Well, it isn't terribly funny, but it's not bad. Maybe it just seems odd to me because of some reversal - I think it woudl actually read better as a political joke (with the teacher, and Lucy, belonging to almost any opposed political strands), for some reason that strikes me as funnier. Or if the teacher were religious and the girl not, it would still be weak but IMO more true-to-life and hence wittier. For example, what if the teacher was Christian, and the little girl a Satanist [or indeed an atheist...] - then the agitation would make sense, becasue the religious teacher would fear for the child's soul, whereas few if any atheists, however liberal, would think it so worrying that the child was Xtian...
Plus the language is a little too polemical and preachy - 'obvious liberal tendencies', the teacher's agitation: why? It's told as a slur, rather than to be funny, and this weakens it. (likewise your comment on 'beautiful little girl'). These would stand as weaknesses whatever its viewpoint.
LOL, few atheists I know would be bothered by the beliefs of a small child... that seems to me to be very much a believer's trait, whether in politics or religion - can you think of a keen abstainer from voting being bothered which party the little girl might or might not follow, or whether she did or not?
So, it's not a hugely funny joke, mainly because the stereotypes don't work. But object to it? no. |
