The ‘wh’ word
Perhaps, I shouldn%26#39;t reject my younger self%26#39;s sense of humour. There is a restaurant in Thailand called %26quot;Cow Pat Poo%26quot; and the rather brainy and serious broadcaster Brian Edwards says he found that funny when he walked past it (though he wasn%26#39;t tempted to eat there).
And comedian Raybon Kan he knows what%26#39;s funny was mildly amused when he noticed that the bus company trundling him around Germany was named %26quot;F***er%26quot;. (This newspaper%26#39;s policy on printing swear-words obscures the fact that the censored second letter has an umlaut, but you get the idea.)
So is this the height of sophisticated humour? Obviously not. But there is no question about it: people are amused, at least a little bit, when they notice a rude word on a public sign. Why else would the internet be littered with remarks from giggling tourists reporting back from the Newfoundland town of Dildo, the Connecticut address of Mianus, or any of the four different places actually called Anus (take your pick from the one in France, the one in Indonesia, or the two in the Philippines)?
Yet last month an attempt to capitalise on tourist sniggers ended in anger and angst. On March 6, Ace Car Rentals erected the billboard pictured above in Parnell, Auckland. Three weeks later the sign was taken down after Ace received a sternly disapproving email from the Maori Language Commission. %26quot;The presence of this billboard proves that in some sectors of New Zealand society, ignorance and lack of regard for Maori language persist,%26quot; commission CEO Huhana Rokx said in a statement.
The commission was formed in 1987 under the act that made New Zealand officially a bilingual nation and one of its goals is to see %26quot;all New Zealanders value reo Maori%26quot;, so it was almost obliged to take offence. But was the sign really that bad? The joke is hardly a new one. Australian chat show host Rove McManus made great play of the whaka/f***er homonym in a 2005 promo skit for his show and he got away with it. Had New Zealanders in general, and Maori in particular, been upset by it, or was the sign in fact %26quot;whaking hilarious%26quot;, as one online wit insisted? (And should our sub editors be changing that to %26quot;wh**ing?)
Marc Wilson is a Victoria University psychology professor with a particular interest in pulling jokes apart and inspecting their entrails and he deems the whaka billboard funny, at least to the extent that it conforms to the classic %26quot;AAB%26quot; structure that underlies many puns (and much music, as it happens).
%26quot;You have at least two As the repetition of something you expect. Then you get a reversal with the B. That%26#39;s exactly what you%26#39;ve got here: three standard terms [Whakamaru, Whakatane and Whakamoa] and then the reversal `rent a car so you can visit any whaka%26#39;.%26quot;
The gag works, says Wilson, because of the lack of expectation of what comes next. We resolve our surprise by laughing. First at ourselves %26quot;for not getting it immediately%26quot; then at the pun itself. (Clearly jokes, like lab animals, are never quite the same after a dissection.)
But psychological analysis also helps explain why the billboard could be seen as offensive, says Wilson. There may be no derogatory comment in the Ace Car Rentals billboard, but associating a taboo English word with a prefix that is clearly Maori is a form of disrespect.
It was Freud, no less, who said jokes reflect our unconscious. So assuming it was a member of the Pakeha majority group that came up with the joke, %26quot;it%26#39;s an expression of the unconscious relationships between the majority and the minority groups. It serves to emphasise,%26quot; says Wilson, %26quot;who is boss%26quot;.
OK, enough theory. Did Wilson actually find the thing funny?
%26quot;If I saw that I would smile.%26quot;
Jim Mather, CEO of Maori Television, didn%26#39;t smile. The billboard wasn%26#39;t exactly offensive, but it was %26quot;quite unwise%26quot;. %26quot;I was intrigued to learn that the person who initiated the idea was a new migrant to New Zealand. Most liberal, reasonable, clear-thinking New Zealanders would find it inappropriate, as I and many others do.
%26quot;Maori people are prepared to the humour in most things,%26quot; Mather says. %26quot;We%26#39;re not a conservative and very serious type of people. If [the billboard] was genuinely humorous we%26#39;d see the humorous side of it, but it%26#39;s not particularly clever or smart.%26quot;
Billy T James, whose old shows are regularly repeated on Maori TV, liked to make fun of his people%26#39;s language but if he were alive he wouldn%26#39;t go near a joke like this, says Mather, even now that the f-word has lost its power to shock on television. Mather doesn%26#39;t think that even the relatively foul-mouthed Mike King would go there.
%26quot;There are some things that you recognise as an area you should endeavour not to belittle.%26quot;
Mather may be right, but it%26#39;s difficult to argue that Billy T James was showing te reo much respect with a 1980s sketch in which he plays a black-singleted, giggling newsreader. %26quot;Cops in Auckland are on the lookout for a man believed to be masquerading as a Maori language teacher,%26quot; reads James haltingly. %26quot;One of his students became suspicious when he told her the Maori word for food was takeaway… kotanga was Maori for car aerial.%26quot; Ho ho.
On the other hand, what about this line from the same sketch? %26quot;[Police minister Ben Couch] was asked if he used witty repartee in his speechmaking. He went on to say no, but I have read some of his poems.%26quot; Is that respectful of the esteemed poet Mr Ihimaera and his language, disrespectful, or just, you know, funny?
Remember, says modern-day Maori comedian Pio Terei, that James was doing this stuff almost 30 years ago.
%26quot;It%26#39;s like smoking in the pub you could do it then but you can%26#39;t do it now, because we%26#39;ve got brains now. I think we%26#39;ve matured. I never met Billy, but I%26#39;m one of his biggest fans. I never found Billy offensive at the time but I was a bit dumber at the time too. It wouldn%26#39;t work now.%26quot;
Certainly the humour at the expense of Maori language has a murky past, long before Billy T James began playing with Maori stereotypes.
From the 1890s to the 1920s, %26quot;there was a type of humour which made fun of the rural way of Maori speaking,%26quot; says Wellington historian Nigel Murphy. An antipodean version of the comic Irishman popular in England, it reflected prevailing Pakeha perceptions of the natives as childlike and simple, what historian Keith Sinclair called the %26quot;py korry, I te plurry fine fella eh!%26quot; school of humour.
In the context of historical racism, says Murphy, making fun of Maori language is %26quot;probably not a good idea%26quot;.
IN THE babble of talkback and blogging that followed the dismantling of the whaka billboard, one surprising argument was advanced. What if that pun really represented a maturing of New Zealand bilingualism and race relations rather than a backwards step?
%26quot;These plays on words are a way to show young Maori that these words are cool and should be embraced,%26quot; one listeneremailed to John Tamihere and Willie Jackson%26#39;s argumentative Radio Live show last Monday.
Just so, said Tamihere. %26quot;Precious people%26quot; were causing unnecessary fuss just when mainstream advertisers %26quot;were using the Maori language for the first time%26quot;.
Jackson disagreed vehemently. Tamihere, he said, was talking like a %26quot;colonised%26quot; Maori. Using te reo in advertising is absolutely fine, said Jackson, but not when you%26#39;re linking it with with profanity.
Pio Terei isn%26#39;t buying this Pollyanna version either. %26quot;I love this country; I love the people, but don%26#39;t tell me we%26#39;re at that stage of cultural comfort yet, because that%26#39;s bullshit.%26quot;
In a perfect world, says Terei, there might come a time when you could make a joke like this one and put it in the public arena %26quot;and it won%26#39;t be as offensive to as many people, because there%26#39;s no underlying scab%26quot;. We%26#39;re not there yet.
The whaka billboard was clever, says Terei, but he wasn%26#39;t laughing. It wouldn%26#39;t have bothered him to hear the gag from a mate, or in a small social setting, but not in huge letters over a busy road.
%26quot;So many people have struggled to get our language into the mainstream and the next minute we see it up on a billboard used in that sense which I thought was clever, but you wouldn%26#39;t get me signing it off.%26quot;
XXX MARKS THE SPOT
WHO KNEW geography could be such a risque pursuit? A quick survey of a world atlas reveals a surprising number of dubious, strange or outright obscene placenames.
The winner for sheer shock value has to be the Austrian village of F***ing, where the local council has been obliged to spend a ruinously large proportion of its budget replacing road signs stolen by tourists, or planting them in ever-stronger concrete. The name has been around since the 11th century, and means %26quot;the place of Focko%26#39;s people%26quot;, Focko being a local family name.
The US has a staggeringly large number of curious placenames. Johnny Knoxville of the relentlessly puerile TV stunt show Jackass spent one episode wandering around the small Connecticut town of Mianus, asking passersby clever questions along the lines of %26quot;Is Mianus a big place?%26quot; or noting that %26quot;There%26#39;s a big red truck in Mianus!%26quot; Another US highlight is Intercourse, Pennsylvania (just 15 minutes away from the town of Blue Ball, apparently).
And it%26#39;s not all rude words. There are clean laughs to be had by visiting the west German city of Killing or the Scottish town of Dull. And once again, in the US you%26#39;re spoilt for choice: welcome to Hell, Michigan; Accident; Maryland; Bland, Missouri; Boring, Oregon and the grandly-named Chicken, Alaska.
