ABSTRACT
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, commentators directed their attentions to the numerous instances in jokes and comic tales in which the self seemed to be that infirmed other. Thus Jewish jokes were often characterized as “turned by the speaker against himself, “or marked by a distinctive tendency toward “self-criticism. “ This chapter examines the assumptions that underlie conceptualizations of humor as self-negating. The method is to produce an accumulation of arguments that challenge notions that jokes and tales can be regarded as instruments of self-degradation that betray feelings of self-hatred. “Self-hatred” implies a hatred of some part of the self. “Masochism” suggests a disposition towards pain, suffering, and victimization. The numerous jokes concerning hyper-virility provide even more appropriate examples. Although hypersexuality was part of a negative stereotype of black males, there are clearly positive aspects to the image.
