Making Light of a Bad Situation...

It's a human trait and something which inspired the naming of this blog. Over this month, we've seen a crisis in Libya, with pro-Gaddafi and rebel forces clashing and a huge tsunami has swept a stretch of Japanese coastline off the maps. Immediately following this, nuclear disaster loomed at one of the Japanese power plants. For many people around the globe its a time to reflect on the fragile nature of life.

So far, this years tsunami has already claimed thousands of lives.

For some of us that means mourning but for others, it means it's time to find the 'sickest' joke we can and share it between our friends.

Black humour has long been a passion of the English: more so in recent times with comedians like Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr providing some of the most disturbingly wonderful jokes around within a short period of a particularly 'bad' thing being bought to light. But is this a bad thing? There are obviously a lot of complaints about black humour, especially when the jokes are heard by people who are affected by the disaster but there is obviously a culture surrounding the telling of these jokes because they become so popular so quickly.

So, does this make us all a nation of sickos?

No.

People deal with horrible things in various ways. Some people break down and cry, some become reclusive, some people remember and others laugh. It's human nature that we all deal with problems in different ways. Not every person is going to show compassion about a bad event as not everyone is comfortable showing their emotions to other people. If anything, ignoring something, not making comment, not bringing it up, is worse than making fun of it. At least making fun of an event shows that it is on their minds; that people are thinking about it and how it is impacting those unfortunate enough to be affected by it. Humour is also a way of distancing yourself from something and making it seem like it's not quite as real.

When I was in the police I heard various stories of the bereavement officers (the guys who had to tell a member of the public that their loved ones have died) walking up to the front door of a family of the deceased and burst out with laughter just before they knocked on to give the bad news. Bad things do unusual things to people.

Using the police as another example, I recall a time when I entered a house where a man had committed suicide; hanging himself from the rafters in the loft. His family was downstairs and rightly distraught at the news of their sons demise and me and my trainer at that time walked up to see the body. It obviously had the potential to be a fairly upsetting moment and seeing this, my trainer said something unusual, and hilarious.

When we entered the loft, SOCO (scenes of crime officers) were already up there taking photos and getting evidence from where the body had been cut down. We just stood, looking at the body and then did a quick circuit of the room in silence. My trainer then said.

"You know why he killed himself don't you?"

"No," I replied.

He sighed before saying, "Just look at the wallpaper."

The wallpaper in the loft was a horrendous 1970's design which was peeling off parts of the walls. I had to try to stop myself from laughing, lest the family in the room below hear me. Was I laughing out of disrespect? No. Was I laughing at the body? No. I was laughing because it made the situation less awkward, less real. It's the way people deal with these things.

Obviously, following the tsunami in Japan, people are already coming up with jokes and websites such as Sickipedia are bursting with classics such as: "I don't know why we're giving so much aid to Japan. I've just seen a news report and there was a man with two boats in his front lawn. He must be wealthy." That joke was something I received from a close friend in the same day as the tsunami. That's how quick humour travels.

I hate feeling like I have to openly show remorse for an event. I hear it all the time in supermarkets when an elderly couple discuss such things with a tone of complete indifference.

"Oh, isn't is terrible what's happened in Japan, isn't it?"

"Yeah, all those poor people"

"Yeah... terrible... Grab the Corn Flakes, it's buy one get one free. Have you heard Noreen is getting a new hip?"

 Corn Flakes solve all of life's problems...

Is that really a better way to remember a bad event? To mention it with fake remorse and then pretend it never happened? I actually loathe when people do this, almost as much as I loathe people who claim that something 'offends' them when really they couldn't give two shits.

Someone once said to me a particular album I owned had an 'offensive' cover. It wasn't anything bad, like a child being molested by the Jolly Green Giant, it was just a series of painted figures that morphed into each other and looked like something from John Carpenter's The Thing. It wasn't exactly beautiful, but it wasn't 'offensive'. Indeed, if this was the most offensive thing that person had ever seen then he must have led a very sheltered existence.

Obviously what happened in Japan is bad, obviously the deaths in Libya are terrible. Do we need to force ourselves to feel remorse just because we are expected to? I say no. I say we remember the events in our own way, even if it's with laughter.