From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmake a joke (out) of somethingmake a joke (out) of somethingJOKEto treat something serious as if it was intended to be funny He could not bring himself to apologise. Instead, he tried to make a joke of it. → joke
Examples from the Corpus
make a joke (out) of something• My mother always makes a joke of everything.• I'd made a joke of it.• He makes a joke of the injury because, at 59, it is an inconvenience rather than a disaster.• You had your own reasons for making the call, and why not make a joke out of it?• That readiness to make a joke of life had been temporarily eclipsed.• We made a joke of it, the way Charles always came loaded with books on some new subject. 