A Joke?

by Global Photographics, under CC A-SA 2.0

 

The other day a friend of mine told me this joke:

“what do you call five gay guys walking in a straight line? One Direction”

I sort of giggled along with everyone else who was laughing, but I have no idea why this is funny. I have since seen this written on a number of parts of the internet and a lot of people always reply with ‘lol’. Again, I don’t know why.

Why is this funny?

I’m not a big One Direction fan, so I had to do a little research and it seems that none of the members of the group are gay. Of course, they could be but not ready to come out publicly yet, but until they do we can all run with the assumption that they are heterosexual.

Is that they the joke is funny, because they aren’t gay? Is it like the times when I’m reading a book and someone asks what I’m doing, so I reply “playing the banjo”? Personally, I think it’s more sarcastic and a bit rude but it’s also kind of funny.

Or is it a joke because they could be gay? Like, ‘ha ha you are a homosexual’? The person who told me the joke would never mock another because of their sexuality so I don’t think that’s the reason, but it could be why others find it amusing.

I also think it could be funny because they might be gay. But then again, is this the best way of showing support to young men? “You could be gay and that’s funny”? While people tend to call men in boy bands gay*, the only ‘out’ member of a boy band that I know of was Stephen Gately from Boyzone. I don’t think mockery is the best way to assist someone in coming out; “I think you’re gay and that’s okay so I’m going to laugh at you about it until you come out”... Hmm no I don’t think that will work.

I think this ‘joke’ tends to be leaning on the side of mocking these men because of their assumed homosexuality and that’s not cool. Gay or straight, what does it matter?

Can someone explain to me why this joke is funny? If you can, please leave a comment here or @ reply me on Twitter.

Thanks,

Kathy

*I think people call members of boy bands gay because they are men who spend a lot of time together but no one calls football/soccer/rugby/gridiron players gay and they spend just as much time around each other.

Themes: One Direction, homosexuality, gay jokes, not funny, Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Zayne Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Larry Stylinson