haha thisaway

Humor, huh.  It's a funny thing.  One of the hardest to transport from culture to culture and all that.  (The only joke I've been more or less able to guarantee a chuckle from my students with is the old, "why was 10 afraid of 7?"  Because 7 ate 9, of course.  Ha.  Hysterical, I know.  But highly translatable.)

In general, I tend to think that American and Australian humor in person aren't all that far removed.  I'm sure I've offended my entire Australian audience right there, so maybe I should back up.  I'm not saying they're the same, but I do think that most of the humor can cross cultural lines fairly painlessly -- except of course coming from Australians to Americans.  In which case it can be slightly painful.

Australians watch plenty of American sitcoms and movies, though, and think plenty of them are funny.  It's true their humor is a bit bleaker and more British than ours, but, even if they don't like to admit it, they don't think we're entirely devoid of humor, which is a nice starting point.  Just for the record, I don't think they're devoid of humor, either.

Australians are more likely to lambast you in jest than Americans.  They say, like the British, that it's a sign of friendship to receive harsh jokes.  While they will go a bit farther than Americans typically will, I also know plenty of Americans who will make plenty of similar jokes among friends.  The Brits tend to think they have a monopoly on sarcasm, and, granted, they do use it well, but the Australians are right there with them and I don't think the Americans are as far off as we could be.  Again, we don't usually go to the same levels, but we do usually venture down the path.

The one area I utterly fall to pieces with Australian humor, though, is the last page of The Big Issue.  It's clearly supposed to be a humor page and I do find parts of it quite diverting.  However, the majority of it I read and go, "really?  how is this funny?"  The columns I get -- they're great.  But that last page gets me every time.  I wish I found the humor, but it generally just eludes me.

The comics are also not nearly as big here.  While Australians appreciate comic strips, they don't go out of their way to get them.  From memory, there are four comic strips in the Sydney Morning Herald:  Cathy, Wizard of Id, something else pretty famous and something a bit less famous.  Really?  Is that all the better they could do?  Cincinnati is a quarter of the size of Sydney and it has way more than four times the amount of comics.  Where's Zits or Baby Blues or Frazz or Beetle Bailey or Hi and Lois or Agnes or Mutts or Red and Rover or BC or The Middletons or Garfield or Family Circle?  Australians would adore Speed Bump if only they knew about it.  Alas.

Australian movies, though.  There's another story.  There things break down a bit.  Australians think they're hysterical.  I think they'd be a lot more likely to be hysterical if I could actually understand what they were saying through the thick ocker accents.  As it is, from what I can gather from the subtitles (joking!  I just get a friend to translate), they're really not that appealing to Americans.  I've had to show Australian movies to my students before and they always want to know about humor.  "I think Australians would find that funny," I say to them from time to time.  (I'm starting to get an idea of what they find funny, even if it isn't actually.)  "Why?" they'll ask.  "I don't know," I'll tell them, which they find very insufficient.  So do I, but no one's helping me either.  Poor darlings are on their own, I'm afraid.

But like I said before, Australians really don't mind American humor.  If the amount of air time it gets says anything, Australians must really be crazy about Two and a Half Men.  It's amusing, sure, but, wow, they must love it.  I don't think they're currently playing any other sitcom here.  You'd think they could find something better, but evidently not.  Either that or they just plain like it.  So yeah.  They'll take ours, but aren't so hot at giving out stuff we'd enjoy, too.

Oh, yes.  If I'm going to tell you about humor, I probably ought to mention a certain phrase.  It's a bit crasser than I usually care to go, but it's so prevalent I think I'd be remiss to leave it out:  taking the piss.  It means to make fun of someone and is used all the time.  In England they'll also say to take the mickey, which I'm pretty sure is at least understood if not also used here, too.  Same meaning, though somewhat more polite.

And that's the long and short of humor here.  Good luck – just smile and nod, as long as you don’t see 7 running towards you.