Mum jokes, hip-hop and a new hope for peace!

By EverythingEvolves
First created 05 December 2008 | Last updated 06 February 2010

Throughout known history and indeed beyond, there are many aspects of masculine human nature that have remained constant. The need to create and control fire is one example; mind you it is entirely possible that this power was first wielded by a woman. What about the desire to understand women? O.K not even women understand women. How about the ability to multi-task? No, wait a second, that’s women as well! Alright then, throughout history men have been blessed with one thing – the ultimate force in comedy – the ability to end conflict (or start a whole new one) with just a few simple, well structured and inspired words. Confused? I’ll explain…

Picture this scene, two women are arguing. They’re locked in an uncompromising spate of insults and accusations that fly back and forth from one to the other, each comment is met with a response of equal or exceptional ferocity until one turns to the other and shouts at the top of her voice, “Yeah - well I’ve just shagged your dad!”

We all know that this scenario is not only quite sickening, but also very unlikely. If it took place in Northern England for example, it is more likely to have ended in hair-loss and uncontrollable screaming hours before any mention of family fornication. Elsewhere it might have ended with the boycott of each other, followed by the inevitable PR war in a bid to win the hearts and minds of fellow females in the friendship group. Either way women can of course be excused from not wishing to play any part in the practice of deriding an adversary by suggesting that they have slept with the other woman’s father – unless they actually have! So what is it about men that makes even the mere suggestion that they have slept with another mans mother so funny? One thing that’s for sure is that since standing up on two legs, and possibly even before, men have argued and laughed at each other. But is the ‘Mum Joke’ simply just plain old immaturity or does it have a much deeper value in the cultural heritage of what it means to be a man?

Although a literary genius and by all accounts one of the worlds greatest ever playwrights, not even William Shakespeare could be accredited with the auspicious accolade of inventor of the ‘Mum Joke.’ In his play The Life of Timon of Athens, Shakespeare makes a reference to a characters mother which is clearly meant as an insult. In Act 1, Scene 1 the character of Apemantus, having been called a dog by the painter retorts, “What’s she (in reference to the painters mother), if I be a dog?” – evidence that, if nothing else, as a comedian Shakespeare knew how to get a show off to a good start. In another of his works, Titus Andronicus, the character of Aaron taunts his lover's sons Demetrius and Chiron in saying “I have done thy mother.” This suggests that this form of humour was considered funny and was possibly even quite popular in Europe as far back as the late 1500’s.

Still not convinced? O.K, roll forwards a couple of millennia and we find ourselves (surprisingly) in the early 1800’s and in New Orleans at the time of the African slave trade. The slave trade was without doubt one of the most brutal and inexcusable occurrences in the long history of humanity and perhaps one of the most disgraceful practices of the time was the grouping together and auctioning off of slaves who had either passed their prime and were no longer capable of hard labour or slaves that had been dismembered for disobedience. These slaves, sold off in groups of twelve, were regularly referred to as ‘The Dozens’ and as a chilling testament to this barbaric period and perhaps as a result of the fourteenth century English verb ‘to dozen’, the game of The Dozens became an important part of African American culture.

The verb to dozen means to stun, stupefy or daze and the game is one of swift and skilful speech. As roots to more contemporary African American oral traditions such as hip-hop, the game might better be known in all its postmodernist glory as ‘trash talk’ but evidently it involves males going head to head and taking it in turns to putdown their opponents mother or another family member until there is no comeback. It is an intense competition that requires not only wit and self-control, but also an extensive vocabulary and a combination of mental agility and rhythm. The game is by all accounts harmless and whilst tempers can flair, more often than not the looser only suffers short term humiliation. Evidently The Dozens is rooted in a long tradition of verbal sparring descended from ancient West African cultures and as most evolutionists (including myself) now agree, if we are all of African descent is it so hard to imagine that ‘Mum Jokes’ have been an inherent part of social culture throughout human existence?

The ‘Mum Joke’ is a non-aggressive form of humour that more often than not is only directed at ones opponent rather than the actual mother in question. The Dozens by its very nature is simply a non-violent practice intended to defuse conflict in a light-hearted manner. So at a time when the world is welcoming its first African American President in the White House, the only real question we all need to concern ourselves with is will Bin Laden be able to take the joke on the chin?