Get it? He's happy because he's got a GIANT BALL OF FIRE to put out!...or maybe it's the 300 dead fire-fighters. Who knows?

Can 9/11 be parodied in good taste? It seems the very notion of combining comedy and 9/11 is doomed to failure. However, George Carlin famously stated that “…anything can be funny. It is just a matter of emphasis.” What he means by that is, for example, poking fun at the VICTIMS of 9/11 is emphasizing the tragic, which is exactly what you would want to de-emphasize.  If you’re looking for a large list of attempts at 9/11 humor, visit this site. If you’re looking for a structural analysis of how these jokes can be composed with a high degree of success, finish reading this article. Both sites, however, are best viewed in tandem.

When making a joke about 9/11, a skilled humorist would want to abstract as far as possible from the actual tragic events themselves, where 9/11 is in any other way (as the punchline [change in expectations], for example] rather than the premise (or main idea) of the joke. One clear example of this can be seen in a 9/11 joke on Family Guy when Brian, after traveling back in time, decides to settle an argument in a bar by asking his opponent to meet him at the “top of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.” The reason this joke is tasteful (as tasteful as you can be about 9/11) is because, though you feel awful about how 9/11 was used for humor, you also realize (at least subconsciously) that the joke’s premise is “Brian will trick the guy into arriving at a place in the future at an unopportune time,” which just-so-happens to be the Twin-Towers on 9/11, rather than the far more offensive premise of “9/11 was HILARIOUS! All those people died…rofl!”

Here’s another example that I crafted during a recent trip I made to California while carrying 100 lbs of Mexican cocaine!

Example 1: The events of 9/11 were nothing short of tragic. On my favorite Soap Opera, General Hospital, Billy was just about to kiss his brother’s ex-husband’s ex-wife’s husband when ANNOYING NEWS COVERAGE interrupted my “regularly scheduled programming!” How rude of you, Saddam Hussein…you ruined my day!

The joke here is regarding my character’s insensitivity regarding the tragic events of 9/11 by emphasizing his prioritization of his own trivial inconveniences, as well as the well-being of the characters in his Soap Opera, over and above the actual suffering of actual human beings. This clue appears when my character refers to 9/11 as a “tragedy” and then immediately goes on to describe the contents of the tragedy…NOT in terms of the actual suffering of the actual victims, but in terms of how his life of staying-at-home and watching Soap Operas is being interrupted.

As you can clearly see, though this joke comes awfully close to being ABOUT 9/11, it is actually about how someone else views OF 9/11 presented in a way contrary to that which is expected by the set-up of the joke. Essentially, this joke dodges a bullet because the main idea of the joke is to parody the lack of intelligence (shown by how he blames Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11) of someone who is insensitive about 9/11 rather than to parody 9/11 itself. The offensive version of this joke would be as follows:

Antithesis 1:  The events of 9/11 were nothing short of…entertaining! You see, the T.V. remote was broken, and I was too lazy to change the channel. Then, an awful Soap Opera, General Hospital, came on when HEROIC NEWS COVERAGE interrupted my regularly scheduled programming and provided me with hours of explosions which climaxed with the demolition of the Twin Towers and the death of 3,000+ innocent citizens! Thanks, Osama Bin Laden, you made my day!

It's like "Where's Waldo," except Waldo is the one being stoned to death for being gay.

This joke is far more offensive than the first because:

1. It fails to abstract from the details of the event and instead lists them explicitly (e.g.  explosions; demolition of Twin Towers; 3000+ deaths)

2. It says that Soap Operas are WORSE than 9/11 (e.g. HEROIC news coverage)

3. It PRAISES the tragedy and turns it into a positive (e.g. …entertaining; Thanks Bin laden, you made my day)

In addition, this “joke” uses an individual who is knowledgable about the 9/11 attacks, as shown by his  consistent use of well-accepted facts thereof. This is contrary to the previous joke which uses clear example of an individual with an obviously distorted view of reality. As a result, the lesson learned here is that in order to make a joke about an offensive subject is to ensure that the main character of the joke is made out to have a distorted worldview or be absurd in some way.

Counter-Point:

Or maybe, just maybe…maybe emphasis doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s like the Aristocrat joke, a joke which defies these normal conventions of “tact” through its flagrant discussion on child molestation, incest AND fecal lubricants. Maybe “tastefulness” is not a quality inherent of humor, but rather artificially inserted by social norms. Or maybe…maybe tastelessness is ENHANCES humor. Maybe the uncertainty of whether the content is acceptable or not increases the little-understood mechanism that causes laughter. I should warn you, however, that if a joke is ONLY offensive and contains no other comedic structures or elements, it will NOT be funny. Examples of these can be found throughout the internet. But I can assure you, we at Project Julio would NEVER sink to that level. Ever.

Or maybe sometimes making something that’s offensive EVEN MORE OFFENSIVE will be so deliberately offensive that it’s funny. Such as those located throughout this article.

The only thing that could make this worse would be...uhm...I don't know!

Why is this wrong? You mean other than how it generalizes the entire Muslim community as terrorists?

CONCLUSION: This attempt to explain 9/11 humor is inconclusive. The tastefulness of humor has been called into question and, therefore, Project Julio is unable to justify or distinguish “polite” humor from “impolite.” I will search my soul (which I stole from a blind Pakistani child named “Paula Abdulla“) to see if I can discover the source of this uncertainty.

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