorating the good sides of

a tragically lost thing or person is joking about it. Jokes about loss are not modern

inventions, they can be found in many different cultures' traditions. Both in Ireland and

Newfoundland, for instance, wakes were places for practical jokes, drinking and

merrymaking (Ilana, Narváez), not to mention the old-Irish tradition, Halloween, which

“provides for licentious behavior that attracts parade participants” (Narváez 9), or The

Mexican Day of the Dead (Stanley). In addition to grief, disasters have provided reasons

for jokes, which are usually called “sick jokes”. As the name suggest, these jokes are

usually considered the products of a sick state of mind, even by some folklorists. (Ellis 6)

2-1. Figure "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers." Illustration by Mordicai Gerstein. 2003.

23

There is also a widespread

assumption that those who joke

about disasters are insensitive

people who cannot be moved by

tragedies. Contrary to this belief,

those who circulate topical sick

humour are able to find closure

faster than those who do not.

(Ellis 2) Based on this, Ellis

concludes that what can be

considered as deviant behaviour is

the absence of disaster jokes in the media, and not their presence.

As Ellis explains in his essay, “A Model for Collecting and Interpreting World Trade

Center Disaster Jokes” and later in “Making a Big Apple Crumble”, emergency workers are

in a difficult position when it comes to working through the horrors they must experience.

They use humour to cope with the terror they witness, but they feel they cannot share these

jokes with anyone outside the circle of their colleagues, not even their friends and family,

since the common attitude towards such humour would make them seem soulless.

As we can see from the previous examples, the attitude towards humour about

disaster is a rather ambivalent one. On the one hand, it seems inappropriate to joke in times

of grief, especially when the joke is on the victims of the catastrophic event, as such

humour is considered depraved. On the other hand, as Kuipers (25) writes, “[t]he belief in

the healing power of humor, which is central to American thinking about humour, was

invoked often in the period after 9/11”. In this case humour is regarded as therapeutic. As

Elliott claimed,

[n]either the depraved nor the therapeutic hypothesis depend upon a close reading of the jokes themselves. Both positions are equally based upon the fact that people are laughing at horrific disaster. It seems solely a matter of formulating opinion as to the motives that inform that laughter – cruel and depraved or therapeutic and liberating? But [...] there are other possibilities. (281)

The recent chapter does not aim at the impossible, which is covering all possible

2-2. Figure Irish Wake

24

interpretations, but rather, to focus on one aspect: the therapeutic reading. It will

concentrate on three aspects of the therapeutic effects of jokes on disasters.

The first aspect is working through trauma with the help of narration. In this case,

jokes are different narrations of a traumatic event, and as I have explained it in the first

chapter, once the traumatic experience can be narrated in different ways to different

audiences, it means that the healing process has already started. The second aspect is

overcoming fear by ridiculing the very thing we are terrified of. One of the many

mechanisms of humour is superiority/disparagement which means that the notion of

humour derives from a sense of superiority over the butts of the joke. (Neuendorf 1) The

third aspect is finding something meaningful in tragedy. Obviously, these disaster jokes do

not celebrate a disaster, rather what they do is highlight those things that were gained rather

than lost. This has special importance in the healing process, as one component of the

traumatic experience is that its events are incomprehensible. (Caruth 153) Thus, when a

conclusion can be drawn from a disaster, it stops being a traumatising experience and

becomes a tragic event.

2.2 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour

Jokes are mini stories (or sometimes situations) that produce mirth in the audience.

As narrated stories, they have more layers of interpretation. First of all, jokes have specific

performance meanings, which are modified meanings of the intended message, altered by

the context in which they appear or by the assumptions the members of the audience might

have connected to the subject of the joke. (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 120) Here I will rely on

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's Toward a Theory of Proverb Meaning, because even

though she writes about proverbs, her observations are absolutely valid for jokes, too.

As for multiple meanings based on the intentions of the speaker and the context in

which the proverb is told, Kirshennlatt-Gimblett's example is “A friend in need is a friend

indeed (in deed)”, which can be interpreted in two ways. In the case of the literal meaning a

real friend is somebody you can count on in times of need, or somebody who acts when

you need them. The sarcastic meaning appears when the speaker uses the word “indeed”

with a sense of irony, thus suggesting that a friend who is only there when they are in

trouble is not really your friend. These were just a few examples for the countless multiple

25

meanings a proverb or even a joke might have based on the context they appear in. In the

case of a trauma, this is of special importance, as the more meanings and versions a

narration of the tragic event might have, the closer it is to memory than to traumatic

experience. (Caruth 153)

At this point, I have to touch upon what are called jokes in this thesis. As the centre

of this paper's attention is the world of American animated sitcoms, I will call certain

scenes or sketches jokes, even though they do not appear on their own, but they are

embedded in an episode. Still, they have the characteristics necessary to be regarded as

jokes. They are short narratives with a punchline, they have joke-tellers and an audience. In

my view, the characters of the TV shows are the joke-tellers, and the audience of the series

is the audience of a joke. I regard the episode as the context in which the joke is told. The

cultural background is the one the producers of the show share with the American viewers.

Jokes are stories, and as a consequence, they are different narratives of a certain event.

Based on the importance of narration in the healing process, when the American society re-

tells some aspects of 9/11 in the form of jokes, it means that they are already able to apply

various narratives, thus working through their cultural trauma.

2.3 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour

There are three main theories about what makes a joke successful. (Gournelos &

Greene xvii) The first is the incongruity theory, where “humor results from the unexpected

but appropriate juxtaposition of two or more frames of interpretation usually not associated

with one another”. (et. al. xvii-xviii) The second is the catharsis theory, where “humor

comes from a momentary eruption of relief of psychological and/or social tension (e.g.,

laughing during a funeral or at a faux pas).” (et. al. xviii) The last and most important

theory for the present argument is called superiority theory. This “suggests that people

laugh at those they find to be inferior to themselves (whether that is a person, a race, a

class, or even a place or experience).” (et. al. xviii) These three theories often appear

together, as we can see in the following joke which was found the world's funniest joke

according to Richard Wiseman (University of Hertfordshire), in collaboration with the

26

British Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002.6

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?”. The operator says “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”

We can find the incongruity in the fact that the hunter kills the other hunter contrary

to his original intention: saving his friend's life. The catharsis comes from the fact that we

laugh at a terrible situation: a man killing his friend. And finally, we laugh because we feel

superior to the hunter who shoots somebody out of stupidity. The man who sent in this

particular joke to LaughLab is

Gurpal Gosall, a psychiatrist from

Manchester. He claims to tell this

joke to his clients, because he finds

that it makes people feel better,

“[b]ecause it reminds them that

there is always someone out there

who is doing something more

stupid than themselves."

(“Psychiatrist's joke 'world's

funniest'”) Furthermore, the

research differentiated between nationalities and it was found that “Americans and

Canadians much preferred gags where there was a sense of superiority – either because a

person looked stupid, or was made to look stupid by another person” (“Humour across the

globe”)

Given that Americans particularly enjoy jokes at the expense of someone or some

group thatthat can be considered as inferior, it is no wonder that in 2009 “The Achmed

sketch is the fourth most watched online video ever, according to the Web-tracking service

6 “Richard created LaughLab – a year long project that aimed to discover the world’s funniest joke. The project was set-up in collaboration with The British Science Association, and involved people sending in their favourite jokes, and rating how funny they found the jokes submitted by others. The project attracted attention from the international media, resulting in the website receiving over 40,000 jokes and 1.5 million ratings.” (www.laughlab.co.uk/: October 20, 2012)

2-3. Figure Gurpal Gosall

27

Visible Measures.” (“The Puppet Master”) Achmed is a skeletal

puppet figure of an incompetent suicide bomber who claims to

work for Osama Bin Laden used by Jeff Dunham. Achmed's

catchphrase is 'Silence! I kill you!” (The word 'kill' is pronounced

as /ki:l/.) When he shouts this sentence the audience bursts out in

laughter.

They are not frightened, nor offended by the threat of a

“terrorist”. By laughing at him, they feel superior to somebody

that is supposed to represent something they should be terrified

of. Achmed would not have been able to achieve the same effect in the immediate aftermath

of 9/11, but a few years later he became really popular, especially as he helped the

Americans work through their trauma and fear by ridiculing what they had been terrified of.

2.4 Jokes That Make a Statement

There is another theory in traditional studies of humour, which is called

communication theory. As Arthur Asa Berger defines it in his essay “Coda: Humor,

Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies,” (Berger) “communication theories […] deal with the way

the human mind processes information and deal with such matters as play frames and

paradoxes in communication and the way they generate humor.” (Berger 235) For

communication theorists, humour “is a form of communication that forces us to confront

paradoxical aspects of reality. One way we deal with the paradoxical nature of reality, […]

is to laugh at it.” (236) As I have mentioned it before, one important aspect of the traumatic

experience is that, for the victim, it is not coherent, so it is like a paradox. When a joke

sheds light upon a paradoxical situation, thus making the audience laugh, it also offers

solutions by offering at least two interpretations. In the case of disaster jokes this has a

therapeutic value, as these jokes convey something that is beyond grief and terror.

The interpretations a disaster joke might offer are not necessarily deep and

profound, but the depth of such an interpretation is not so important. For instance, there is a

9/11 joke in the eighth episode of the third season of American Dad!, where Roger, the

alien pet of the family could convince Stan, the father to buy a popcorn machine.

Steve: Kudos to the way you conned my dad into getting us this popcorn machine.

2-4. Figure Jeff Dunham and Achmed

28

Roger: It was just a matter of finding the right way to combine the words "tasty," "low-fat," and "9/11." (American Dad!)

The paradox here is the fact that 9/11 has nothing to do with a popcorn machine,

thus it cannot be a good argument next to “tasty” and “low-fat”, both of which can be

characteristics of the given snack. The solution of the incongruity is finding the connection

between the tragedy of September 11 and a CIA agent's persuasion to buy a popcorn

machine. A possible link is the way 9/11 is used at times as a slogan to influence American

citizens about something which, in fact, might have little to do with 9/11. This little piece of

information enriches the narration about 9/11, and thus helps to integrate it into a narrative

memory, within the schemes of prior knowledge. And this is a key factor in working

through trauma. (Caruth 153)

2.5 Different Attitudes Towards the Healing Power of (Disaster) Jokes

The book I will rely on most in this part is A Decade of Dark Humor – How

Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America (Gournelos and Greene 2011). This

collection of essays concentrates on several jokes made about 9/11. Most of the writers are

rather critical of the positive side of such jokes, claiming that the main message this kind of

comedy aims to convey is hostility. (Lewis 220)

What most of these authors are dealing with is a rather specific genre: what they call

jokes, are mostly digitally altered pictures, caricatures, and comedians' sketches. Neither

Lewis nor Kuipers consider sitcoms, let alone animated sitcoms in their articles. Yet, I

argue there is a huge difference between these genres. In the case of the images, the author

is usually anonymous. Caricatures have their authors, and comedians give their faces to the

jokes, which make them more vulnerable to criticism, thus increasing the risk they take by

making the jokes. This might also be the reason why the anonymous Internet jokes are the

most aggressive ones. And aggression and hostility are some of the above mentioned

authors' main accusations against humor aimed at disasters or minorities. In addition,

Davies suggests,

It may be that the Internet simply makes the jokes appear more numerous by enabling these otherwise scattered and forbidden items to be assembled in one place, but it seems more likely that the use of e-mail and web sites has a snowball effect, since the existence of an accessible core of jokes stimulates further jokes through imitation,

29

modification, inspiration, emulation, and legitimation. (30)

This phenomenon can hardly ever happen with situational comedies. Even when

such TV programmes do influence each other, this cannot happen as fast as in the case of

Internet jokes, as an episode of an animated sitcom usually takes three weeks to make –

with the exception of South Park, where an episode is produced within three days in most

cases.

Furthermore, these sitcoms are the work of a bigger team – writers, actors, artists,

musicians, and so on. If a joke appears in an animated sitcom, it is rarely a sudden idea. It

goes through many people, which means many opportunities of editing and cutting. The TV

channel that airs the programme also has a say in whether the content of the episode is

appropriate for the viewers or not – and it goes without saying that these commercial TV

channels have their broadcast standards, which means that they are mainly interested in

ratings and thus their income, so they would not risk losing viewers for the sake of a joke.

As Davies argues, “[t]elevision is a form of centralized and homogenized mass production,

from which anything that offends the management, the sponsors, or any significant section

of the audience to whom they choose to defer, is excluded. The Internet is decentralised,

international, and diverse.” (Davies 30) Thus, if a 9/11 joke appears in a commercial TV

channel one may rightfully assume that its impact is bigger, than in the case of

“consequence-free” Internet jokes. Even in the case of the highly satirical, provocative and

controversial Family Guy, there are strict rules about what can and cannot be broadcast. For

instance, the twenty-first episode of the eighth season entitled Partial Terms of Endearment

which deals with the ethical question of abortion7 was called back before it would have

been aired, and it only appeared on DVD. Based on this we can assume that the producers

of these sitcoms do not aim to hurt minorities.

Another scholar who doubts that humour can be a means to cope with the events of

9/11 is Giselinde Kuipers. According to her, using disaster jokes as a way of coping with

trauma is problematic, because “many people who in no way can be said to suffer

7 In this episode Lois is asked by old friends to become a surrogate mother. Lois agrees to do so, however, when she is already pregnant, the biological parents die in an accident. The fate of the fetus is in question. Peter tries to persuade Lois to get an abortion, but later he changes his mind due to pro-life activists who convince him that abortion is murder. In the end, however, when everyone is sitting at the dinner table, Peter suddenly announces that they aborted the baby, and the episode ends immediately.

30

personally from the disaster appreciate them.” (Kuipers 22) But if we take this point into

account, we have to question the whole concept of cultural trauma. As I discussed in the

previous chapter, an event, which later becomes cultural trauma, in most cases does not

affect every member of the group as a personal trauma would do. But as their sense of

identity is questioned, they do suffer from it and they do need to cope with it in order to

work through it. Kuipers also claims that “[t]hese humorous clash jokes8 are deliberately

amoral. They do not contain any empathy, nor do they make any statement.” (31) This may

be true for some pictures circulating on the Internet, but in the case of animated sitcoms, it

definitely does not stand, since they do make statements, as I argued earlier in this chapter.

As the main characters of these sitcoms are the representations of the typical American

family living in the suburbs, even when they make a simple dull statement about 9/11, the

show makes a statement, in this case, about the ignorance of U.S. citizens of Arab culture,

or the events of 9/11. Making the American family the butts of these jokes, the (American)

audience is invited to admit their similarity to the characters: 'Yes, it is true that I know

little about Iraq, though my country is in war with it. Yes, this is rather embarrassing, this

can be made fun of. I should learn more about this issue.' Thus, they can defend themselves

against the assumption… However, I do agree with Kuipers that “the same joke might have

different functions for different people” (22), and in the recent thesis I only deal with

American citizens, who watch the three animated sitcoms I have chosen.

In conclusion, disaster jokes are used for a variety of reasons, and one of them is

coping with trauma. However, some sick jokes may not serve this purpose, because they

can be misunderstood by their audience, they can intensify hostility, or they might use harsh

ridicule, and thus they can do more harm than good. Animated sitcoms, on the other hand,

are able to help the audience work through their trauma. They use ridicule to help the

viewers overcome their fear, they offer different narrations so that a traumatic experience

can become a memory, and they may make a statement in order to help the victims find

some meaning in tragedy. In the following chapter I will take a closer look at these three

aspects and I will support them with examples of certain 9/11 jokes from Family Guy,

South Park and The Simpsons.

8 A clash joke is “humor based on a clash of incongrous domains.” (Kuipers 30)

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3. Case Studies

(Family Guy, South Park, The Simpsons)

First of all, this section will

introduce the situational comedies discussed

later in this chapter in order of their debuts.

The oldest running sitcom is The Simpsons

(on air since 1989), whose central family,

the Simpson family, is a caricature of the

middle class American lifestyle, in the

imaginary town of Springfield. The family

consists of the stupid, lazy, Homer as the

father with a drinking problem, and his

wife, Marge, who is the stereotypical TV

mother with high morals. They have three

children: the infant Maggie, the genius Lisa and the rebellious and disrespectful Bart. The

TV show makes fun of nearly every aspect of culture, politics and everyday life.

The second oldest sitcom in the

present thesis is South Park (on air since

1997), which is set in the fictional small

town of South Park and follows the days of

four 4th graders: Stan, Kyle, Cartman,

Kenny and their families. Stan is a typical

American 4th grader. His best friend is

Kyle, who is Jewish and as a result often

criticised by the racist, obnoxious and

selfish Cartman. Their friend, Kenny is very poor and his parka hood is so tight that what

he says is usually incomprehensible. The show often uses course language, violence and

social satire. Almost every episode ends with a moral voiced by one of the boys, usually

started as “You know, I've learned something today.”

3-1. Figure The Simpson family: Homer, Marge, Lisa, Maggie and Bart

3-2. Figure South Park: Cartman, Stan, Kenny and Kyle

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The newest sitcom presented here

is Family Guy, (on air since 1999) which

concentrates on the life of the Griffin

family. Peter, the father is quite similar to

Homer from The Simpsons in the sense

that he is dull, while his wife Lois, who

fulfills the role of a typical housewife, is

smarter than him. They also have three

children. Stewie is the youngest, a genius

infant who can only be heard by the very

intelligent dog, Brian, who can talk, as

well. The middle child is Meg, often

picked on by her family. The oldest son is Chris, who takes after his father. The show is

famous for its cutaways, usually not connected to the main storyline. Such as the other two

sitcoms, Family Guy also uses social satire. Furthermore, all three of them used more 9/11

jokes.

As I have presented in the previous chapter, the attitude towards disaster jokes is

rather ambivalent. Many form the opinion that the time passed between the tragedy and the

joke about it should not be little, although nobody can tell exactly what amount of time is

“too soon”. (Holt, 2011) What Jim Norton, an American comedian, answered to the

negative comments will be a motto for this part of my thesis. He said: “None of us wanted

to start making fun of people jumping from the buildings, the victims, shit like that. We

made fun of our own reactions to the tragedy.” (Pilot, 2011) The clearest example for this

is a cutaway in Grumpy Old Man from Family Guy, where Peter says to Lois: “Oh. Look at

that smile, Lois. Reminds me of that guy who was way too happy he didn't get killed on

9/11.” (Family Guy, s10e09)9 And we can see a businessman arriving to the scene of the

WTC attacks, and shouting in the middle of the devastated crowd in an ecstatic mood : “I'm

ten minutes late for work. Look at that! I stayed up late watching Monday night football

and that saved my life. Isn't that awesome?” - Then he realises disapproving looks from the

9 For the sake of clarity, the reference I will use for the episodes is the sXXeXX form, where “s” is for season, “e” is for episode. So s10e09 means the ninth episode of the tenth season.

3-3. Figure The Griffin family ("Family Guy"): Lois, Stweie, Peter, Meg, Chris and Brian

33

people around him and

changes his tone to sad:

“Ah, but ooh...” (Family

Guy, s10e09) This shows

how grief was almost

compulsory in the

aftermath: even when

somebody could have been

happy because they had

survived a tragic death,

they were supposed to celebrate behind closed doors, not to upset people in their grief. The

three sitcoms used as reference here have not been affected by such taboos, since they have

used 9/11 as subjects to some of their jokes. However, similar to Jim Norton’s claim, they

have not made fun of actual victims. They ridicule people's reactions to the events and the

way 9/11 has been exploited by politics or merchandise.

3.1 The Narrative Aspect of the Therapeutic Effect of Humour

This part of my thesis will study those 9/11 jokes which help working through

trauma by presenting the traumatic event in a different light, thus in a different narrative. In

the case of cultural trauma, it is crucial to have other narratives and points of views present

apart from the repetition of the facts of the traumatic event. This section consists of two

parts: in the first, the jokes that will be presented make fun of the reactions people have had

to 9/11. The second part will discuss jokes that aim at the exploitation of the attacks.

The first example will come from The Simpsons episode entitled Rednecks and

Broomsticks, in which the initial reaction of the people affected by the attacks is ridiculed.

Selma, Marge’s chain-smoking, sarcastic sister, makes TV reporter Kent Brockman admit

that they were involved in a sexual relationship. Kent Brockman's explanation to sleeping

with the undesirable woman is: “We all did crazy things on 9/11.” (s20e07) This statement

evokes a kind of end-of-the-world panic, when people acted without thinking. This joke

presents a rather undignified aspect of the events by emphasising how careless some people

got due to their shock. Besides heroism, tragedy and grief, which are aspects that have been

3-4. Figure "[T]hat guy who was way too happy he didn't get killed on 9/11.” (Family Guy, s10e09)

34

mostly connected to 9/11, recklessness was also present on that day. Shedding light on this

not so noble aspect helps working through trauma by presenting a narrative that has been

missing from the discussion of the events.

Some people might have acted thoughtlessly, other people on the other hand might

not have been able to understand the impact of the events, such as Peter Griffin in Padre de

Familia from Family Guy, where Brian criticises him for being overly-patriotic.

Brian : Peter, you do realize there's a difference between loving America and being swept up in post-9/11 paranoia.

Peter: Brian, are you suggesting that 9/11 didn't change everything?

Brian : What? No, I was just... Peter: 'Cause 9/11 changed everything, Brian! 9/11 changed

everything! Brian : Peter, you didn't even know what 9/11 was until 2004. Peter: That's not true, Brian. I remember 9/11. [We see Peter

coming in the room where Lois is watching the news on 9/11, crying.] He! Must have been a woman pilot, he? [Nudges Lois.] (s06e06)

Peter is the ignorant butt of the joke. His assumption that the pilot was a woman,

and that is why the plane hit the WTC tower is a joke on its own, but there is another level

of the joke. When Peter thought that the planes hitting the towers had been only accidents,

he was not devastated by the fact that thousands of Americans died. The incongruity comes

from the fact that years later he believes that the impact of that day has been exceptional,

and it has changed everything. His credibility is clearly lost when the audience can see his

initial reaction. Brian points out this controversy, thus signaling that even though the most

repeated opinion about 9/11 is that “it changed everything”, there are people who miss to

feel this honestly. And those who are “swept up in post-9/11 paranoia” are not necessarily

those who have been affected most by the events of that day. By criticising some of the

overly-patriotic, Brian points out that being too emotional about 9/11 is not the only

legitimate reaction. You can love America using a different narrative, and sometimes it is a

more honest reaction.

Besides the reaction to the attacks, people's feelings towards the loss of the towers

have also been commemorated in the form of jokes. In Moonshine River (The Simpsons)

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Bart tries to convince his father to travel to New York. His main argument involves an

implicit reference to the twin towers: “Come on, Dad, you love New York, now that your

two least favorite buildings have been obliterated: [long pause] Old Penn Station and Shea

stadium.” (s24e01) Although in the end the obliterated buildings turn out to be others than

the WTC towers, for the viewer the reference is quite obvious.

This reference may seem a bit gratuitous at first, but I think it is rather beneficial. As

I have briefly mentioned it in the first chapter, the towers had not been very popular in the

pre-9/11 world. But in the post-9/11 world, the opinions that argued against the towers'

aesthetic value have disappeared. The main context in which the looks of the towers are

present is the altered cityscape, the loss of the towers. By presenting another narrative, one

which has not been changed by the terrorist attacks, The Simpsons helps the viewers work

through their trauma.

Having presented some of the jokes that ridicule people's reaction to the events, this

section will turn to jokes about the exploitation of 9/11 for selfish purposes. In the next

example, 9/11 is an argument that cannot be refuted, and it does not have to be connected to

the original subject of the argument. Lois has to use this tool when she wants to be a mayor,

and even though she is more intelligent than her opponent, Mayor West seems to win the

campaign. Brian, her advisor, helps her by saying that “undecided voters are the biggest

idiots on the planet. Try giving short, simple answers.” (Family Guy, s05e17) So to the

question about what she wants to do about crime in their city, she replies “A lot. Because

that's what Jesus wants. 9/11 was bad.” As the audience is ecstatic, Lois answers simply

“9/11” to both questions “Mrs. Griffin, what are your plans for cleaning up our

environment?” and “Mrs. Griffin, what about our traffic problem?” And the audience finds

9/11 the best answer possible.

It is likely that this joke caricatures the early stages of Rudy Giuliani's presidential

campaign in 2007, since in his public speeches he used 9/11 to gain popularity many times.

(Buettner) Even if one butt of the joke is Giuliani, so too is the audience that accepted –

moreover, cheered – at the usage of 9/11 in a context, where it was not necessarily

appropriate, is ridiculed, too. When people feel they have only one socially acceptable

reaction to hearing the word 9/11, it becomes a catchphrase and its dignity is lost. Thus, it is

important to have more narratives about it, and to let different arguments be heard about it.

36

The US administration's rationale to invade Iraq is ridiculed in a cutaway from the

episode entitled Baby Not on Board from Family Guy (s07e04), where Peter and Brian are

standing next to Ground Zero.

Peter: Ground Zero. So this is where the first guy got AIDS. Brian : No, Peter, this is the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks! Peter: Oh, so Saddam Hussein did this? Brian : No. Peter: The Iraqi army? Brian : No. Peter: Some guys from Iraq? Brian : No. Peter: That one lady who visited Iraq that one time? Brian : No, Peter, Iraq had nothing to do with this. It was a bunch of Saudi Arabians, Lebanese, and Egyptians financed by a Saudi Arabian guy living in Afghanistan and sheltered by Pakistanis. Peter: So... you're saying we need to invade Iran? (s07e04)

At first, the butt of this joke appears to be Peter, and his ignorance about what really

happened on 9/11. This ignorance is in contrast with Brian's summary of the events, which

is too to the point, as most Americans would not be able to tell the details with such

accuracy. Peter, given all the necessary information, draws a conclusion that the USA

should attack Iran, a country which Brian has not mentioned. This conclusion mocks

today's political trend with the same purpose. Taking this a step further, if we consider that

the country the USA chose to invade was Iraq, a country that “had nothing to do with” 9/11,

it becomes clear that the real butt of the joke is the American administration. The

therapeutic effect here comes from the alternative to Bush's good vs. evil narrative, as it

suggests that the situation is more complex.

The above-mentioned episode from Family Guy aired in 2009, but South Park used

this idea a year after the tragedy, in A Ladder to Heaven, where the children try to build a

ladder to Heaven to be able to see their dead friend, Kenny. People are very touched by this

initiation, as they think the motivation behind the children's action is their love for their lost

friend, but in fact they just want to know where Kenny hid a ticket with which they can get

the candy they won. As a result, the boys without actually realising it exploit the adults'

sentiments to help them. But when Alan Jackson appears, he does the same thing on

purpose. As the commentator introduces him:

37

Even country singer Alan Jackson has shown up with a song he has written about

the ladder. Alan Jackson is, of course, the man who wrote the song, Where Were You When

the World Stopped Turning, about the tragedies on September 11. And now he's here once

again to capitalize on people's emotions. Let's listen in:

Where were you, when they built the Ladder to Heaven? Did it make you feel like crying? Or did you think it was kinda gay? Well I for one believe in the Ladder to Heaven Ooh yeah yeah yeah, 9-11 I said 9-11, 9-11, 9-11, 9, 9-11 Thank you! I have a new CD out with all my 9-11 songs for sale right here! (s06e12)

The beginning of these lyrics refers to the ambivalent feelings one might have about

the kids building the ladder, as it can be seen either as moving or too sentimental. Then, all

of a sudden, he sings about 9/11, which is irrelevant to the original subject, and in this

context the same question rises about the usage of 9/11 in songs, whether it is moving or

over-sentimental. And since he uses this song as a commercial for his 9/11 CDs, he appears

as a hypocrite, who does not really care either about 9/11 or the ladder to Heaven.

When Japan starts to build another ladder to Heaven to compete with the America,

the US military arrives to help the children. Their purpose is not noble, either, as it is not

caused by sympathy, but by the wish to defeat Japan. Later, the US government finds

evidence of threats from Saddam Hussein, who is building weapons of mass destruction in

Heaven (which turns out to be true), and seek UN approval to military action. As Randy,

Stan's father says “If Saddam is building weapons, we have to stop him. With our

weapons.” (s06e12) This ridicules the USA's desire to be the only powerful country in the

world.

When the children finally find the ticket for candy in Kenny's room and stop

building the ladder, people learn that their true motivation was only candy, they lose

interest and go home. Alan Jackson gets furious because the kids ruined his latest song, and

he breaks his guitar: another sign that his original motivation was no more noble than

theirs. The moral, voiced by Stan and Kyle doubts the existence of a Heaven with fluffy

38

clouds, and suggests that Heaven is more of an idea. Bush concludes that he was wrong for

believing that Saddam Hussein could be up building weapons and he also goes home.

Throughout this episode, people act out of selfish reasons, disguising them as noble

goals. However, when they hear the truth which is not as touching as the lie, they lose

interest, even though they could be able to prevent Saddam Hussein from using weapons of

mass destruction. This emphasises the importance of other narratives besides mainstream

ones.

In the previous examples jokes offer some help to the viewers by presenting

alternative narratives to those that have dominated the media. They also draw the attention

to the danger of letting only one reaction be appropriate about 9/11.

3.2 Overcoming Fear with the Help of Humour

This part will begin with the presentation of fear based on Shiping Tang's

paper entitled “The Social Evolutionary Psychology of Fear (and Trust): Or why is

international cooperation difficult?”, because he focuses on the fear and trust among

different nationalities. Fear is one of the core emotions of humankind, originally present to

help survival. When people have to make judgments under uncertainty, the two typical

errors they make is false positive, which means the “elicitation of a fear response toward a

stimulus that eventually turned out to be harmless”, or false negative, i.e., “failure to elicit

the defense response toward a stimulus that eventually turned out to be harmful.” (Tang 5)

The brain prefers the false positive one. Another technique people use to avoid danger is

simplistic thinking, which means that “we generally do not ask whether the other side’s

“unfriendly” and “undesirable” behavior may be a rational reaction to a situation he faces.”

(Tang 10)

Another characteristic of fear of other groups is the difference between how insiders

look at their own group and the way they see the outsiders belonging to other groups.

Individuals pay more attention to their own group's interests and motivations than to the

others'. This means that when another group is unfriendly in a way, individuals usually do

not take into consideration the possible reasons that could have led to the not preferred

behaviour. Consequently, they can easily miss the factors that would shed some positive

light on the other group's supposedly malign deeds. (Tang 9)

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Jokes are able to point out the unseen motivations and interests of other groups, e.g.

Muslims in a light and non-threatening way. They are also capable of highlighting

ambivalences between American's perceptions of outsiders and the truth. As Paul Atcher

described this phenomenon in his essay entitled “Comedy in Unfunny Times”, there are

jokes that “pick up on the perceived sense of U.S. American ignorance regarding the

motives and history of Islamic radicals and seek to fill perceived gaps in audience

knowledge about Islam:” (Achter 295) Achter calls this an education-gap, which he

explains with the “lack of Arab speakers in the U.S., a lack of appreciation or

understanding of Islam among majority U.S. Americans, and a lack of knowledge about

ongoing tensions between Arab nation states and the U.S.”, for example the Gulf War.

(Achter 297) When talking about The Onion's10 news parodies, Achter claims that “[b]y

reframing news of the attacks as mediations, The Onion's carnivalesque meta-discourse

created opportunities to address racism, to address fundamental questions about the motives

behind the attacks, and to lay out an agenda for learning about the cultures and political

histories of the people involved in the war on terror.” (Achter 298) The present chapter's

aim is to show how animated sitcoms are also capable of achieving the same effect.

In the following part of this chapter I will present two episodes that deal with the

fear of American citizens regarding Muslims. These episodes (Mypods and Boomsticks

from The Simpsons and The Snuke from South Park) do not only present these fears as

unjustified in most cases, but they also point out the lack of knowledge which causes these

fears. By drawing the attention to this lack of information they may also make people want

to learn more about the given topics, or at least the audience is provided with information,

which is different from the mainstream stereotypes, while making fun of these stereotypes

at the same time.11 Another reason why these sitcoms can be educational is that they are

more easily digested by wider audiences than, for instance newspaper articles. Especially in

the case of younger audiences, who are more likely to follow comedy formats with news

focus when is turns to politics. (Sella 2000)

In the seventh episode of the twentieth season of The Simpsons, entitled Mypods

10 The Onion is a news satire newspaper and website. 11 By stereotypes here I mean “the problematic assumptions about [...] the hijackers as religious zealots.”

(Achter 294)

40

and Boomsticks the main topic is intolerance. The basic situation is rather typical: a new

family moves into the suburban neighbourhood. This motif is rather common in American

TV shows.12 These outsiders are rarely honest people; they are trouble. So, everyone who

moves into suburbia is a bit suspicious, at least at first, in the American TV world. The

Simpsons uses this tradition, when Bashir, the son of the outsider family appears, and

introduces himself in a very polite, and actually very suburban fashion, as he is cooking

something which is similar to a hamburger “with an exotic aroma” (Bart Simpson) in his

garden.

Bashir My family and I just moved here, from Jordan. Bart Jordan. That's on some map somewhere, right?

Bart here seems to miss the typical suspicion of the average suburban neighbour,

although he is aware that Bashir might get in trouble because of his otherness, he even

warns him that coming from another religion might get him into trouble. Still, he shows

very little interest in his new friend's background, he does not even ask which religion he is.

Bashir's faith is eventually revealed when the school bullies attack Bashmir, as it was

expected by Bart.

Bully I'm going to punch you extra hard 'cause I secretly think you're cute.

Bart You can't just whale on him because he's-- What religion are you anyway? Bashir Muslim. Bart Oh boy! Bully You're the reason I can't carry toothpaste on an airplane!

The bully's reasoning for his violence towards Bashir is funny, firstly, because such

a boy usually lacks the insight needed to explain a motive like that. It is also funny because

it highlights a basic human reaction: people who are insecure use aggression to defend

themselves. Anyone who has ever been attacked by a bully may find some kind of relief in

knowing that there is a frightened little boy or girl behind the mask of cruelty, as it suggests

12 The popular series Desperate Housewives, for instance, builds each season on a newcomer who moves into the neighbourhood in the first episode, carrying a dark secret, which is revealed bit by bit towards the end of the season, usually hurting the people living close to them.

41

that the bully may be disarmed. And this does not only stand for bullies, it can also be

adapted to other aggressive groups, as well.

The mention of the Muslim faith seems to have more meaning to Bart than that of

Jordan, and he knows that it means trouble. The bully's comment clearly shows that his

problems with the Muslim faith are not based on religious or political views, he is not even

worrying about the threat of a suicide bomber, but he is frustrated because of a common

annoyance that followed 9/11, the strengthened security measures. The therapeutic value of

this bit is that is lessens the terrifying image of a Muslim with the mention of a banal

impediment, especially considering the example the bully mentions is one of the smallest

measures experienced at an airport.

I have already written about individuals' unwillingness to examine the outsiders'

motivations and background. The less two groups have in common, the harder it is for them

to understand and expect benign behaviour from each other. This is especially true about

Muslims, as they come from very far away from the USA and their culture is rather

different from the American culture. Homer is an ignorant citizen who at first does not even

realise that Bashir is an outsider, and he mistakes him for Bart's best friend, Milhouse. With

this mistake, he fails to approach him with all the stereotypes he might have towards an

outsider. Thus, he interprets his unfamiliar behaviour as something new and cool.

Bart Salaam alaikum! (to Bashir) Homer Milhouse is looking good! He's got contacts, changed

color, got a cool new catchphrase. Salaam alaikum! Bart Dad, that's Bashir, my new friend. Bashir (doorbell rings) Bart forgot this, sir. Homer Sir? That's the kind of respect you'd have to strangle out

of an American kid.

Homer's ignorance does not turn into fear when he learns that Bashir is Muslim,

because his – positive – experience of the boy preceded the realisation of his religion, thus

his presumptions could not work. His friends, however, who did not meet Bashir are able to

convince Homer that he should be more cautious.

Moe Homer, this is serious. This Bashir kid is Muslim, and therefore up to something.

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Homer Oh, I can't believe that till I see a fictional TV program espousing your point of view.

(On TV)

Investigator (mutters) For the last time, Fayed, where did you hide the nerve gas?!

Muslim Guy Under your Statue of Liberty's dress! And she loved it!

Homer Oh, my God. What can I do? Carl Well, if you want to stop Bashir and his war on

American principles, you could discriminate against his family in employment and housing.

Lenny That's pretty patriotic, but I got a better idea. Invite 'em over. A little dinner, a little dessert, and then you Jack Bauer 'em into giving you all their secrets.

The rationale of Moe is typical of a prejudiced and scared person. According to him,

somebody's religion is enough evidence that they are threats to the country, which is

exaggerated by the fact that he is talking about a young boy, aged 10, so the chances of him

being a dangerous terrorist are exceptionally slight. Homer's reaction that he needs to see a

TV programme to share his friend's opinion refers to the persuasive power of the

entertainment industry. The fact that Homer asks for a fictional TV programme and not a

documentary suggests that he is not looking for actual data, but mostly emotions, thus

making the joke into a critique of American critical thinking skills. And the power of

emotions and peer pressure should not be underestimated, as it is one of the most effective

persuasive weapons. (Darrow 167)

The dinner turns out to be a disaster and Homer fails to get any secrets out of

Bashir's family. The viewers, on the other hand, learn that the last name of Bashir and his

family is Bin Laden, which is a clear warning sign and can raise doubts in the viewers

whether Homer is entirely wrong when he is suspicious of the newcomers:

Marge So, how did you two meet? Bashir's Father (chuckles) We met while studying at Jordan

University of Science and Technology. Homer Ah, interesting. Why, just the other day, I was

reading that science is used to make bombs. [Al in Homer's head: Now, bait the trap.] Why don't I get us dessert? (chuckles) I made us a little cake. (Brings in a cake made in the form of the American flag) Care to cut?

43

Bashir's Father No, thank you. Homer What's the matter? Don't like the taste of

freedom? Bart Dad, these people are my friends. Don't fear them

just because they have a different religion, a different culture, and their last name is Bin Laden.

Bashir's Father Young man, you do not respect us by disrespecting your father.

Abe I like the way you Italians think. Homer Shut up, old man.

Homer's fast connection between science and bombs is another good example of

how people choose what piece of information they pay attention to when it comes to an

outsider group. If Bashir's father, Amid, is a scientist, he must use his knowledge to make

bombs. Homer's trap, which is performed as a result to Al's instruction in his head, is a

catch-22. Either Amid accepts Homer's offer and cuts the cake, thus violates the American

flag as a proof of his anti-Americanness, or he refuses to cut and then he is accused of not

liking “the taste of freedom.”

Seeing this, Bart tries to step up to his friend's family, but Amid draws his attention

to the need to respect his father. This urge to correct Bart is likely to come from a religious

point of view. Still, it does not contain anything that an American citizen could have

anything against, as there is nothing anti-democratic in it. Grandfather Abe's comment,

which reveals that he mistakes the Bin Laden family for Italians, confirms this, too.

Homer's response, however, raises the question who should be a role-model for family

values. This scene helps the viewers to notice the positive sides of Muslim culture, thus

making them seem as less of a threat. Marge points out to Homer the mistake he made, and

he replies with an unusual insight:

Marge You're teaching Bart a terrible lesson of intolerance. Homer I'm sorry. It's just so fun and easy to judge people based on

religion.

Her husband promises Marge that he will go to apologise to the Bin Laden family.

Doing so, he overhears a conversation between the parents. He cannot hear every sentence

that is being told, but based on the bits he hears, he jumps to conclusions. And those

44

conclusions fit his original assumption that the Bin Ladens are terrorists. This overheard

dialogue is an excellent example about what I discussed in the beginning of this chapter,

namely, that individuals do not consider the other groups' motivations and interests, only

those of their own group's. In the following extract I will quote those words that Homer

cannot hear in italics.

Bashir's Father Off to work. Bashir's Mother Sometimes I wish you would quit that awful

business. Bashir's Father But I love blowing up buildings. Homer Oh, my God. Bashir's Father Safely and legally, in order to make room for new

buildings. Bashir's Mother Darling, I think you are working too much hard

(sic!). Bashir's Father Yes, I am killing myself, but it is all for the profit,

and after the explosion, I will be in a better place. That corner office with the downtown view.

The unheard words are exactly those factors that are not recognised by outsiders

according to Tang: motivation and interest. (Tang, 2010:9) Homer misses the motivation his

actions: that he is a construction worker who is a part of the building process. Homer also

misinterprets his interest: Homer relies on his previous knowledge of suicide bombers and

he concludes that Bashir's father wishes to get to paradise.13 For a viewer who is afraid of

Muslims as a result of the WTC attacks, laughing at this bit might bring some relief by

making fun of the too stereotypical way of thinking.

When Bashir's mother is not willing to let Homer in, because she is still offended by

the happenings at the dinner, Homer uses another stereotype about Muslims, which turns

out to be true in this case:

Homer I read somewhere your people are hospitable to guests. Is that true?

Bashir's Mother (sighing): Yes. Homer Praise be Oliver.

13 The common view about Muslim suicide bombers is that after dying in the explosion they go to paradise, where 72 virgins are waiting for them. However, the translation of the Quran is ambiguous, and whether it promises virgins or not is questionable. (Warraq, 2002.)

45

Bashir's Mother That's Allah. Homer Eh... we'll look it up in the Corona. So... now that

we're alone, um... death to America, right?

Homer's ignorance and arrogance at the same time is another example of how little

some people may know about other religions, but still act as if they understood everything.

The way his lack of knowledge on Islam is exaggerated, and thus ridiculed makes his

suspicion of the Bin Laden family being anti-American seem ridiculous too.

At the end of this episode Homer has to face the facts that Amid Bin Laden is a

construction worker, not a suicide bomber. But before he does so, he blows up a bridge in

an attempt to protect the local mall, which he believes to be the target of Amid's “terrorist

attack”. Unfortunately, because the bridge is the only connection between the Duff beer

brewery and the land, two trucks filled with beer fall into the river. Witnessing this, Homer

jumps into the river in a heroic attempt. When he reaches the truck, we can see an old

driver drowning, but instead of him, Homer saves some Duff beer. The humour here arises

from the incongruity of Homer's choice, namely that he rather saves beer than a man,

especially because there is nothing to be saved in the case of beer, as it does not even get

ruined under water. But if one takes a closer look at this episode, it turns out that this

ending gives an extra twist to the plot. What happens throughout the episode is that Homer

tries to prove that the Bin Ladens are cold blooded murderers, still, in the end, he ends up

killing an old American man14, and the Bin Ladens behave as model citizens. This contrast

might help to diminish the fears and stereotypes that appeared in the aftermath of 9/11.

South Park approached the question of stereotypes in a slightly different way in the

fourth episode of season 11, entitled The Snuke. The main difference between the two

episodes is that the members of the Muslim family in South Park are rather passive subjects

of the events: they are accused of being terrorists (mostly by Cartman), and even though

they turn out to be innocent, we do not know much more about them. In the case of the Bin

Laden family, on the other hand, we learn about the parents that they are well-educated, the

14 Actually, we cannot see the driver dead, and as it happens in many episodes in situational comedies, characters once killed can reappear without any explanation. The most typical example for this is Kenny's death in almost every episode In South Park. In Mypods and Boomsticks, however, even though we cannot see the old man dead, and he returns in the following episodes, the humour arises from the assumption that he is left there to die, when the lifeless beer is saved.

46

father is hard-working, the mother is hospitable, and their son is well-behaved.

The Snuke starts with Ms. Garrison, the teacher, introducing a new student to the

class, Baahir Hassan Abdul Hakeem, who is obviously Muslim. Cartman loses control over

the newcomer in a rather eccentric way. His reaction is funny, first because it is

exaggerated, like a caricature, and also because Cartman acts the way many Americans

might secretly wish to do.15 He immediately comes up with the subject of terrorism:

Cartman Has he been checked for bombs? Ms. Garrison Eric, that's enough! Not all Muslim people are

terrorists! Cartman No, but most of them are. And all it takes is most

of them.

His rationale corresponds to the false positive error type of the brain. (Tang, 2010:5)

Based on the experience of 9/11, he concludes that most Muslims are terrorists, and he

treats this assumption as a fact, which needs no more proof. So, to be able to report Baahir

to the police, he is looking for evidence which turns out to be a lie Baahir tells about what

his favourite band is, because in class he says Blink 182, but on his Myspace page it is

White Stripes. Obviously, this fact should not be enough to raise the suspicion of terrorist

activity, but Officer Barbrady from the South Park Police Station is convinced, and the

elementary school is evacuated.

Even though the school is evacuated because of Cartman's phone call, he finds it

odd that terrorists would blow up a school, so he asks Kyle, who is at home sick, to check

on the Internet whether there is an important up-coming event in South Park. And since

Hillary Clinton is having a campaign there, Cartman is sure that is where they have to be

prepared to meet the terrorists. He is right, nevertheless as the audience learns, the terrorists

are not Muslims, but Russians, whose role is to distract the Americans while the British

navy is approaching in order to end the American Revolution.

As with every South Park episode, this also ends with a lesson to be learnt stated by

Kyle: “It just proves we need to learn not to profile one race of people. Because, actually,

15 Cartman has always been the TV show's most ignorant, aggressive and intolerant character, who gives voice to the repressed and frowned-upon opinions loud and clear, without the smallest sense of shame. In most cases, however, he turns out to be wrong and often humiliated.

47

most of the world hates us.” This conclusion is not so far away from the one that can be

drawn from Mypods and Boomsticks, with the exception that here the emphasis is not on

Muslims not being terrorists, but on the fact that terrorists can come from every nationality.

Both episodes are against profiling, but while The Simpsons suggests that not every Muslim

is a terrorist, South Park actually states that not every terrorist is Muslim. Both claims are

against the stereotypes evolved after 9/11.

However, The Snuke does not end with Kyle's conclusion, because Cartman tries to

convince everyone that his distrust actually saved the day: “If I hadn't called you [Kyle],

you wouldn't have been on your computer checking out the Clinton rally. That means my

intolerance of Muslims saved America.” Kyle tries to prove that this reasoning is missing

the point, but Cartman gets the last word:

Cartman: If I hadn't called you, you wouldn't have been on your computer checking out the Clinton rally. That means my intolerance of Muslims saved America.

Kyle: That is so missing the point. Cartman: Me being a bigot stopped a nuclear bomb from

going off, yes or no?! Kyle: The-that's not the right way to look at it, I- Cartman YES OR NO, KYLE?! Kyle: No! ...Not... not like you're saying. Cartman: But that's all I'm saying: today, bigotry and

racism saved the day. Baheer, you get this, right? [Baheer's parents approach, looking around at all the activity in front of their house]

Mr. Hakeem: Baheer! Get away from that disgusting child! Get back home and start packing your things! We are leaving this whole intolerant country!

[Mr. Hakeem nudges Baheer forward, and the family leaves] Cartman Okay. Who got rid of the Muslims, huh? [raises

his own hand] That was all me. Simple thank you will suffice.

On the one hand, this ending may seem like Cartman was really the hero of the day,

as Kyle is not able to defend his point. On the other hand, the audience is invited to decide

whether Cartman's bigotry and racism was what really saved America. Because it is true

48

that being suspicious of everyone might be safer than welcoming everybody based on the

'better safe than sorry' principle, but following it in the long run might turn out rather anti-

American. For example, Basheer's family leaves the country, because they have found

America, which is supposed to be the land of freedom, intolerant. Thus, by treating every

outsider as an outcast out of fear, America can chase away good citizens in a rather anti-

democratic fashion.

This section focused on two animated sitcom episodes from the aspect of how they

might help their viewers cope with the fear of Muslim people that arose after 9/11. The

strategy both episodes used was the caricature of this fear and the possible side effects they

might cause.

3.3 Jokes That Make a Statement

This section of my thesis focuses on those jokes that draw some kind of a

conclusion of the traumatic experience, thus helping the sufferers of cultural trauma cope

with their loss. The tools these episodes use are usually harsh and provoking, but as I have

already discussed it in the beginning of this chapter, the repressed narratives can be rather

helpful in the case of cultural traumas.

Back to the Pilot was a rather controversial episode from the tenth season of Family

Guy. Some critics praised it (McFarland, Moon), others have found that it crossed a line

(Andreeva, Semigran). This controversy was caused by the episode's conclusion that 9/11

should not have been prevented. Stewie agrees to go back to 1999 with Brian to find his

dug ball, but he warns his dog friend not to do anything that could alter the past in any way.

Brian refuses to believe that altering the past could be dangerous, thus he tells his past-self

about 9/11, so that he could prevent it.

49

When they arrive back to 2011,

they realise that preventing 9/11 was a big

mistake, since George W. Bush did not

win the elections in 2004, because “he

could not exploit people's fears with no

9/11” (s10e05), and as a result, he

declared civil war on the Northern States.

At least the second al-Qaeda attack after

the failed terrorist attempt on 9/11 was not successful either, as the target this time was

Saint Louis, and the plane just flew through the Gateway Arch.

The TV news reader, Tom Tucker cannot read properly the word “al-Qaeda”, as its

impact was not big enough for people to remember it: “This amateur video captured

Griffin's heroism in the face of a shadowy terrorist organization called—[going off script]

Holy shit, look at all those vowels. [squinting to try to read the teleprompter] Al Kwa-ay-

ee-duh?” Even though al-Qaeda does not threaten the USA any more, Americans have to

face another, and actually a bigger danger: the civil war. Five years later America is in a

post-apocalyptic state due to the Second Civil War. Although it is not said explicitly, the

Civil War suggests that lacking a common enemy, Americans would turn against each other.

One of the things that have been gained thanks to 9/11 was a newly found unity.

Eventually, Stewie and Brian go

back in time to prevent preventing 9/11.

When they check online in 2011 to

determine whether or not they were able to

let 9/11 happen, they high five each other

in their relief. Stewie notes that this move

“wouldn't look very good out of context.”

They have to go back to 1999 again, since

it turns out that Brian made another alternation in the past: he plagiarised the Harry Potter

novels.

They are stopped by a Stewie and a Brian from the future who claim that what they

are planning to do will have terrible consequences, but more and more Brians and Stweies

3-5. Figure Al-Qaeda's second failed terrorist attempt (“Family Guy”)

3-6. Figure Stewie and Brian high-fiving ("Family Guy")

50

keep appearing until there are 50 Brians and 50 Stewies shouting. A Stewie stands on a

trash can and proposes a vote: “How many think we should prevent 9/11, raise your hands?

Alright, looks like 42. Alright, who votes "yes" 9/11? Okay, alright, 57. Alright, 9/11 wins.”

(s10e05) So everybody goes back in the time they came from, and history is not altered

after all.

Despite the angry reviews Family Guy offers some comfort with this result, as it

turns away from the wishful thinking of 'what if 9/11 had not happened?' Instead of

depicting a beautiful world where 9/11 was prevented, this episode actually shows some of

the possible negative consequences of a 9/11-free world, which is more realistic than the

idyllic alternative. As I have already discussed in the first chapter, after a traumatic loss,

victims tend to idealise the lost thing(s). The more aspects they are able to recall about what

has been lost, the easier it is for them to have closure. This, of course does not mean that

people should celebrate the terrorist attacks, but they ought to accept that they happened,

and they have changed many things, not all of these changes being entirely bad.

The paranoia that followed 9/11 is portrayed in Imaginationland from South Park.

This is a trilogy, where the world of all the made-up creatures is in danger. This world,

called Imaginationland, is under a terrorist attack, and a suicide bomber kills many of its

inhabitants. This is a rather apt characterisation of the fear that Americans might have

experienced after the attacks. The way some imaginary creatures were killed by the

terrorists can represent the disappearance of some narratives after 9/11: all the pictures of

the towers, TV comedies for some time, and so on.

In the Pentagon, a US General turns to Hollywood film-makers for help, because

“Muslim terrorists hijacked [their] imagination.” (s11e10) As they do not know what their

next move should be or how to stop them, they count on Hollywood's creative ideas.

Instead of ideas, Michael Bay suggests special effects that mostly involve buildings

blowing up. The images of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 were compared to films many times,

which made it difficult for the witnesses to accept that what they watched was real. (Žižek)

Some viewers might find comfort in the way that eventually Mel Gibson is able to help

with an idea, thanks to his knowledge on story structure.

After all, the US government tries to use nuclear weapons to stop their imagination

running wild, but Kyle convinces the General that imaginary things sometimes have more

51

impact than real people, so they should not be destroyed. By accident, Imaginationland

does suffer a nuclear attack, but Butlers manages to rebuild it with his imagination. All in

all, Muslim terrorists made America's imagination run wild, but it could be stopped by the

fantasy of a child.

If we accept what this trilogy tries to prove that imagined things are real because of

the impact they make on people, it shows how dangerous it can be if we let our imagination

run wild. On the other hand, the opposite is true, namely that if we create something

positive in our fantasy, it has a positive effect on us and on our environment.

American animated sitcoms are creations of American people's imagination, and

they have an impact on their viewers. By presenting repressed or rarely expressed views,

they offer alternative narratives and make people consider the most possible points of view.

And even if the viewers do not agree with what has been said by a character on TV, they

will be able to defend their original opinion in a more sophisticated fashion and in a better-

informed way. As a conclusion, their social role is unquestionable.

52

Conclusion

The foregoing chapters aimed at showing how humour can be a tool of the coping

mechanisms of cultural trauma. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 caused a cultural trauma for the

USA, as they have left inedible marks on the American group consciousness, marked their

memory forever and changed their future identity. (Alexander 1) The chosen animated

sitcoms provided several examples for how American citizens might work through this

experience. In order to cope with this trauma, it is important for the American society to be

able to re-tell the events and consequences of the day in different narratives, so that the

traumatic experience can be turned into a memory. Their fear of Muslim terrorists caused

by 9/11 is also something that can be helped by the usage of ridicule. Finally, some jokes

can point out those things that have been gained rather than lost, thus offering a kind of

closure for the American society.

53

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