I avoided adding ‘man’ to the end in the belief that not everyone from the Caribbean says it after everything they say. I kept the Rastafarian hat because comedy requires recognisability. It’s a tricky line, trying to walk between ‘recognition’ and ‘stereotyping’ in jokes: you need people to know what you’re talking about quickly otherwise the joke won’t work, but you don’t want to be a racist idiot painting the whole world in primary colours: Japanese people are all good with computers! Chinese people are all short and know kung fu! Caribbean people all smoke pot and say ‘man’ after everything! English people are terribly polite and have bad teeth! Germans are all very efficient! Belgians are boring! French women don’t shave their armpits! Tee hee. Hmm.
It’s tough trying to work out where ‘useful shorthand’ stops and national/racial/ethnic stereotyping begins.
So… That was a far more in-depth discussion of my thought-processes while writing than was really necessary for such a silly pun. See you Friday!
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