Ironic

I dunno.  People react to crises in a whole smorgasbord of ways, including humour.  It's a means of coping with horrible things by taking away their power to hurt us through belittling them, making them objects of jest.  I'm not saying it's right, only that it's understandable.

For those of you who know who Ed Gein is (cannibal killer who wore the skins of his victims in an attempt to recreate his dead mother, basis for "Psycho", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Silence Of The Lambs" ), it might surprise you to know that the people of Plainfield, Wisconsin (Gein's hometown and the quiet rural area in which he committed his crimes) reacted by coming up with hundreds of cheesy puns about ol' Ed and his proclivities.  Keep in mind that these are people who had lost friends and family to possibly the most fucked-up serial killer (since Fish, at least), and they were able to make jokes about it.

"The Producers", "The Great Dictator" and especially "Life Is Beautiful" (although I'm not as gaga about that movie as the rest of the world seems to be) are essentially about using laughter as a means of coping with the worst crime of the century, the Holocaust.

(Edited by Inertia at 10:58 am on Sep. 17, 2001)