Posted on by Timothy Beresford

Importance of Comedic Timing

Timmy Beresford

In Mean by Myriam Gurba, there is strong consistency of humor. Gurba’s memoir focuses on the topics of sexual assault, racism, and misogyny. She uses her humor to compensate for the emotional and dark places she brings the audience to. The humor is used to relieve tension and highlight Gurba’s wit, strength, and power within her troubling situations. While she brings the audience to the lowest places, she lifts them right back up with her comedic timing. 

The tone from the first passage “Wisdom” to the rest in the memoir is evident, as it is vastly darker as Gurba does not use any humor whatsoever. The passage centers around the rape and murder of a Sophia Loren. Gurba goes into excessive detail on Loren’s experience, setting up the memoir and her audience in a dark place.  “He pushes her legs apart. He pulls out his corn and kneels. Blood pours from her cheek, nose, and head as he feeds himself into her. He thrusts to the rhythm of her death rattle. Her agony sustains his erection, holding it. He freezes. He moans and shivers. His slack corn slides out of her. Cum oozes from between her legs. It gleams like unspeakable poetry” (Gurba 2). Gurba makes the audience feel as if they had almost been there first hand. She leaves the audience with a feeling of vulgarness, violation, and uncomfortableness. Gurba makes it as if the audience was witnessing and feeling the assault themselves. Ending this chapter, Gurbra essentially leads the audience into believing this is going to be the tone for the rest of the memoir. However this is not the case. 

One of the many ways in which Gurba uses humor is in unnecessary places. In doing this, it makes what can be serious conversations and themes, much more light hearted. In the chapter “The Whites”, Gurbra is staying with the white family next door. The description Gurba gives about each of the family members is quite interesting. She adds unnecessarily funny words that strengthen Gurba’s personality even further. “I followed him around his yard, staring up at his metallic hair, longing for him to show me affection. A smile. Meanwhile, his little sister acted cunty” (Gurba 8).  There is purely no necessary reason for her to use the word “cunty”, other than to let the audience laugh. She then does the same thing with the white mom. “The white mom stabbed the casserole with her spatula. Her vigor made her wings flap” (Gurba 9). Gurba refers to the mothers arm fat as if she’s a swan with wings. She hides these jokes and comedy deep within what is actually a pressing and significant issue. Since Gurba is staying over at the white family’s house, the mother says she is making Mexican food because she is there. The mother makes what she says is a mexican casserole. It has nothing to do with Mexican food or Gurba’s culture. She is essentially generalizing and minimizing everything about Mexican tradition and culture, partially with food. The casserole has no significance to Gurba as it isn’t mexican. “I dropped it on my tongue. There is nothing Mexican about it. Its spices told unfamiliar stories, but I used my milk as a chaser and managed to choke it down without vomiting” (Gurba 9). This food is not her food whatsoever. The mother making that and deciding to call it Mexican food is demeaning and hurtful to Gurbra. For that reason, she hides the pain and frustration within her humor. Bringing light to something that is otherwise a serious topic.

Both chapters “Wisdom” and “Senorita” focus on the topics of sexual assault and rape. While “Wisdom” is extremely more serious and tone and darker, “Senorita” focuses on the time when Gurbra was sexually assaulted in school with a much different tone.Gurba is sexually assaulted by one of her classmates, Macaulay. One of the reasons why they are so different, is that “Senorita” is through the eyes of Gurba and her first hand experience. In doing this, this allows for her personality to consistently come through. Even when she is having something happen to her as tragic and horrendous as being sexually assaulted, she still consists of creating a light hearted and jovial tone when she is scared of what is about to happen to her. “I looked at Mcaulay with caution. This trepidation was new but it felt natural. Instinctual. I knew what was happening under the table shouldn’t have been happening, but my impulses did not command me to fight. I froze. Many animals do this. Deer. Possum. My mother” (Gurba 23). Gurba has to throw that last line in there about her mother to shift the tone back up again. She takes the audience on a rollercoaster of emotions from fear to humor in mere seconds. Gurba manages this all while still talking about rape. Gubra strongly tells her past stories with her humor for the audience. Without this, her memoir would be severely different and the impact of these stories would not be as effective. 

  1. What was your favorite joke or piece of humor Gurba used and why do you think it was effective?
  2. Do you think there was any point that the humor was not necessary or went too far? If so, what and where?

Citations 

Gurba, M. (2017). Mean. Coffee House Press.

21 Replies to “Importance of Comedic Timing”

  1. Hi Tommy, great job on your blog post! I really liked some of the points you talked about and covered. Reading about race, sexual assaults, and misogyny can be very emotional and gruesome for some readers. I think so far Gurba has done a good job using humor in places where there needs to be. I find the humor to be appropriate throughout the book because her humor is similar to mine and I feel that humor can always lighten a darker situation or story. To answer your first question, one of my favorite lines of humor that Gurba uses is “Maybe Ida’s stepdad had accidentally shot her mom. Maybe she found out Santa wasn’t real.” ( 64 Gurba) I can relate to the humor in this question when Gurber is talking to Ida because when I get uncomfortable or nervous I think of funny random things. I think this piece was effective because it starts in a dark place of Gurber thinking if Ida’s stepdad shot her mom into thinking she could possibly be crying because she found out Santa isn’t real. I found this line to be very funny and placed in a great spot.

  2. Hi Timmy! I liked your blog post because it centered around humor which is my favorite part of the book so far.

    Myriam Gurba uses humor throughout the book to create an interesting read and to show how she used it to cope with her experiences. There were many instances where I felt like I should not find something funny but I did. Throughout the book, Gurba shares many different memories from her childhood. One of the stories surrounds her family cooking dinner and her mom was bleeding near the food. Her dad was worried about the blood getting into the food and said not to get AIDS in it. Gurba tells the story and ends it with, “He was joking, of course. Mom didn’t have AIDS. My gay cousin did” (21). During the period of her childhood, AIDS was looked at poorly and doctors found a way to treat it in the late 80s. As a child, it is a lot to know about a family’s medical issues, especially when it was a disease that was looked at so badly. Her response to it shows that even though something traumatic happens to someone she knows, she uses humor to cope with knowing her cousin is sick. Although that is an example of someone else’s experience, she uses humor a lot to deal with situations that she went through. This is shown when her sister was going through anorexia and getting different treatment plans. Gurba states, “Death by anorexia is a fail-safe sexual-assault prevention technique” (52). This was one of the times where the comment was not funny but she was trying to use humor. Even though her sister was going through something, Gurba’s sexual assault was lingering in her mind. She is saying that if something happens to her sister, she would not have to go through sexual assault. Gurba is showing how her sexual assault has never left her. Even when someone else is going through something, Gurba is triggered by her assault and knows that she can not escape it. She believes anything would have been better than to experience what she did. Gurba uses humor in situations regarding herself and other people as a coping mechanism for what she is going through.

    1. Great job with this comment, Nina! This analysis, in particular, is super compelling:

      “Even though her sister was going through something, Gurba’s sexual assault was lingering in her mind. She is saying that if something happens to her sister, she would not have to go through sexual assault. Gurba is showing how her sexual assault has never left her. Even when someone else is going through something, Gurba is triggered by her assault and knows that she can not escape it.”

      Score: 5/5

  3. Hey Timmy, I enjoyed your blog post especially because I really enjoy the humor Gurba brings to the book. It felt like she was attempting to throw in a joke when the topics got more serious. For example, when Gurba was being assaulted in her classroom, the assaulter asks her, “Do you have a big, sweet bush?” (Gurba 27). This question is pretty uncomfortable for both the reader and Gurba, but she responds by saying “We have five” (27). This incident stood out to be because of the timing. She is describing an incidence where she is being assaulted as a young girl and decides to add her misunderstanding to give the reader a laugh during a serious topic. Gurba does this throughout the book and makes it a lot more enjoyable and fun to read, especially due to the serious topics the book covers.

  4. Hey Timmy! I really enjoyed reading your interpretation of the humor we have seen so far throughout Mean. To answer your first discussion question, I found a lot of humor in the chapter titled The Problem of Evil. One example that really stuck with me says, “Evil is dazzling. If it’s done right, mean can be dazzling too” (Gurba 17). When I laughed at this I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to think it was funny. However, I think that I find humor in it because I agree with it and most people wouldn’t. Gurba continues to explain why people are mean. She states, “We act mean because we like to laugh” (Gurba 17). This quote is very relatable to me because my friends and I love to “bully” each other in a loving, sibling type way. We always know we’re joking around and we get a good laugh acting like we don’t like each other. I think Gurba is very real for sharing this and it shows a lot about herself that she is confident in saying that being mean is okay.

    1. Great job with this comment, Ginamarie! I’d love to hear more of your thoughts about how Gurba depicts the relationship between meanness and gender, both throughout the book and on the page you’ve identified.

      Score: 5/5

  5. Hey Timmy, I really liked your blog post. You highlighted my favorite aspect to this book, being the use of humor in places that generally shouldn’t have this kind of humor, and I believe you explained it perfectly. So far from what we read, I have to say my favorite humor so far is used in the Bonnie story. There was a lot of humor in this story. The funniest part to me was when Gruba was introducing Ashleys character. She is described as the whitest member of her friend group, who is obsessed with herself and her beauty. The funniest part of this introduction is when we are told of a guy she is sleeping with, who gave her a compliment. Gurba said, “After giving Ashley this compliment, Steve ate her ass”, this was just out of nowhere and I didn’t expect it, so it was very funny to me, I even read it to my roommate who laughed as well (42).
    My favorite use of humor in this story is when they are talking about Joey’s dad, who is a child molester. Child molestation is a very serious topic and those who do are of some of the vilest people on this planet. But Gurba and her friends don’t make it seem like it’s as big of a deal as it is. One of the girls noticed him and said how he had gotten to “third base with the entire Little League” (47). Gurba said that it was an exaggeration, but rather he got to third base with the ones that he had coached. They knew it was true because he was on the news for being what they called a chomo, a child-molesting homosexual. Ater, we find this out she says “He’d finagled the jizz out of the kids he taught baseball to… Interestingly he taught Sunday school. I wondered if his lessons on Sodom and Gomorrah had been interactive” (47). In this example of humor, she established that the kids were being molested, but rather than going into details, she just said he “finagled the jizz”. Finagled is a funny sounding word and used it here to take away from the horrible act that is being done. She then goes on to talk about how he teaches Sunday school and wondered if he had interactive lessons. The lessons she mentioned are about two cities that were destroyed by God because of their wickedness and sexual immorality, meaning the interactive lessons were sex. The Sunday school bit adds to the idea that altar boys are molested by church officials, and it is safe to assume that Mr. Osmond was in fact molesting the boys in Sunday school. These examples are all of how Gurba’s humor is used to make the stories less emotional and makes them seem as if they are an everyday occurrence and in reality, sadly, they are.

    1. Wow, fantastic job with this comment, Evan! You’ve identified some key moments of humor within the book. I wonder, after the activity we did last week, what adjective(s) you would use to describe her humor in these moments.

      Score: 5/5

  6. Hey Timmy! You did a really great job with this blog post. Very insightful. The way Gurba uses humor is almost as if every time she makes a joke it is in the wrong setting around the wrong people. It’s almost like every time the tone shifts to something a little darker, the jokes come into play. To answer your first question, one of my favorite jokes so far had to have come earlier in the book. “Today I understood that words are for everyjuan, but that not everyjuan is for every word.”(Gurba, 27) (Page number might be different due to PDF not hard copy)This joke came around the time her parents found out her whole class believed her to not speak any english and she was messing with them. I found this joke especially funny because the ability of her to make a complex joke like that, tying a name typically associated with Mexican culture and an english word and making it into a joke while also coming to a realization about language and the world around her is stellar work by Myrium Gurba. My friends and I also used to use the same word to make the same joke innocently.

    1. Great job with this comment, James! This insight is especially sharp:

      “It’s almost like every time the tone shifts to something a little darker, the jokes come into play.”

      Just make sure that all quotes are introduced:

      Gurba writes, “Today I understood that words are for everyjuan, but that not everyjuan is for every word” (27).

      Score: 4/5

  7. How are you, Timmy? I want to say that I really enjoyed this blog post. I enjoyed it because I thought it had great humor from Gurba, he brings enjoyment to reading this. When she was getting too serious, she started to place humor in dark topics. I felt like one of the important parts that had an effect on the reader was when she got assaulted in the classroom when she was young. She was asked “Do you have a bush, a sweet bush? This is something that is weird to ask someone, if someone asked me this I would feel really uncomfortable and awkward and just want to walk away. When she got asked that question she answered back with a joke “We have five”(27). I think the reason why she answers with a joke is that she tries to avoid the weirdness of that conversation. She also was showing us how weird it can be in a conversation. But this isn’t the only time that she makes a joke throughout the book. I can’t wait to see what other jokes she makes during the book. Have a great day!

    1. Good analysis of that quote, Mikey! Moving forward, just make sure that your comment brings in a quote that hasn’t already been analyzed by the blogger or other commenters. Introducing additional pieces of textual evidence will help the blogger strengthen their interpretation.

      Score: 4/5

  8. I truly loved your essay and I appreciate how you mentioned the differences in tone between comedic and serious readings. Her ability to smoothly weave in comic moments while confronting sexual assault, racism, and misogyny is a credit to her wit and talent as a writer, in my opinion. As a result, she is able to strike a balance between the dark and the bright, allowing her audience to feel the weight of the concerns while still providing moments of relaxation, as can be seen in her work. It is apparent that humor is an important component of Gurba’s writing style and how she communicates her own experiences with the readers. It makes the reader stay focused and doesn’t allow them to relax and actually question is this intentional or not, and I believe as long as it says that away as it seems it has, I think, and doesn’t devalue of the seriousness of the situation it won’t cross any boundaries or go too far.

  9. Great blog post Timmy! I love how you mention the contrast between humor and serious topics. Myriam Gurba has an uncanny ability to perfectly balance the two sides of the coin through each situation she puts us in. You mentioned the passage “Wisdom” which is one of the first times we really see Gurba become completely serious for a long period of time while she explains the disgusting things that happened to Sophia Loren. Later on in the novel we see Gurba almost throw away these tragic moments to take on a much more sarcastic and humor based approach to her memoirs. To me, this shows how these acts effect a human being. Someone who is forever scared from sexual assault may never see the world “normal” ever again. A quote from page 73 shows this to me perfectly,
    “In public school I’d learned about Christian saints who withstood physical suffering to prove their faith. Sainthood didn’t appeal to me then, but now it does. I think pain might be more valuable than wisdom because it teaches us what we can endure” (page 72).
    This quote showed such a vulnerability later in the book from Gurba that makes me rethink a lot of the earlier stories she tells and put it into the context of thinking pain is more valuable than wisdom, you can tell someone a million times how terrible these events are but unfortunately, in her opinion, you can never truly understand how it feels unless you’ve actually been through the pain.
    I feel this topic perfectly brings us into your second question, has the humor ever gone “to far?” In my opinion no, but I have never been through sexual assault, so it is possible my opinion may not hold as much weight as a possible victim of the crime. However, to me since Myriam Gurba herself has been a victim of sexual assault, and the fact that whenever she tells someone else’s story she is rarely making any kind of crude joke that could take away from the experience, It results in the humor only adding to the weight and meaning of the novel rather than being a detriment. Overall, great post!

    1. Good job with this comment, Terrence!

      Moving forward, make sure all quotes are in proper MLA-style citations:

      Gurba writes, “In public school I’d learned about Christian saints who withstood physical suffering to prove their faith. Sainthood didn’t appeal to me then, but now it does. I think pain might be more valuable than wisdom because it teaches us what we can endure” (72).

      Also, try to avoid run-on sentences like this: “This quote showed such a vulnerability later in the book from Gurba that makes me rethink a lot of the earlier stories she tells and put it into the context of thinking pain is more valuable than wisdom, you can tell someone a million times how terrible these events are but unfortunately, in her opinion, you can never truly understand how it feels unless you’ve actually been through the pain.”

      You have important things to say, but they can get lost in meandering sentences. Short, simple, grammatically-correct sentences will help your ideas shine through more clearly.

      Score: 4/5

  10. Hi Timmy, I really enjoyed that you chose to focus on the comedic timing of the books. I feel it’s one of its strongest points of it, especially in a work that deals with such dark themes. In regards to your first question, one of my favorite comedic moments from the novel is actually one that I feel is not that important overall and very blink-and-you-miss-it. On page 70 when Gurba that she goes to U.C Berkeley she says that it’s “Because I’m Mexican. And pretentious.”( Gurba 70). For me, this is more of her almost cheeky brand of humor poking fun at the fact that many believe that people that are of minority groups do not have to work for such things as they will be simply handed them, which is not the case. It’s a way of saying that she did in fact work for what it is she has received and has not been handed it simply for her race.

    1. Good job with this comment, Joe! “Cheeky” is a great adjective to describe her humor.

      As you say, Gurba is definitely poking fun at the stereotype that people of color don’t work hard and are simply handed things. In reality, affirmative action programs are meant to address the systemic advantages and privileges that white people benefit from throughout their lives by leveling the playing field.

      Score: 5/5

  11. Hi Timmy! I really enjoyed this blog post because I thought I was the only one who was a little unsettled about the dark humor. Yes, it can be funny but some of the situations are so serious that when I laugh I am almost in shock about the lines I am reading. A line that I found disturbing but intriguing at the same time was , “Evil is dazzling. If it’s done right, mean can be dazzling too” (Gurba 17). I was a little taken back by this line when I first read it. We as a society know that evil is bad, being mean is bad also. However, Gurba is almost praising the fact that being evil and being mean is an intriguing trait that one can have if it is done right. We all know that she is very witty and can deliver a line, she never skips a beat. Because she can be mean in a way that seems funny to others she thinks its okay, in her own twisted dark way. On a personal note she reminds me a lot of my sister, my sister is very witty and can be very mean but its the way she delivers her back handed comments that makes everyone laugh and forget the comment was mean in the first place. So yes, in a way I see how disturbing the line can be but I can also see how she views her meanness to others because to them its a joke but to her it is the truth.

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