Freud claimed that only the mature can appreciate the true value of dark humor. In some cases, perhaps it has more to do with the context the jokes are told in. Dr. Marilyn A. Mendoza says that death itself isn’t funny. It’s rather the situations before and after that we may find humorous.
Bored Panda spoke to Jason Roeder, the author of Griefstrike! The Ultimate Guide To Mourning, to learn more about the art of balancing humor when dealing with such a sensitive topic as death. Roeder’s book is hilarious, but he doesn’t veer into the realm of inappropriate. He managed to craft a handbook on grief with nuance so that it’s often not only funny, but emotionally moving as well.
Jason is a veteran at nuanced humor, being a former senior editor and senior writer at The Onion and a contributor to The New Yorker, so maybe that should come as no surprise. Yet his insights into approaching grief with humor are still surprisingly poignant.
Most of us have in one way or another experienced that joking can act as a buffer between the negative effects of stress. The same goes for grief: even bereavement groups ask their members to share humorous stories involving their passed loved ones. It’s part of the grieving process where one has to learn how to live and laugh again.
Jason also believes that approaching death with humor helps to protect oneself. “It might be some of the best armor we have against it,” he says. “Not against death itself, of course. We're all losers in that regard, but against the dread of it. We can't beat it, we're all going down hard eventually, but we can make our inevitable defeat slightly less humiliating.”
That’s not to say that when dealing with death all you can do is laugh at it. Certain boundaries still remain. “I guess the worst thing you can do is make assumptions about where someone's at in their grieving process,” says Jason. “I'd never give my book to someone unless I had a sense that they were ready for it, that they could handle a bunch of jokes of varying quality.”
#11 Sucks To Be Me
The unknown is one of the hardest concepts to grasp and come to terms with when it comes to death. We’re scared of the uncertainty, and the more we try to understand or make sense of it, the more complicated it becomes. “I don't think there's very much at all that can make death actually make sense,” deliberates Jason.
#13 I Do Work For Cemeteries And This Is One Of The More Bizzare Quotes I've Seen On A Headstone
#14 Oh Well
#15 Do Not Enter
“But humor can make you feel better because it can connect you with the person who died or other people who are also grieving for that person,” somewhat optimistically reflects Jason. “The fact that none of it makes sense is kind of beside the point, which is good because we're never getting those answers.”
Coming back to Freud’s idea behind appreciating dark humor, Jason doesn’t think that one has to have an appreciation of dark humor in order to find death funny. “I'm not sure you have to be a fan of dark humor in your entertainment choices. I just think death puts you in a dark place by default, and humor's there to help you climb out or just sit in that dark place with you as your ridiculous companion,” he adds.
