Black Humor and One-liners

[DMC12]

well, i got a question about this.

1.- first the black humor, as you might know it is a humor based on things that are supposed to be serious, like death.

it’s quite easy to know that making fun of real people that died it is bad
My question comes in the cases where you actually know there is no real suffering or putting characters in situations that altough real, the character is not. from going to something as simple as watching Tom and Jerry, where many jokes are about them hitting each other with different weapons, to the more adult versons of that,where the joke goes beyond that and makes jokes involving the death of a character.

this one is confusing to me, because sometimes i think its not really that you enjoy seeing others even if they are fictional in pain or dying, but more like the situation or the cleverness of the joke, altough I think sometimes the fact that you know you should not be laughing at something makes it sometimes more fun.

Second is the one-liners, like the ones used in action movies, where before a battle or after killing an enemy they say a one-liner, or the famous Spider-man wisecracking while fighting the villians. my doubt about them is that if they are somewhat sinful because they make fun of something that should have not be made fun of, or they promote violence or something like that, or they are just something to make the character look cool or to make the audience laugh, and allowed.

 

[didymus]

Almost all humor involves cruelty at some level except wordplay like puns. Black humor, I think functions to take the sting out of bad situations.
One joke I’ve always liked:
An Irishman at a wake views the deceased and says , “Sure and I’ve never seen him lookin’ more like himself!”
Okay, it’s a poke at the Irish and their wakes but also at our odd practice of having the dead made up to look better than they did before they died in many cases.

Medical humor can be especially atrocious but they are dealing with life, death & disease so it works as a safety valve.

As for one-liners in movies, those are from the writer’s imagination probably to show how tough a character is.

 

[judynurse]

To Didymus: As a retired nurse, I can affirm the truth that medical humor can be really weird! Since I spent many years working with geriatric patients as well as Hospice/Terminally ill patients, we really had some oddball humor. None of it was intended to harm our patients or to make fun of them. It was to relieve some of the terrible burden we carried for 8 - 12 - 16 hours a day watching people we had come to care for dying and suffering. We were (most of us) also very careful to be sure they obtained whatever Spiritual help we could get for them. I often had to call a nearby Priest, when someone who had a longer-term terminal condition suddenly went downhill fast! Fortunately, I had 3 Priests only a block away from the facility where I worked, and although I might grab them from their dinner (after a long, hard day), or woke them late at night, one of them was always there within a half hour, and sometimes within 10 or 15 minutes to bring the final Eucharist, Anointing or in the case of comas, the Blessings they were able to give, and then they stayed and prayed with the families, provided I could get the family members there quickly. But we certainly did have some oddball “black” humor, which made us laugh, and relieved the burdens and tensions as well as easing our own grief at losing or watching the failing of someone we worked with daily and had come to love as a family member. But it was certainly some weird humor at times, not translatable (or appreciated) by anyone outside the medical community!

 

[dshix]

OP, please talk to a priest about your scrupulosity. It is not going to help you to ask these questions.

Your other thread is answered by the same answer: talk to a priest. Your questions will never stop coming on every possible question until you find a way to calm your mind.

 

[GEddie]

Sometimes humor is the only way for the human mind to deal with otherwise unbearable situations. Victor Frankl wrote about this in connection with prisoners of Nazism in WW2, and it also surfaced among citizens in the CCCP.

Death is the most hideous and shameful thing that **WILL **happen to a human being. How could we deal with it if we couldn’t laugh?

Even Saint Thomas More joked while walking to his head block; “I am come hither on a headless errand,” said he; “strike not awry, my neck is very short.”

And he has been named a saint. Surely this would not have occurred if his last words had contained anything “wrong.”

ICXC NIKA

 

[judynurse]

I had heard the comment by St. Thomas More about his neck being “short”, did not know about the first comment “I have come here on a headless errand”! That took some humor as well as confidence in him that he was doing what the Lord required, when he was sentenced to death.

Great one-liner! Don’t think I’d go to the headsman that humorously, myself! I’d just be thinking “don’t miss and have to chop twice!”

 

[GEddie]

I had heard the comment by St. Thomas More about his neck being “short”, did not know about the first comment “I have come here on a headless errand”! That took some humor as well as confidence in him that he was doing what the Lord required, when he was sentenced to death.

Great one-liner! Don’t think I’d go to the headsman that humorously, myself! I’d just be thinking “don’t miss and have to chop twice!”

Especially if you are short-necked!!!

 

[judynurse]

I’m long-necked, but what if the executioner has bad eyesight? God help me if he chopped off my shoulder first! OUCH!

I think it was the custom, at the time of the beheading of this Saint (and for a couple centuries before) to give a coin (gold if possible!) to the executioner, to make sure the axe was sharp and his aim was good. If you didn’t “tip” him, he might “tip” you & miss your neck the first chop!

 

[GEddie]

I’m long-necked, but what if the executioner has bad eyesight? God help me if he chopped off my shoulder first! OUCH!

Did happen at times!

Reminds me of a cartoon where a man is lying at the head block and the headsman says, “Keep whistling, I forgot my glasses”!!!

I think it was the custom, at the time of the beheading of this Saint (and for a couple centuries before) to give a coin (gold if possible!) to the executioner, to make sure the axe was sharp and his aim was good. If you didn’t “tip” him, he might “tip” you & miss your neck the first chop!

Indeed, and for about 200 years after, as well. Beheading was not abolished until 1747.

Those who faced hanging would likewise bribe the hangman to pull their legs to ease their passage (whence the expression “pulling your leg” came from; gallows humor has a long, long tail).

ICXC NIKA

 

[judynurse]

Now I’m going to feel weird every time I hear someone say “I’m just pulling your leg!” Ugh!

Reminds me of the Dr. at a hospital who told a patient after a complex abdominal surgery that they were going to have to open him up again just as he was feeling better. The patient said “Why? I feel so much better now! Did you miss something?” And the Dr. looked embarrassed and said, “Yes, my Rolex came off during surgery & I can hear it still ticking in you!”

 

[judynurse]

Or how about the (common joke among surgeons) when the surgeon asks the nurse to get him a left-handed hemostat. The nurse (who was no dummy) said “Dr. they don’t make left-handed hemostats!” The Dr. said “Well, they’d better start because I’m left-handed!”



(Heard this one when I was a student Nurse in Surgery!)

 

[GEddie]

Now I’m going to feel weird every time I hear someone say “I’m just pulling your leg!” Ugh!

Reminds me of the Dr. at a hospital who told a patient after a complex abdominal surgery that they were going to have to open him up again just as he was feeling better. The patient said “Why? I feel so much better now! Did you miss something?” And the Dr. looked embarrassed and said, “Yes, my Rolex came off during surgery & I can hear it still ticking in you!”

The medical field has the same richness of humor as the gallows, no doubt, because both deal with the most basic and fragile aspect of our being.

With regard to saints, it gets even rougher! Saint Lawrence was martyred in the 100s by roasting on a griddle; just before the end, he said, “I’m done on this side; turn me over”!!!

ICXC NIKA.

 

[judynurse]

I’ve heard of this and find it (almost) unbelievable! Personally I’d be saying “get that fire hotter and let’s get this over with!”

 

[judynurse]

The medical field has the same richness of humor as the gallows, no doubt, because both deal with the most basic and fragile aspect of our being.

With regard to saints, it gets even rougher! Saint Lawrence was martyred in the 100s by roasting on a griddle; just before the end, he said, “I’m done on this side; turn me over”!!!

ICXC NIKA.

Big Griddle !!!

 

[GEddie]

In the Far Side cartoon, there were once a bunch of chickens standing around the sickbed of another chicken; the caption read, “It’s so amazing that you pulled through; why, the family was already debating whether or not to wring your neck”!!!

ICXC NIKA

 

[LilyM]

Not a doctor here, but a lawyer. I work in a government funded legal service set up in a disadvantaged community. We deal with some really grim stuff - crime, drugs, family violence, child abuse - and it is a stressful environment. Humour (often of the dark or otherwise inappropriate type) is one, and one of the least harmful, of several coping mechanisms people use.

 

[DaveBj]

I enjoy joking with the medical personnel who are treating me, usually at my own expense, but that’s okay. I think I got that trait from my father, who was a hoot at the nursing home where he spent the last couple years of his life. I have cracked up doctors when they are using the otoscope to look in one ear by holding my hand up on the other side of my head and asking, “How many fingers?” Also, I had an adult circumcision performed by an Air Force doctor assisted by my Air Force orthodontist (a Jew). The op was done under a local anesthetic, and I waited until they were half-way through and then asked, “Is it too late to change my mind?”

 

[GEddie]

I enjoy joking with the medical personnel who are treating me, usually at my own expense, but that’s okay. I think I got that trait from my father, who was a hoot at the nursing home where he spent the last couple years of his life. I have cracked up doctors when they are using the otoscope to look in one ear by holding my hand up on the other side of my head and asking, “How many fingers?” Also, I had an adult circumcision performed by an Air Force doctor assisted by my Air Force orthodontist (a Jew). The op was done under a local anesthetic, and I waited until they were half-way through and then asked, “Is it too late to change my mind?”

Medical humor and gallows humor really are the same genre; probably should go into “mortal body humor.”

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

Methinks our LORD engaged in some death humor when He raised Lazarus without undoing his bindings. That would have been no issue for HIM. But seeing Lazarus hobble out of death in his bound limbs and blindfolded, added a touch of the ridiculous to a situation that was otherwise overpowering.

It would look great on film. IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

 

[judynurse]

Methinks our LORD engaged in some death humor when He raised Lazarus without undoing his bindings. That would have been no issue for HIM. But seeing Lazarus hobble out of death in his bound limbs and blindfolded, added a touch of the ridiculous to a situation that was otherwise overpowering.

It would look great on film. IMNAAHO.

ICXC NIKA

True – but what he was, or rather WAS NOT wearing under the bindings might have started a riot among the spectators!