ABSTRACT
The general pattern was similar to that of other earlier joke-cycles that have followed a well-publicized accident or shocking event. The Diana jokes also invite comparison with another very large genre of jokes, the political jokes of totalitarian countries such as the former Soviet Union and the formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Some of the enthusiastic joke-teiiers were enemies of the regime but others among this group occupied privileged positions within it and stood to lose if the regime were overthrown or democratized. The Diana jokes, like the image of Diana herself and like the over-reaction to her death, are very much a product of the dominant position now held in society by the mass media and especially television.
