German Comedy, Part I: The Problem of American Scholarship

In the West and perhaps globally, a number of gross generalizations about national character persist. The Irish drink. Pollacks are stupid. Snobbish Frenchmen shun obnoxious Americans. This brief report concerns itself with one of the most resilient and least contested examples of this genre of stereotyping: the humorless German. In the United States, mass media and popular entertainment perpetuate this conception of the German character as both agelastic (unable to laugh) and incapable of telling a joke (for the sake of simplification, I will equate “sense of humor,” “joking,” “humor,” and “comedy”). A recent beer commercial featured a stand-up comic stating, “I just flew in from Berlin and boy are my arms tired.” His monotonous voice and expressionless face are mirrored by an equally affectless audience. A stern Teutonic voice-over announces matter-of-factly, “Germans don't do comedy. Beck's beer … the best of what Germans do best.” Unlike other instances of ethnic humor, this particular stereotype has had a profound and detrimental impact on a cross-cultural understanding of national identity, specifically insofar as American scholarship has been infected by this biased image of Germanness. A cursory literature review reveals that Americans seem unable to conceive of Germans as funny people. A psychodynamic approach to German humor, or supposed lack thereof, helps rectify the dearth of critical commentary and provides insight as to why the stereotype persists.

My experiences as a graduate student exemplify the rampant generalizations and deep ignorance concerning German humor. During a course on “Early German Cinema,” I inquired about the impact of Chaplin, Keaton, and Harold Lloyd on the German film industry and the responses of German audiences. Further, had Germany produced any film comedies? Did it have a comedy subculture beyond cabaret's political satire? The genre was certainly overshadowed by indigenous critical emphasis and government-sponsored promotion