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Kathleen Therrien interprets the style and butt of the OJ jokes. I think that her ideas fit well every joke that I have seen posted. The jokes are pointing at the associated phenomena and not at OJ himself or his status as black male. --JL, Co-Moderator ================================================== It took me a while to get a handle on the OJ joke I sent in (I think I was hoping someone else would have an idea for me!). I think that the "You're a juror" joke intrigued me because it is not about OJ per se--it focuses on the conditions around the case. The joke that Prof. Rollins posted does the same--it is not "about" OJ; rather, it focuses on other problematic figures. The other OJ jokes I've heard but not bothered to remember have done the same thing. I find this interesting because these jokes don't seem to serve the same functions within tragedy as, say, the Challenger jokes did--they seem to deflect attention from the ostensible center of the case (OJ himself) to the cultural margins. Could this phenomenon tell us more about the situation than "actual OJ" jokes would? For if jokes about tragedies are ways of "handling" tragic situations, could it be that the "tragedy" is actually located in the media's construction of the case, in media culture in general, and in our relationships to it--not in Simpson and the murder? And if this is the case, is it so because the media and media culture are more problematic and in need of "handling" than brutal murder--or because we have become so desensitized to violence that we are more shocked by the media than by brutal death? Just pondering. . . Kathleen Therrien kmt@strauss.udel.edu U of DE Dept of English
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