Disability and humour: Comic or tragic? | Vickie Gauci

Recently, I was invited by Dr George Cremona to participate in his radio programme Ngħidu Kelma. Dr Cremona asked me whether, as a person with a disability, I feel offended if people joke about disabilities. This question was asked as an introduction to my current research with persons with disabilities and their experiences on this topic. The aim is to collect short stories from persons with disabilities and their families, in which disabling attitudes and events in society elicit unexpected replies, reactions or behaviour on the part of the persons with disabilities, thus transforming the former into humorous, and potentially educational and political, situations.

These stories compel us to question: where is the line between funny and offensive humour? How can disability, traditionally viewed as a tragic and pitiable phenomenon, be associated with humour? Can persons with disabilities produce and appreciate humour? What is the difference between disability humour and disabling humour? And where did all this start?

Having a disability in itself is not funny. Indeed, many disabilities bring with them pain, deformities, and other inconveniences. Historically, these characteristics were used to amuse non-disabled people. We have all heard of court jesters and circus clowns, often people with dwarfism, who were used for the entertainment of non-disabled audiences. Starting in the Middle Ages up until the 1940s freak shows slowly became fully-fledged commercial ventures. These shows often included people with severe bodily impairments who were sought out and exhibited as ‘freaks of nature’ and ‘human oddities’. People paid money to go and see them. Even if they were often abused and ill-treated, for many persons with severe impairments, this was their only way to earn a living. Meanwhile, however, these shows were generating the notion that one can look at another who is deemed to be different, and denigrate them.

With the development of science and medicine, explanations to the various impairments were offered, and these freak shows slowly lost their appeal. ‘Freaks’ started being viewed with sympathy and pity, rather than fear and contempt. With new understandings of disability, the growth of the disability rights movement, and anti-discrimination legislations, these shows were banned. Television, cinema, and other media replaced them, and although their representation of disabled people is not always empowering, positive developments have taken place. Some disabled people have themselves been using media and humour as a political tool to educate, raise awareness and change mentalities (Nevares Araujo, 2019).

Albrecht (1999) claims that “[d]iscovering humour in disability is difficult because we have to be able to laugh at ourselves” and that “disability humour can also be liberating. In some instances, laughing at oneself or with others redefines the experience.” Like when I was boarding a train and forgot that I had a heavy bag at the back of my wheelchair, so when I lifted the front wheels to board, I fell backwards and ended up looking at my legs in the air… I started laughing and could not stop.

In the gap between the actual event and the surrounding people’s reactions there was my transition as a disabled person into the mainstream world again. Through my reaction (of laughing at myself) I prevented being stigmatised and pitied, and when everyone started laughing as they pulled me back to the upright position, it brought us all together – disabled and non-disabled, transcending dis/ability, ‘equalising’ us.

Or when I was abroad on holiday and we met a street artist who, upon seeing me, started to mime ‘wheeling’ along with his arms. I felt that the artist was showing me he was not afraid of crossing the gap between our two worlds. I so appreciated the gesture that I went next to him and we started ‘racing’ across the square, much to the delight of the people in the surrounding cafes. I felt one with everyone, because the laughter was not ‘at my expense’. Everyone was laughing with me not at me. It was a situation in which humour was created in the surprising outcome of an interaction between a disabled body and another that are not. As Bingham and Green (2016) state, “disability humour enlightens others about the disability experience, affirms the humanity of individuals with impairments, counters the widespread view that disability is a tragedy, and challenges stereotypes.”

To go back to the initial question asked by the radio presenter, therefore, it is not so much about whether it is politically correct or not to laugh and joke on disability, but about the attitude and intent behind the joke. Humour is highly individual, and the line between humour and offence is a very fine one. But, as Clarke (2022) puts it, “the ‘person inside’ – the person that I have always been – is still there, and humour, for me, is one way in which to both demonstrate and reaffirm this.”

Unity Gazzetta is a collaboration between MaltaToday and the Faculty for Social Wellbeing