SPARK OF INSANITY: IS IT WORTH THE LAUGHTER? by jennifer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhVpoRaTdj0

This youtube video clip shows Jeff Dunham, an international acclaimed ventriloquist. The boogle-eyed skeleton named ACHMED THE DEAD TERRORIST is being introduced by Jeff as his comedic sidekick. The storyline tells that Achmed sets the world on fire, he sets himself on fire, then he accidentally blew himself on fire, then he accidentally blew himself up. And within no time, Achmed became the world’s only beloved dead terrorist.

Using profane language and terrorist’s language is wrong and racist. Disguising racism as humour is simply wrong. When Jeff said, “God damn it!.....Oh, no......Allah, damn it!!! Is simply blasphemous. It can offend both Christians and Muslim believers. Moreover, the implication of using the theme about terrorism and killing became not a people’s bugbear anymore because it became a laughing stuff. The terror caused by actual acts of terrorism has been erased from one’s minds. The audience are laughing at a very big topic on terrorism where in fact, terrorism has caused so much miseries in reality. If a racist humour is played in a small circle of friends, maybe it’s acceptable,  but when it is in front of a big crowd, it is not acceptable. Yes, there’s a spark of insanity...People laugh....but is it worth laughing at?

Racism is a sensitive matter and using humour through the media to provoke racist discourse is inexcusably shameful. Humour is a social undertaking that reflects shared representations of our social schema. Communicating racist humour through the media poses severe implications on inter-racial relationships that can harm individuals and communities from both ends (Estacio, 2009).

 Lockyer and Pickering (as cited in Estacio, 2009, p. 629) emphasize that humour is far from trivial—it is integral to social relationships and social interaction. It may be taken in certain contexts as light-hearted banter, but in other contexts, it can injure people’s social standing, or cut deeply into relationships and interaction between people within and across different social groups…humour is not set dramatically in opposition to seriousness, not least because it can have serious implications and repercussions.

REFERENCES:

Dunham, Jeff (Ventriloquist) (2008. Spark of Insanity [streaming video recording]. Retrieved October 18, 2010, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhVpoRaTdj0

Estacio, E.V. (2009). Human exploitation is not a joke – so don’t laugh! Journal of Health Psychology, 14 (5), 627-637. Retrieved October 18, 2010, from SAGE Database.