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Jorge Nazario

Dr. McLaughlin                                               

Multimedia Writing & Rhetoric

24 November 2015

Enhanced Culturally Dependent Humor

I can still remember my favorite comedian as a child. His name was Ramey, and he was

not your typical stand-up comedian who addressed complex themes or gave much thought to his

techniques of humor. He was just an entertainer of children no older than ten years old. I used to

see him every year in a summer camp I went to when I was very young, and he used to do the

silliest jokes and tricks with balloon animals. The jokes were usually in the form of funny stories,

acted out by two balloon animals that were “interacting” and “talking” to each other, kind of like

a puppet show. However, Ramey did not limit himself to only presenting silly jokes with balloon

animals, he also did magic tricks. I do have to say that these were always my favorite parts,

probably due to the fact that they made me laugh way more than the balloon animal jokes. For

these magic tricks, he would be way more interactive with us: he would get a coin, hide it under

a cup, shift the cups around in a table, and ask us to let him know under which cup the coin had

ended up. What filled me and all the other kids with so much laughter was that we could not

believe how the coin was never in the cup we picked, even though we were certain that we were

right. We would just laugh of the surprise, when we realized he had tricked us. Consider for a

moment that we were only children and that Ramey shifted the cups as slowly as possible with

the intention that when we chose the right cup, he made his “magic” trick and made the coin

disappear. His intention was to surprise us, make us laugh, and have a pleasurable time.

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Ever since I was first introduced to Ramey’s shows, I have loved comedians. So,

essentially what are comedians and what is a comedy? Comedians are nothing more than

performers of “aesthetic offerings intended to generate a cheerful mood by means of presenting a

fictional narrative characterized by a movement towards harmony, reconciliation and happiness

(Tzachi 177).  Because comedy induces laughter we wish to watch it. So, what is the difference

between comedy and laughter? “All comedy progressively establishes a cheerful mood, whereas

laughter is a response that duplicates the very same implicit experiential structure awakened by

the comedy as a whole” (Tzachi 182).  Tzachi mentions how it is also very easy to confuse a joke

for comedy, and that to understand comedy one has to understand their differences. While jokes

are designed to elicit laughter, comedy is designed to elicit a mood of “reconciliation, continuity,

and happiness” (Tzachi 177).

Comedy’s origin dates back to the times of Ancient Greece, where it was first introduced

as a political satire due to the political and social conditions of Athens. Nowadays, comedy and

satire are very distinguishable: while comedy’s main objective is to harmonize and gladden its

audience, satire’s main objective is to “expose some flaw or excess” with or without humor

(“Satire” 3). One will find, however, that these two terms are very similar in many ways. It is not

rare at all to see a comedian presenting a satire as part of the whole comedy as to provoke social

correction, just as it is not rare at all to see a satirist presenting a joke as to provoke laughter in

his audience.

Who doesn’t love laughing? Everyone loves the feeling of euphoria, happiness, mental

relaxation, and healthiness. This is the reason I love comedy: it incites me to laugh, entertains

me, and distracts my mind from any stresses. Ramey may not have even known it, but his

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performances led to my first exposure to humor and comedy.  So, since a very young age I have

wondered what there is to comedy that makes feel the way it does.

For my on-going interest in humor and comedy, I have decided to explore the techniques

my favorite Puerto Rican comedians employ to engage their audience in laughter. I will explore

Puerto Rican comedians in specific because, having been born and raised in Puerto Rico, I am

curious on how they are able to take advantage of our shared culture to have a bigger impact on

me (their audience). I will first examine the general humor techniques they employ, and will then

examine their particular regional humor techniques addressed to a Puerto Rican audience. In

examining these techniques and their individual jokes, I aim to conclude that the particular use of

language, knowledge of regional culture, and awareness of target audience can create and

enhance culturally dependent humor.

If one were to analyze five different comedians, all from different countries around the

world, one would discover that most of their techniques to elicit laughter are the same. They will

all, most assuredly, employ the use of one or more of the following techniques: incongruity,

folly, veiled insults, non-sense, indecency, want of knowledge, small misfortunes, anything

masquerading something that is not, and importing into one situation what belongs to another.

Sure enough, Chente Ydrach, Luis Raul, and Lejuan James are three Puerto Rican comedians

that use as much of these techniques as any other comedian around the world.

Chente Ydrach alone, in one of his funny videos derides everything about a town in Puerto Rico

(including its history, people, culture, and traditions) employing the use of incongruity, folly,

indecency, and want of knowledge. For example, there is a scene in which he interviews a

woman, and he asks her if her husband was the man speaking up moments before in the main

stage of an activity. She, naively, tells him not to say such things because her husband is nearby

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and he could hear her. Chente, in a very frustrated way, goes on to scream “Awww! She is

married! People (his camera crew) it’s over, let’s go.” This scene is especially funny because

Chente combines indecency, folly, want of knowledge and incongruity all at the same time under

one comic situation. An audience would be especially receptive to this joke because 1) Chente

asks a very indecent and random question 2) She responds without noticing that she is being

ridiculed and because 3) Chente responds back in a very foolish way, insinuating as that he was

“hitting” on her and she turned him down. The other two Puerto Rican comedians, Luis Raul and

Lejuan James, use these techniques of humor just as well as Chente Ydrach to build on the mood

comedy aims for.

Even though these comedians are recognized comedians because they master the

techniques of humor, they are especially favored by the Puerto Rican audience because of their

particular use of language, knowledge of regional culture, and awareness of target audience.

When it comes to comedy, the use of language is everything. Comedians have to transmit

their stories and jokes through their voices, and it is crucial for them to use language in such a

way that the audience can follow the joke from beginning to the end. Something in particular

about these three Puerto Rican comedians that makes them so popular among their audiences, is

that they use the same Puerto Rican slang language in Spanish the audience always hears.

‘Puñeta,’ ‘coño,’ ‘carajo,’ ‘jodienda,’ ‘cabron,’ and ‘puta’ are only a few of the many obscene

words they use to transmit each and every joke. But for some reason, at the appropriate time,

these obscene words help make the joke so much funnier. Luis Raul especially uses the word

‘carajo,’ ‘coño,’ and ‘jodio’ repeatedly throughout most, if not all, of his entire comedy shows.

‘Jodio’ is a vulgar word we Puerto Ricans use a lot when we are either in trouble or screwed up.

Luis Raul in one of his stand-up comedy shows makes fun of how Puerto Ricans act in funerals,

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and remarks how when we go visit the dead, we always walk into the room stealthily and scared,

peak into the coffin and say: “They don’t look alike,” and Luis Raul comments “‘Cabron’

(asshole) of course they don’t look alike; he has been ‘jodio’ (fucked up) like that for the past

year and you didn’t visit him once!” We can obviously see this joke is funny because it

incorporates the element of surprise and indecency, but to Puerto Ricans it makes it so much

better because it is said in their own vernacular. The reason many Puerto Ricans would

especially laugh at the foul language used is because one of the philosophical theories of why we

laugh explains for “our need for release of suppressed mental energy” (Tzachi 180). Since many

Puerto Ricans may feel as if their foul language is sometimes repressed by society, when they

listen to these words coming out of Luis Raul’s mouth, they liberate repressed mental energy in

the form of laughter. So, we can see how vernacular language can be key to make a joke more

amusing than it would have normally been without it.

Some may propose that culturally dependent jokes with particular slang language, instead

of helping the over-all joke, downgrades the joke. They may propose this on the basis that

laughter is caused by certain techniques of humor and not by speaking foul language. Many

older, more conservative, adults in a stand-up comedy show of Luis Raul, for example, may feel

uncomfortable with all the profanity. However, as we have seen, Luis Raul manages to use his

vernacular slang language, and still captivate his audience because he integrates so well his

profanity with his actual humor techniques. Due to the fact that Puerto Rican slang language is

so common in the day to day talk, I would suggest comedians to take their chances and integrate

profanity. Because I have already seen Luis Raul’s audience reactions, I know that integrating

slang language to the joke can help more than hurt the over-all piece.

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The comedians’ knowledge of the regional culture of the audience they are addressing is

as important as the language they choose. Elise DeCamp, a research graduate from Indiana

University, explored how performance strategies in stand-up comedy are employed to foster

audience receptivity, and found that acknowledgement of the audience (in terms of regional

location, different demographics, and shifting mood/thoughts) is one of the most important

effective humor techniques. When we look at Chente Ydrach’s comedy video themes, we get to

see that in most of his jokes, if not all, he derides people and cultures of certain towns across the

island. It is very common for people who live in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, to deride

people and cultures from other towns. Many people find these types of jokes funny, especially

the adolescents, because of the Superiority Theory Morreall explains. The Superiority Theory

proposes that in some cases we laugh “to expresses feelings of superiority over other people or

over a former state of ourselves” (Morreall, “Philosophy of Humor”). This explains why when

Chente derides the people from these towns, the audience, especially the adolescents from the

capital, laugh so much. They feel as if they are superior to these other who come from less

privileged towns, and cannot help but liberate their feelings through that laughter. The key to

Chente’s jokes is in its compliance with the stereotypes his audience already has. Chente already

has an understanding of the regional areas cultures, truths, lies, and misconceptions. Simon

Weaver, a Research Associate in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of

Leicester, mentions how it is the reduction through stereotype that leads to the construction of

ridicule or to the derision of the butt of the joke (Weaver 333). If Chente had not known this

information, not only would he had not had a joke, but he would not have been nearly as funny.

Even more so, if Chente’s audience had not known these stereotypes either, they would not have

understood the joke, let alone laughed at it.

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Lejuan James is another Puerto Rican comedian who, through his knowledge of the

regional Puerto Rican culture, creates very effective jokes. Since he is from Puerto Rico, and

obviously has a Puerto Rican mother and family, he makes a lot of his jokes imitating how his

mother or family members would act under certain circumstances. These jokes in specific appeal

to me and many other Puerto Ricans by how he exceeds our expectations of how well he can

imitate our own family members. For example, in one of his videos, he imitates almost exactly

how my mom reprimands me when I disrespect her in front of guests. Imitating the role of a

mother, Lejuan calls his son away from the guests after being disrespected and scolds, “I hope it

is the last time you respond to me that way in front of your little friends. When I call you, you

run, not walk,” then turns around to the guests and smiles as if nothing had happened. Once

again, we can see how his knowledge of the regional traditions, cultures, and families in Puerto

Rico give him the leverage to create such funny jokes among Puerto Ricans. Elise de Camp

affirms this by suggesting that “stand-up comedy is a conversation between an individual and a

community, where that individual alternately connects with different cultural knowledge bases

within that community” (Elise DeCamp 461).

Being aware of the audience the comedian is targeting can be as important as the

language and the knowledge of the region. It is very obvious that with these three comedians the

jokes are mostly directed to Puerto Rican audiences, however, there are many types of audiences

in Puerto Rico. Whether it be a white audience or a black audience, young or old, rich or poor, it

is important for the comedians to identify to which audience they will address if they are to

engage their audience in the proper way, says Elise DeCamp. One will not write a joke to a

fifteen year-old the same way on will write a similar joke to an old person; one would have to

take into consideration what that person knows because if that person does not have sufficient

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knowledge of what the comedian is deriding, or if the person feels insulted by the joke, the

person will obviously not be amused by the joke at all. For example, it would be very probable

that any Puerto Rican grandmother that sees one of Lejuan’s jokes, in which he imitates how

they act sometimes, is not amused at all by their description and would, instead be insulted.

Lejuan knows this, and that is the reason he addresses adolescents and young adults, a group of

people he knows will laugh by how accurate his stereotype of Puerto Rican grandmothers is.

Similarly, we have Chente Ydrach who targets an audience base from San Juan, and Luis Raul

who targets an audience base of adults from Puerto Rico and all Latino America.

The purpose of this essay was to argue, from my Puerto Rican perspective, that particular

uses of language, knowledge of regional culture, and awareness of target audience can enhance

jokes tenfold. Slang language of the region, directed to the right audience, at the right moment

can enhance any joke. As we saw with Luis Raul, he dominates his comedy techniques to the

point where he has learned how to combine multiple types of humor with slang language, to

deliver incredible stand-up comedy shows. We also saw with Chente Ydrach and Lejuan James

how knowledge of the culture can be as important as the language, because it helps integrate the

individual to the joke and the community itself. Finally, awareness of the target audience is key

to enhancing a culturally dependent joke. The three Puerto Rican comedians, by clearly knowing

to which audience they were targeting were not concerned at all by their who they might have

offended or not. They knew that it they would have to sacrifice an audience to gain another, and

that to actually create good humor they would need to give that audience they were targeting

what they wanted. So, Luis Raul, Chente Ydrach, and Lejuan James, all gave their audience good

“objective” humor experience with the use of classic humor techniques, but gave them a great

“subjective” humor experience with their use of particular language, their knowledge of region,

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and their awareness of the audience. By using these three components, their jokes can be

classified as “enhanced culturally dependent humor,” in my opinion the most effective type of

humor.

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Works Cited

Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1, 1 (1968): 1-14. Print.

Weaver, Simon. "The Rhetoric Of Disparagement Humor: An Analysis Of Anti-Semitic Joking

Online." Humor: International Journal Of Humor Research 28.2 (2015): 327-347.

Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Brown, Ashley. Satire. Ohio: Charles E Merrill, 1968. Print.

Monro, D. H. "Types of Humour." Argument of Laughter. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame, 1963.

40-52. Print.

Zamir, Tzachi. "Why Does Comedy Give Pleasure?." British Journal Of Aesthetics 54.2 (2014):

175-190. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.

Morreall, John, "Philosophy of Humor", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013

Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =

<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/humor/>.

DeCamp, Elise. "Humoring The Audience: Performance Strategies And Persuasion In

Midwestern American Stand-Up Comedy." Humor: International Journal Of Humor

Research 28.3 (2015): 449-467. Academic Search Premier. Web. 16 Nov. 2015.