Clinton Jokes: Not Over Till The Punchline

by Alan Dundes

Zippergate produced a lot of material for pundits, late-night comics, and the folk. The folk, used to relying on "dirty" jokes to manage its day-to-day sexual anxieties and ever wont to pass its own unalloyed, uncensored judgment on disasters and scandals, took to this farce in bold fashion. At one level, the President's escapades mirrored the folk's fantasies of high jinks in high places and, at another, Slick Willy's mischief threatened the folk's need to feel safe and protected by a father who would be above all such mundane messiness. Much of the folk's output took the traditional form of orally transmitted joking questions, but much was also communicated by the new forms: e-mail, fax, and the Internet.

Celebrities and especially heinous crimes have long been fair game for the caustic wit of the folk:

Why did Woody Allen have to marry Soon Yi?

He found out she was pregnant and carrying his next wife.

Do you know what the real verdict was in the O. J. trial?

Not Guilty, but don't do it again!

Despite the lack of longevity of such piquant ephemerata, their widespread diffusion in the immediate aftermath of the public revelation of Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky constituted a powerful epiphenomenon serving, no doubt, to exacerbate and at the same time relieve the shock and initial disbelief felt by the general public. The folk pulled no punches, and many of the one-liners combined bad puns with bad taste. Other texts utilized the narrative-joke form common to folk humor. Most of the Clinton-cycle jokes are short riddling questions; some simply refer to Clinton's apparent penchant for extramarital adventures:

In a survey of American women, when asked, "Would you sleep with

President Clinton," 86% replied, "Not again..."

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Alan Dundes is Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at UC-Berkeley. Ten years ago he analyzed AIDS jokes in ZYZZYVA 20; five years ago, he considered O.J. jokes in ZYZZYVA 40. His most recent book is Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD).