https://doi.org/10.31261/TPDJP.2007.19.15
This article attempts to reconstruct the image of the father as portrayed in schoolchildren's jokes. The research is based on material comprising over a thousand jokes collected from students in grades 1–3 of middle school.
Analysis of the collected material showed that the image of the father in student jokes differs significantly from the stereotype functioning in Polish culture, according to which the parent is perceived positively – as caring and strict, but fair, loving, and understanding. In students' jokes, the father is shown from two perspectives: as a parent and as the mother's husband. He is characterized by strictness, nervousness, vulgarity, helplessness, clumsiness, and above all, stupidity, aversion to learning, ignorance, and excessive alcohol consumption.
There are two possible reasons for ridiculing fathers in students' jokes: the child's rebellion against his commands and prohibitions, and the weakness of the parent himself. It can also have a therapeutic function – it can be a tool for the child's psychological self-defense, a form of “common laughter” therapy.
The humor contained in the analyzed jokes is confronted with two stereotypes:
– the stereotype of the father (head of the family, moral authority, a person who efficiently performs male duties) and the image of the father in jokes (a loser, a bungler, ignorant, ignored by his wife and son);
– the stereotype of the child (cute, sincere, a little naive, often helpless) and the image of the child in the joke (clever, intelligent, unscrupulous, exploiting others for their own benefit).
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Vol. 19 (2007)
Published: 2007-12-31
10.31261/TPDJP
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
English
Język Polski