Abstract
Writing a book review about humour presents a difficult task. Readers will no doubt expect something funny and will feel let down when their expectations are not met. Why this should be is unclear. After all, as Davis (1993: 4) points out, ‘no one complains when a scientific analysis of sex fails to arouse its readers (and some complain when it does)’.
One solution may be to write the review as a limerick: People who find judges humorous Can hardly be said to be numerous Full of verbosity Puffed up pomposity And much too far stuck up their gravitas. . .
[That’s enough scatological material – Ed.]
The aim of this book is to ‘illuminate the many ways humour and the judiciary intersect’ in order to ‘unite the seriousness of the work of the judiciary on the one hand with the lightheartedness of humour on the other’ (p. 2). A modest aim, perhaps, but one that perpetuates a sense that humour is trivial (while the legal profession is serious). A binary that cries out to be overturned. Humour is not always lighthearted indeed it rarely is, or at least it is never just this (while the absurdity of the judiciary is all too apparent). Humour does important things but the way it does it is through persuading us otherwise, that is part of the joke. The job of the sociologist is to unravel the situation comedy that is the human condition in order to illuminate what it is that humour is doing in social situations and this is what this book attempts to do for the legal profession and particularly the judiciary.
The book is divided into three sections: Humour about judges; Judges’ use of humour in the courtroom; and Judicial decisions about humour. The first focuses on the position of the judiciary in the social fabric, as revealed through jokes about judges and the portrayal of the judiciary in literature and on the stage. Jessica Milner Davis presents a scholarly chapter on the comic tradition in European theatre, while Mike Galanter and Christie Davies focus on humour by and about judges respectively. Notable here is Christie Davies’ suggestion that a paucity of jokes about judges in the UK, is because in the UK judges are ‘known not to be corrupt’ (p. 43). I find this an extraordinary claim given that Davies is clearly familiar with the Gilbert and Sullivan satire, Trial by Jury, which mercilessly pillories the judiciary and its corruptness. Indeed, satirical attacks on the judiciary are a common feature of English literature – who can forget the trial scene in Pickwick Papers, for example? In a more contemporary vein, the neglect here of the famous Peter Cook ‘biased judge sketch’ written as a satire on the Jeremy Thorpe/Norman Scott trial judge’s notorious summing up is unforgiveable. (This is available on YouTube and is worth watching.)
As a sociologist who has studied humour, I was particularly interested in the second section, Judges’ use of humour in the courtroom and the question of who can ‘do’ humour in this setting. This is most effectively addressed by Sharyn Roach Anleu and Cathy Mack in their piece ‘Judicial humour and inter-professional relations in the courtroom’. This is an important question and one that relates not only to the judiciary but other professions relying on a high degree of performance – teaching and the priesthood come to mind. The authors draw on empirical evidence to explore the connection between humour and hierarchy and particularly how humour is used to negotiate hierarchy. Clearly, some of this negotiation relates to the superiority theory, and the use of humour as a social corrective, but this is a complex area and on other occasions humour is used subtly to ‘do’ leadership and influence (Watson & Drew, 2017). Only through such close-grained analysis can the ways in which humour is used to influence and exert power be examined.
While humour is often trivialised as unimportant in the social sciences, it is an integral aspect of the human condition and hence deserves serious consideration. The workplace has provided a fruitful arena for the study of humour but it is unusual to devote an entire book to one field. This, of course, constitutes both a strength and a weakness. While it creates the opportunity for an in-depth look at humour and comedy in a single profession, it misses out on cross-comparison with other professions which would add to a sociology of humour in the workplace more broadly. As it is, I was left wondering quite who the reader of this book is intended to be.