A jokes by their very nature tend to make the subject or the protagonist look stupid. So if the joke is about someone from another race, that could be construed as racism. If a joke is made about man/woman that's sexist, if a joke is made about someone of a certain sexual persuasion that's homo- or hetrophobia. If a joke is made about an old person that's ageist. If a joke is made about a doctor you're prejudiced against doctors. Other religions, social statuses, height, dis-ability ...... on it goes.
If you're working in the 'making people look bad' field of humour - spectacles of embarassment, making the audience appalled at someone's behaviour, etc - then you can do that in many ways. You can do it in a way which uses and reinforces existing stereotypes (backed up by things like political and economic disadvantage). Or you can actively work against those stereotypes, or you can just sidestep them and do something else which produces revulsion, embarassment, etc.
I don't, therefore, think at all that a joke about a lesbian has to be potentially homophobic - a think a joke which relies on a shared assumptioon that lesbians are X, Y and Z (and thus shit) is homophobic, one which uses a lesbian character but which derives its humour from another source needn't be, one which amusingly defeats expectations on that front could be anti-homophobic.
Or there can be jokes in which people from [disadvantaged group] interact with another fictional character, not from that group, and it's the other character which 'looks bad'. Again, not necessarily dodgy, even if rooted in taking the piss out of someone else, and revolving around a potentially tricky topic.
Also, a lot of jokes are funny because they make the teller 'look bad'; some of my favourite jokes about race, gender and so on involve self-deprecation.
So I think going 'damn, this is how humour works, so accusations of homophobia etc. are unavoidable' is a cop-out. |
