I Funny: A Middle School Story

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of bullying, ableism, and derogatory attitudes toward people with disabilities.

Jamie’s main skill is his ability to make people laugh, and he uses this skill in creative ways that carry a mix of subtle and direct humor. Jamie frequently employs humor as a coping mechanism, using sarcasm, knock-knock jokes, body language, props, and everyday observations to protect himself and others from bullying and to disengage from the harassment of unsympathetic people like Stevie. In many ways, comedy serves as Jamie’s weapon against the world’s hardships; he uses humor to survive his grief and isolation after his life-changing injury and the deaths of parents and sister. Whenever he encounters a new problem, he solves it with the power of laughter.

Jamie experiences bullying when people lack empathy for the challenges that come with his disability. Additionally, Jamie’s primary bully, Stevie, torments him out of jealousy for his creativity and intelligence. Jamie jokes about this unfortunate reality and notes the irony of the school’s omnipresent anti-bullying posters when he wryly remarks, “[O]nly one problem: Bullies, it turns out, don’t read too much” (18).