When it comes to having a laugh about someone’s mother, a certain level of insult and humiliation is almost always inevitable. Even though by now we are accustomed to hearing Yo Mama jokes on television or even encounter them on a regular basis in our everyday lives, there is still something offensive about them, especially if they’re regarding to your own mother! Remember how we all sympathized with Sherman in “The Nutty Professor” when that comedian guy Reggie started getting a bit too personal? Thankfully Buddy Love sure showed him the next time! Certain lines should never be crossed.
Well, seeing the Buddy versus Reggie rivalry, one might naturally assume that this type of joking is the standard comic expression of African-Americans; however, even if it used to be, this is not the general truth anymore. People and cultures around the world have implemented maternal insults throughout jokes in their own variations: the Spanish use them through rhymes, Greeks insinuate incest, and this has been transferred all the way to China.
Ancient Babylonians were actually the first documented nation to have used this joke. Archaeologists have discovered a tablet inscribed with letters referring to somebody’s mother, however it’s nearly impossible to translate it correctly, since it has lost so much during translation. It may have been the best yo mama joke ever, but we’ll probably never know. Shakespeare also used this type of humor in his plays during the middle ages, but it wasn’t actually until the age of slavery that these jokes became commonly used. And there’s an interesting story related to this too.
When slave trading was at its peak during the 18-th century, one of the most humiliating forms of it were the so-called dozens. These were twelve of the “poorest quality” of people, usually physically and mentally disabled and they were auctioned to their future owners for ridiculously low prices. Therefore, the dozens were an inspiration to their own people for starting a game of the same name, when two participants would insult each other in front of an audience until one of them finally gives up, having nothing more to say to their opponent. Jokes and insults regarding incestuous mothers were especially the most used ones.
Fast forward to the 1990’s and we come to the blooming era of hip hop and rap whose lyrics were rich in “yo mama” connotations. Add the popularity of television sitcoms during that time and you have a winning combination for creating a culture of youngsters that will accept this sense of humor and implement it into their own verbal communication. These young people are now adults that find these sayings more like jokes, rather than insults.
Depending on the dialect used in different places, nowadays you can hear numerous variations of the same puns. The person telling the joke doesn’t even have to know the real mother of the one they’re talking with, but this “mama” is usually an imaginary person that’s obese, of low intelligence, or poor. Or all of these combined together. The phrase does go back a long time (which we have to remember with respect), but it is nice to know that people don’t seem to find it so serious anymore. At least something good has come out of all this internationalization/globalization, many things are now accepted without the usual stereotypes.
