Practical Jokes
Jun 14th, 2007 by Glenn
This was always one of my favorite units to teach to my F101: Intro to Folklore students. As you might imagine, it generated very lively discussions.
Believe it or not, folklorists actually study practical jokes. The performance of these jokes falls under the “Customary” form of folklore (traditional things that you do) and they are deemed to be traditional because certain practical jokes have their own structural similarities that are passed from person to person (like the “tale type” of narratives) and the function of the practical jokes is almost always the same: to create group unity.
Now, certainly, practical jokes can also function to entertain, release pressure, and sometimes even educate on proper and improper ways to behave. But it is the group unity function (aka “communitas”) that has seemed to draw the most interest from folklorists in recent years. It is what lead to the creation of two different types of practical jokes: the Benevolent and the Malevolent.
A benevolent practical joke is defined as a joke that is kindhearted, it is expected that the “victim” will likely reciprocate, and it is generally friendly – there is no lasting damage. Most importantly – the intention is to be friendly. These jokes create group unity through inclusion.
A malevolent practical joke is a joke that is mean-spirited. It is not expected that the victim will reciprocate (because if they do, they are dead meat!) It is meant to single out a victim and humiliate them – to separate them from the group and keep them out of it. There is little to no consideration given for lasting damage. These jokes create group unity at the expense of the victim – by teaming up against the victim — they create group unity through exclusion.
Now I could give you plenty of examples of both benevolent and malevolent jokes, but I’d really rather hear them from you. So tell me, do you agree with these definitions? Do you have experiences with either type of joke? What role do you see them play in Mormon culture? Is it possible that Mormons have their own versions of practical jokes that have not been considered here?
Where would you place what are sometimes called shenanigans: small practical jokes that are designed to elicit the proverbial “WTF?!” response? For example, I knew some missionaries who filled up another companionship’s bathtub and put two large (~10 lb) live carp in it. This practical joke I don’t see as really having had any effect on group feelings one way or the other (although I suppose one could consider it benevolent because the story got widely told, both by the pranksters and the “victims” — I heard it directly from both sides — as a funny story). I really see it as a neutral act in and of itself, even though in the end it became a cherished part of mission lore.
I’ll share one mission prank here that I love telling that is also ambiguous in terms of its benevolence. We had one Elder in my mission (call him Elder X) who was from a very wealthy family and always had lots of money (he took taxis everywhere, for instance). We had another Elder (Elder Y) who had grown up on a rural farm and who would eat anything (when he was my companion he one day made his lunch from a cold mixture of raw bacon, canned beans, and mushrooms). Elder X and Y both served in the same city (although not as companions) and lived in an apartment with four other Elders. While in this city, Elder X would constantly pay Elder Y small amounts of money to eat disgusting things.
One day Elder Y’s companion was sick so that companionship stayed home for the day. Elder Y decided to make “poo cookies” (the no-bake oatmeal cookies), but part way through realized that he had no oatmeal, so he switched búzadara (Cream of Wheat) for the missing oatmeal. The resulting cookies lived up to their name even more than the regular ones, so Elder Y took the dough and shaped it into what looked like dog droppings and put them on the walkway to the apartment. When Elder X came home he saw them.
Elder X paid Elder Y the fifty dollars and no one told him for about three days that the dog droppings were really chocolate cookies…
This was one of the most-told stories in my mission, but it is, again, rather ambiguous. I think it is somewhat benevolent (it only worked because the group was already cohesive), but it also played on a certain antipathy towards those with money (clever, poor elder tricks rich elder) and was self-deprecating on the part of Elder Y (he knew it seemed plausible to everyone that he would actually eat a dog dropping). While its eventual social uses were benevolent, I don’t see that it is easy to categorize this tale either way, and I would treat it as something more like a shenanigan.
Can I just ask about the picture for this thread? What are all of those paper cups doing?
As for the practical jokes, I think the classic one is toilet papering, which has just had it’s revival in our ward. It definately falls into the first category of benevolent pranks,and although I’m sure it’s common to many groups, it seem particularly Mormon to me, since I’ve only encountered it through YM/YW.
The other well-known prank I can think of is snipe-hunting for first year girls at girls’ camp. That probably falls into the first category as well, but I have heard of bad experiences, which may put it in the second category for some people. I think that is an important point as well. What may be playful and fun to one person could be malicious to another, depending on one’s circumstances and personality.
Jess,
This is a benevolent practical joke where people fill up cups of water and place them in their friend’s room, starting at the back and working forward. It is pretty harmless — it just creates some work for the person to clean it up (unless they walk into the room withouth looking and knock some of the cups over). It just creates a sense of shock when first encountered. I think the time someone puts in to something like this is usually a good indication of how important the friendship is — or how bored the joker is.
I have also heard of malevolent versions where less-friendly, more pungent liquid is placed in the cups. That might be a measure of how much the joker despises the victim — or how much the joker had to drink.
Fen,
If the carp in the bathtub is not functioning for group unity, why is it being done (again, I’m not saying unity is the only function — only that it is the main one I have seen as the focus of studies). I think you are right about the unity the stories create when told throughout the group.
The poop-cookies story sounds like it has been through the communal-recration-mill a few times. “I’ll pay you $50 bucks to eat it” sounds pretty contrived. But it sets up the punchline nicely. It reminds me of the story about the patient who played a joke on the nurse with apple juice in his urine cup.
It makes a nice story — probably didn’t quite happen that way.
While it may sound contrived, apparently (and I heard this from at least three different elders who were in the apartment, including the prankster), the one Elder regularly paid the other one to eat the most disgusting food he could think of. The poo cookie bit was done (after the potential in the concoction was realized) specifically to capitalize (literally?) on his known penchant for paying the other Elder to eat things. Thus I don’t think, in this case, that it was contrived, other than in the sense that the whole situation was contrived specifically to extract money from the first elder. In other words, he gave the exact response they were counting on for the joke to work, so I tend to believe this one at something pretty near face value. But, if I didn’t know the folks involved and have been connected so near to them, I would probably conclude exactly what you did: that it had been embellished in the telling and the money bit added after the fact.
Turning back to the carp story, I guess I’m not sure that a Durkheimian sort of functional analysis works for me because it strikes me as a post hoc interpretation: the group was more cohesive after the joke, so it must have been carried out to make the group more cohesive. I’m just not sure it follows, though, as the joke itself seems pretty neutral to me.
While group unity may be a result of the joke (or rather, I think, of its subsequent telling), I’m not sure that it can be considered a proximal cause of the joke: i.e., I don’t think the joke was carried out to create a more cohesive group. I know this will be an unsatisfying explanation, but I think it was done to be funny, with very little consideration of anything relating to the group. Yes, the joke does presuppose the group — it wasn’t done to a random person on the street — but I think it was done because of the combination of individual personalities involved, and the group represents an unnecessary abstraction for understanding why it was done. In other words, the joke can be explained satisfactorily (at least to me) without adding an entity called “the group” that is needed to understand the causes.
Does that make sense?
There you go with that “three-pattern” again. Don’t you know that three = not true?
I am with you on the motivation for practical jokes. I don’t think people wake up and say, “we need to create group unity today — let’s play a joke” (unless of course they wake up with shaving cream all over their face and hands and they want to get even, but even then…). I agree with you that the main reason why is to be funny and that personalities have a lot to do with it.
I can recall times, however, when someone who wanted to gain entance into a group did so (or attempted to do so) through the use of practical jokes.
I played a joke on some friends at BYU where I switched everything from one side of their dorm room to another. We all got a good laugh out of it, and the story started making its way through the dorms. A few days later, a guy who really wanted to be friends with my firends decided to crumple up newspaper into balls and stack it in their room waist high. That didn’t go over well — it actually backfired — probably because this guy didn’t really have enough acceptance to pull it off. They thought less of him afterwards. But in that case, at least, the primary motivation was group-oriented. But certainly that isn’t always the case.
One question though — what is the motivation to be funny?
Watch out or Knudsen will think you’re questioning the truthfulness of the Trinity and Three Nephite stories and then you’ll never be able to live with yourself for the disillusionment you’ll have caused him…
If I knew the answer to that question, you’d be hearing from me as a talking head on NPR rather on this blog… (and I’d probably have a real job and a completed dissertation)
By the way Glenn, I think the benevolent/malevolent distinction is useful in many cases and often has explanatory value (take pre-WWII Germans telling Jew jokes, where the in-group/out-group distinction and boundary maintenance would be vital concepts), so I hope I didn’t come across as bagging the distinction in general. Rather I felt that it didn’t do certain things in terms of its theoretical applicability in this instance. That probably wasn’t clear in what I wrote.
Anyway, interesting questions.
No worries — I agree. If I remember right, the benevolent/malevolent distinction is Moira Smith’s contribution in one of those blue paperback fieldwork books that IU almost can’t give away — I think she wrote that piece when she was in grad school, and I am certain she would have some revisions on it today as well. And yes, if I recall, it was mixed in with some discussion of agressive jokes — racial/ethnic/gender prejudices, that sort of thing.
Isn’t the motivation to be funny an attempt to endear yourself to other members of a group (maybe “group” isn’t the best word)? Certainly, a person can think funny thoughts — but what is the reason those thoughts are expressed and shared with others? Why not just keep them to yourself?
My friends and I were regular TPers. One Sunday Brother Foutz (who we had TPed the night before) asked what we would do if there were no TP. I replied that we would do like they did in pioneer times and use corn cobs. He harumphed and said that he would like to see that. The gauntlet was DOWN!!! The next week, we went to a farm and loaded up the trunks of our cars with corn cobs. We hung them from their trees. One of my friends carved and pained a handle for one of the corn cobs and hung it from the front door knob.
We drove by the next morning and caught the Foutz’ out cleaning up the corn cobs. Bro. Foutz threw a cob at us as he was laughing. They hung the customized corn cob in the master bathroom.
We also TPed the police station, but as they say, that is another story.
*painted* not *pained*
Mea culpa.
Oh yes — TP’ing. That would be an interesting study, actually. There are so many different TP’ing techniques — it really has developed a sort of artistry. Whenever I would go with someone different I would always learn something new. And of course the line between benevolent and malevolent TP’ing is usually drawn with raw eggs (and other various TP accessories).
And I didn’t know that pioneers used corn cobs instead of TP. Ouch! Is that where that slightly off-color phrase comes from (for someone who is too uptight)?