Proof you can laugh at anything

People say there are some things you can’t find any humour in. So here’s some jokes on gays, Islam and slavery

When America’s most respected source of deeply offensive humour, The Onion, apologized last month for facetiously using a vulgar term referencing female genitalia in connection with a 9-year-old girl, it rekindled an old debate: Are there subjects so controversial that you just can’t

joke about them?

I believe the answer is no. You just have to do it right.

Take 9/11. How can you possibly play that for laughs? You can do it the way my stand-up comic friend Dave George does, often, in front of a brick wall:

“9/11 was a horrible event for all of us here in America, and we were justifiably angry, but I’m ashamed to admit that I acted on that anger. I was just so furious, thinking about Waseem, down in accounting,

who must have been celebrating this day, basking in America’s pain. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and went up to him, and, BAM, right in the face. And I said, ‘ That’s for 9/11.’ And then he’s all, ‘ B-but I am … Indian.’ I said, ‘ Oh … well then, that was for Little Big Horn.’”

Like me, Dave is also heavily invested in the idea that there are no verboten areas for humour, and he volunteered to help me prove it, as did my funny friend Rachel Manteuffel. We brainstormed some jokes on taboo topics.

TABOO TOPIC: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Q Is it ever OK for a man to strike his wife?

A Sure. If he strikes her as witty and urbane.

TABOO TOPIC: GAYS

“I’m a red-blooded American guy, and let me tell you, I hate gays. They disgust me. After we have sex, they always want to cuddle.”

TABOO TOPIC: WEIGHT GAIN AND THE HOLOCAUST

Q What is the difference between the Holocaust and that little lip of flab you sometimes see near a lady’s armpit when she’s wearing a

sleeveless dress?

A If you really, really had to, you could probably get away with telling a joke about the Holocaust.

TABOO TOPIC: ISLAM

Q Why did the Iranian police sketch artist suddenly quit his job? A The victim described his attacker as “a dead ringer for the Prophet Muhammad.”

TABOO TOPIC:

SLAVERY

Q What’s the difference between slavery and higher taxes? A If a rock-ribbed conservative congressman said something positive about slavery, he could probably still be re-elected.

TABOO TOPIC: DRONE WARFARE AND THE COLLECTIVE GUILT OF

AMERICA

I wish I were a drone pilot, just so I could annoy those obnoxious gamers: “Oh, by the way, I just took out a nest of al-Qaeda leaders. But, please, tell me again about how you achieved Wizard Level 10.”

TABOO TOPIC: A VULGAR TERM REFERENCING FEMALE GENITALIA AND 9-YEAR

OLD GIRLS

Q How is calling a 9-year-old girl a vulgar term referencing female genitalia like a twohand dunk in a 15-foot-high basketball hoop in Warsaw? A Nope. Not even with a 10foot pole.

Washington Post Writers Group