Humor
Groucho Marx-publicity still © 1930
Courtesy of Groucho Marx Productions and Mr. Robert Finkelstein photo manipulated
When the Illinois Humanities Council staff selected humor as the topic for this newest issue of Detours last summer, it seemed a timely topic. Late night talk show hosts were regularly skewering George Bush, and for most Americans Britney Spears was the most appalling thing around.
Of course, after September 11th, our choice of topics felt naive and inappropriate. Even humor seemed a luxury -- a throwback to a much earlier time. But as Mark Twain reminds us, humor is not only a natural response to tragedy, but it often grows out of sorrow. However, anyone who saw David Letterman's show the week after the attacks will never forget how hard it was for him to go on at the personal request of Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Certainly, being funny has been difficult since the terrorist attacks.
With this in mind, we explained to our Detours contributors that their articles didn't need to be funny, but rather we asked them to explore humor as a genre or topic. The result is an issue that delves into a diversity of humor-related topics -- from Illinois humor to dark comedy to social satire. Cartoonist Nicole Hollander and playwright Rebecca Gilman offer some wonderfully personal reflections on how humor can respond to the shifting world views in the wake of the terrorist attacks.
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