from the Nilsens

1. Arizona, POLITICS, AND HUMOR
By Alleen Pace Nilsen
And Don L. F. Nilsen
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2. 2
• We won’t define Arizona because you can just look around you
(NOTE: This PowerPoint is prepared for an Arizona audience).
• But politics is a more complicated word. It is cognate with such
terms as:
POLICE POLITE POLICY
METROPOLITAN and even MINNEAPOLIS.
• It goes back to the 1500s in Latin, Greek, and French, and was
soon borrowed into English.
• Its usage grew along with the growth of cities and the need for
groups of people to figure out how to get along with each other.

3. Humor is even more complicated because
what brings pleasure to one person may either
irritate, bore, or offend someone else.
Common characteristics include:
SURPRISE and INCONGRUITY resolution,
EXAGGERATION in words and pictures,
The unexpected RECYCLING of old symbols,
Clever expressions of SUPERIORITY,
NOSTALGIA, as in Tragedy + Time = Humor, and
IN-BONDING vs. OUT-BONDING
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4. In the recent Super Bowl game in Arizona,
spectators both laughed and gasped at the surprise of
Jermaine Kearse’s “Amazing Catch.”
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5. The half-time show was also full of
surprises and incongruities.
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6. The biggest surprise of all came in the
closing seconds.
• People are still laughing about how the Seahawks
decided to pass rather than run from the one-yard line.
The pass was intercepted by rookie Malcolm Butler.
• On his Monday night TV show, Jimmy Kimmel remarked
that Coach Pete Carroll’s decision…
• “Was the worst decision to come out of Arizona since
John McCain chose Sarah Palin for his running mate.”
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7. There were many different kinds of surprises in
the Super Bowl Commercials.
The Mercedes Benz commercial did a re-telling
of the old story of the race between the hare
and the tortoise.
In this one, the tortoise, of course, started out
slow, but then he got a Mercedes Benz and of
course won the race.
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8. This
commercial
showed how
much people
like to recycle
well-known
symbols.
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9. For example, the Wizard of Oz has provided
cartoonists with unlimited possibilities.
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10. Rosie the
Riveter
A restaurant in
Scottsdale
proudly displays
this poster from
World War II.
We’ve seen
women smile as
they notice it.
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11. In 1966, President Lyndon
Johnson surprised a press
conference by showing
reporters his scar from gall
bladder surgery.
Cartoonist David
Levine drew the scar
in the shape of
Vietnam as a subtle
way to say that
President Johnson’s
lasting scar would
be the Vietnam war.
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12. These visual comparisons amused not
only Arizonans but everyone.
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13. The humor comes from how quickly
our minds spot the similarities
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16. Frontier Exaggerationis part of our Arizona heritage:
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17. SOME ACTUAL FACTS ARE STRANGER THAN
FICTION.
FACT
• Phoenix’s first “paved road”
was made from upside-down
beer bottles set in sand.
• In 1857-58, a “hump-dinger”
idea, brought camels to haul
freight across Arizona deserts.
• In 1857, stagecoach
passengers on “The Jackass
Mail” had to get off and ride
mules for part of the way—
and sometimes even push the
coach.
FICTION
• Cowboy Pecos Bill and Slue-
Foot Sue are Southwest folk
heroes.
• Mark Twain described our
“Dry Heat” as a constant 120
degrees in the shade except
when it varies and goes
higher.
• Kit Carson testified in
Congress that parts of Arizona
are so dry that even a wolf
can’t survive.
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18. Once a place or a person gets a reputation, journalists
work hard to build on it.
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19. Grumpy Cat (John Boehner) is Arizona’s
contribution to this photo-shopped image.
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20. These examples of Arizona history are now viewed
nostalgically—almost as humor.
• In 1886, one-fifth of the entire U. S. Army was in Arizona
Territory rounding up Geronimo and his Apache fighters.
Today, Geronimo’s name is recognized around the world as a
cry of bravery.
• The mayor of Jerome sadly observed that his town was “A
City on the Move—But Always Downhill.”
• People in Tucson claim their citizens are basically smarter
because they chose to come to Tucson, while people in the
Phoenix Valley were on their way to California, but when
their cars broke down, they had to stay.
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21. Frontier life forcedcreativity as shown in stories we collected
from Arizona teachers in 1985.
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22. THE TEACHERS HAD TO BE CREATIVE
• Ann Nolan Clark and “Three Little Sheeps.”
• Their “school houses” were unusual, e.g. the jail
in Yuma and the slanted auditorium in St. Johns.
• Joel Benedict and his outdoor movies run from
his car’s generator.
• Four years for the price of two in Mayer.
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23. People on their way to California gave named such places as
Booze Crossing, Hookers Hot Springs, Skull Valley, Boneyard, and Del
Muerto. In contrast, settlers chose such place names as Paradise
Valley, Carefree, Phoenix, Sun City, and Inspiration.
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24. Arizona’s first humor paper (1917) was a
mimeographed freebie given to travelers.
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25. Hall used self-deprecating humor, increasing
competition between Arizona and California.
• For example, he told about a girl who ran out of
money so she traded her wig for gas because
she would rather be bald in California than have
enough hair to stuff a mattress in Arizona.
• He also explained that our rivers were just like
anybody else’s except they were upside down—
”sand on the top, water underneath—probably
to keep from getting sunburned.”
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26. Minor hostilities were often expressed through
barbs, so “barbed wire” is both a real and a joking
kind of western protection.
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27. AN EXAMPLE OF TWO CURRENT BARBS
WITH HISTORICAL ROOTS:
• One of our students worked in a tourist shop and
when the employees were discussing how they
should dress for Halloween, a man jokingly suggested
to a Native American woman that she could stick a
feather in her hair and come as an Indian.
• She retorted: “And you could stick a feather in your
ass and come as a turkey!”
Such playfulness was acceptable because everyone
knew they were friends; it would have been very
uncomfortable if people thought the hostility was real.
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28. Nevertheless, we often use group identification
for humor as in this sign grouping Senators
with Nascar drivers.
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29. A sign posted
outside the ASU
Honors College
was meant to
encourage students
to join fraternities.
However, our smart
students rejected
the idea by pointing
out that they
wouldn’t want to be
part of something
with only an 18%
approval rating.
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30. Even before statehood, arizona’s women playeda role.
In 1907, the U. S. Senate was going to admit New Mexico (with
Arizona included) as one state.
Sharlot Hall, an educated young woman from Prescott,
protested with an eight-stanza poem published in the Arizona
Republic and delivered to every member of Congress. She also
wrote a 64-page article, published in Out West, explaining why
Arizona deserved to be its own state.
Not everyone approved of such a politically involved,
unmarried woman. A newspaper in Agua Fria referred to her
as “Miss Harlot Shawl,” and then blamed it on a “typo.”
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31. In honor of her help in the campaign to keep Arizona a
separate state, she was asked to be Arizona’s
representative at President Cleveland’s inauguration.
She was also appointed our first State Historian.
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32. Carl Hayden, born in 1877 at Hayden’s Ferry (see the
painting which used to hang in Monti’s Tempe
restaurant) spent 56 consecutive years representing
Arizona in Congress.
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• He was known as the
“Silent Senator,” but he
had a wry sense of
humor.
• Before being elected to
Congress, Hayden
served as Maricopa
County Sheriff, and
used his gun only once.

33. • He has told about his experience as Sheriff, when he had a
run-in with a local Indian Chief who had four wives.
• One of Hayden’s favorite stories was about an old Chief who
came to see him in Washington, and as he was leaving,
warned “Be careful about your immigration policies. We
weren’t!”
• When campaigning, Hayden never mentioned a competitor’s
name. However, in 1912 he used California newspaper
headlines complaining about his dirty tricks re. the
California/Arizona fight over Colorado River water to make
his campaign posters.
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Hayden Knew When to Keep Still

34. Four Students from Carl Hayden
Community High School
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35. Barry Goldwater was Arizona’s Senator from
1953-65 and again in 1969-87
Goldwater was never as funny as was his contemporary, Morris
Udall, but he had a dignified way of telling stories, e.g. the one
about his brother at an eastern golf club.
• Goldwater and Udall cooperated on a joke saying
that “Only in Arizona have mothers stopped telling
their sons that they can grow up to be president.”
• In 2008, Governor Napolitano extended the joke by
saying, “Barry Goldwater ran for president and lost,
Morris Udall ran for president and lost, now John
McCain is running for president and I hope he keeps
this great Arizona tradition going.”
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36. Prize-Winning Cartoonist Reg Manning was
nationally syndicated between 1948-71
Manning worked for the AZ.
Republic FROM 1926 until 1986.
He treated both local and
national political issues.
• He signed his drawings
with a stubby, smiling
cactus next to his name.
• His most famous character
was Uno Who, representing
each one of us.
• He helped bring Arizona
onto the national stage.
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37. • Leavens the public
dialogue.
• Invigorates the body
politic.
• Uplifts the national spirit.
• Works as a bridge in
bringing a diverse society
closer together.
• Helps individuals roll with
the punches.
• Is an antidote to self-
importance.
In his 1988 Too Funny To be President, Udall defended
humor as necessary to the health of our political
discourse and our private lives because it:
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38. Erma Bombeck (who moved to Arizona in the
early 1970s) wrote the preface to
Udall’s book Too Funny to Be President.
She complained about the night she had to follow Udall and
Goldwater when speaking at a banquet. .
I told myself that night that politicians had access to
all the funny material: failing economy, nuclear waste
dumps, vanishing natural resources . . . . My God, if
you couldn’t get a laugh out of all that, you weren’t
even trying. . . . I even rationalized that the audience
was just being respectful to two politicians with
handicaps: A congressman with one eye and a senator
with one point of view.
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39. Such nationally known figures as Morris Udall, Reg Manning, and
Erma Bombeck gave the world a positive view of Arizona and its
political humor, but then in the 1980s, the mood changed when the
world joined Arizonans in ridiculing our newly elected Governor,
Evan Mecham. (See the printed examples.)
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40. Contributing Factors to the Mecham Jokes
1. Mecham was elected in a three-way split so
he did not get a majority of the vote.
2. “Political Correctness” had just become
fashionable and people were relieved to
have an “acceptable” target—a rich, white
man—for their jokes.
3. Arizona has a law that elected officials can’t
be impeached until six months have passed.
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41. The MICH Theory of Humor
Moderate Intergroup Conflict Humor
• The idea of this theory is that people feel
inspired to make jokes only when they feel
tension.
• However if the tension is really high, people
would rather fight than joke.
• Also, it doesn’t take long for listeners to
recognize “hate speech” even if it is disguised
as a clever riddle or a pun.
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42. A change today is that more women are getting into
politics and they tend to be “more gentle” as with
Laurie Roberts’ campaign to “De-Kook” the capitol.
• In the 1980s, feminists
developed the concept
of “Humane Humor
Rules.”
• One is that you don’t
make fun of things that
people cannot change.
• Another is that you
build on people’s
successes—rather than
their failures.
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43. Additional Humane Humor Rules
1. Some scholars praise humor as a “great social corrective.”
But it’s best to target yourself and your own ethnic group or
gender because this is where you have some power to bring
about change.
2. Never target someone who is already a victim.
3. Also, it’s good to target a strength so that it empowers
rather than humiliates whoever you are joking about.
4. And if you are going to joke about a tragedy, be sure there
is spatial, temporal, and psychological distance so that you
are not sending up a “red flag” message.
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44. As shown by this quilt-covered military tank, women
are also creating a different kind of humor called
“yarn bombing.”
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45. A women’s knitting
group created
homemade uteruses and
sent one to each Arizona
GOP lawmaker with a
message to the effect
that “Here is a uterus for
you to play with. Now
keep your hands off
mine.”
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Here is a local example of “yarn
bombing” from April of 2012.

46. In conclusion, here is the Valley of the
Sun’s most famous icon:
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