Tag Archives: Jussie Smollett

Joke About Jussie Smollett

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The joke:

Actor Jussie Smollett faces new charges of lying to the police about being attacked. Apparently for Valentine’s Day, he told the police he was shot with an arrow by a chubby little guy with wings and a diaper.

How I wrote it:

In Touch Weekly reprinted this joke in its March 9, 2020, edition (see below).

I wanted to write about this news item because it was the latest chapter in a story that’s gotten a lot of attention. Plus celebrities who have gotten themselves into trouble usually make good subjects for jokes.

I started with my Punch Line Maker #3, asking myself, “Who else could Jussie Smollett claim to have been attacked by?” Because I think most people by now believe that he invented that original story about being attacked by two guys, I tried to come up with a new attacker who was even more obviously invented.

My brainstorming turned toward what else was happening in the world. Valentine’s Day was approaching, so I thought of Cupid and his arrows. And I had my imaginary attacker.

I didn’t want to violate my Joke Maximizer #11–Don’t be too on-the-nose–by ending the joke something like this: “Apparently for Valentine’s Day, he told the police he was shot by Cupid.”

So instead, for the punch line I wrote a description of Cupid that was phrased the way Smollett might have described his previous supposed attackers to the police: what they did, details of what they looked like, and so on.

To telegraph the punch line as little as possible, I put the most revealing details–“wings and a diaper”–at the very end. I ended on “diaper” because its two stop consonants make it a little funnier.

Joke About Jussie Smollett

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The joke:

Jussie Smollett did not win Best Supporting Actor at the NAACP Image Awards. On the plus side, the story about his attack did win an Imaginary Award.

How I wrote it:

I picked this topic to write a joke about because the mass media are still covering the Jussie Smollett controversy enthusiastically. That’s a good indication that a mass audience would enjoy a joke on the topic; if a topic is uninteresting, people are less likely to pay attention to a joke about it and therefore less likely to laugh.

Once I had the topic, I identified two handles in it: “Jussie Smollett” and “NAACP.” Interesting associations of Jussie Smollett that I thought most people would agree with were things like “hoax” and “scam.”

So I wanted to use Punch Line Maker #1–Link two associations of the topic–by coming up with an alternate meaning for the initials NAACP that says “hoax.” That way I could finish the joke something like this: “But he did win a big award from that other NAACP, the [INSERT HOAXY MEANING HERE].” But after thinking about it for a minute or so I couldn’t come up with a good way to fill in the blank.

Then I turned my attention to a different topic handle, “Image Awards.” It occurred to me that “image” sounds kind of like “imaginary,” which is associated with “hoax.” That insight allowed me to use Punch Line Maker #4–“Find a play on words in the topic”–to link Jussie Smollett to the Image Awards in a surprising way and, I hoped, get a laugh.