News1 min ago
When is a joke too sick?
25 Answers
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1 285715,00.html
A comedian has been booed off stage for making a joke about missing Madeleine McCann and shooting victim Rhys Jones.
Dave Longley criticised the fact that photographs have been released of both children in Everton football tops.
Longley told the stunned audience at Liverpool's Baby Blue club that "you think parents would have learned about putting their children in Everton shirts after Maddie and Rhys".
The red-faced comic, who was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was booed off stage.
Was this wrong because it was two kids who are affected? Or was it just 'over sensitive' Liverpudlians?
A comedian has been booed off stage for making a joke about missing Madeleine McCann and shooting victim Rhys Jones.
Dave Longley criticised the fact that photographs have been released of both children in Everton football tops.
Longley told the stunned audience at Liverpool's Baby Blue club that "you think parents would have learned about putting their children in Everton shirts after Maddie and Rhys".
The red-faced comic, who was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was booed off stage.
Was this wrong because it was two kids who are affected? Or was it just 'over sensitive' Liverpudlians?
Answers
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I would have been shocked and not at all amused. But - remember when billy Connely made a joke about that hostage guy? people went mental, the same peopl who probably laugh at his jokes about Jesus/God/cathlic priests etc. It was very sad what happened to the hostage but more important than Jesus and God (not that I believe in them lol)
I think this is a really difficult question to answer, because I am not sure there are any hard and fast rules that are applicable in every situation. (Damn I have had to think rather than go into automatic rant mode).
Is it partly due to the intention of the jokesmith - ie to make someone laugh or to put someone down, most racist jokes are about putting someone down rather than trying to capture the humor of the situation, the relationship between joker and audience, ie jokes by Jewish people to Jewish people, if there is irony present due to the context such as the Tevor McDonald/Bernard Manning?
So if I come down to an opinion, I suppose that what in one context can seem incredibly funny to some people will be tasteless in the extreme to others. I can see the joke about the football shirts, but overall because of the tragedy don't find it a good time to be telling such a joke.
Is it partly due to the intention of the jokesmith - ie to make someone laugh or to put someone down, most racist jokes are about putting someone down rather than trying to capture the humor of the situation, the relationship between joker and audience, ie jokes by Jewish people to Jewish people, if there is irony present due to the context such as the Tevor McDonald/Bernard Manning?
So if I come down to an opinion, I suppose that what in one context can seem incredibly funny to some people will be tasteless in the extreme to others. I can see the joke about the football shirts, but overall because of the tragedy don't find it a good time to be telling such a joke.
Food for thought from Charlie Brooker in the Guardian last week:
"I hate offended people. They come in two flavours - huffy and whiny - and it's hard to know which is worst. The huffy ones are self-important, narcissistic authoritarians in love with the sound of their own booming disapproval, while the whiny, sparrowlike ones are so annoying and sickly and ill-equipped for life on Earth you just want to smack them round the head until they stop crying and grow up. Combined, they're the very worst people on the planet - 20 times worse than child molesters, and I say that not because it's true (it isn't), but because it'll upset them unnecessarily, and these readers deserve to be upset unnecessarily, morning, noon and night, every sodding day, for the rest of their wheedling lives.
Note I used the word "sodding" there, because even though every single one of you knows precisely what word I meant to use, I'm not allowed to use it in print in case the whiny/huffy Axis of Feeble decides to piddle its pants with dismay at the sight of a commonplace assembly of letters. And they must be appeased at all times.
What these nitpicky, sexless complainists fail to realise is that sweary tastelessness is a celebration of life, as soaring and majestic as a gospel choir in full flow, and no amount of tedious squeamishness can alter that. Potentially offended reader - you are the offence. In fact you're a four-letter word beginning with "c" and ending in "t". Yes. That's right. You're an absolute clot."
"I hate offended people. They come in two flavours - huffy and whiny - and it's hard to know which is worst. The huffy ones are self-important, narcissistic authoritarians in love with the sound of their own booming disapproval, while the whiny, sparrowlike ones are so annoying and sickly and ill-equipped for life on Earth you just want to smack them round the head until they stop crying and grow up. Combined, they're the very worst people on the planet - 20 times worse than child molesters, and I say that not because it's true (it isn't), but because it'll upset them unnecessarily, and these readers deserve to be upset unnecessarily, morning, noon and night, every sodding day, for the rest of their wheedling lives.
Note I used the word "sodding" there, because even though every single one of you knows precisely what word I meant to use, I'm not allowed to use it in print in case the whiny/huffy Axis of Feeble decides to piddle its pants with dismay at the sight of a commonplace assembly of letters. And they must be appeased at all times.
What these nitpicky, sexless complainists fail to realise is that sweary tastelessness is a celebration of life, as soaring and majestic as a gospel choir in full flow, and no amount of tedious squeamishness can alter that. Potentially offended reader - you are the offence. In fact you're a four-letter word beginning with "c" and ending in "t". Yes. That's right. You're an absolute clot."
Humour is always going to be subjective.
There's even a trend for people being offended because they think they probably should be rather than they actually are.
Think about it, how many times have you been out with your mates and have been told either a really bad taste joke and/or heard/made a very flippant remark and then laughed?(usually while saying 'I really shouldn't laugh at that')
Doesn't make anyone a bad person because they don't get offended or because they laugh at things they shoudn't. Laughter is the best medicine and actually in my opinion how we overcome tragedy.
It can also be used to highlight. Bill Hicks did it to great effect in this day and age but before him think Pope, Jonson, Austen, Swift, Rochester... I could go on. Humour is a very powerful tool. Raging satire in particular. Nothing quite like making someone laugh and hammering home a point too. Usually has a pretty significant effect on the induhvidual that's laughing.
There's even a trend for people being offended because they think they probably should be rather than they actually are.
Think about it, how many times have you been out with your mates and have been told either a really bad taste joke and/or heard/made a very flippant remark and then laughed?(usually while saying 'I really shouldn't laugh at that')
Doesn't make anyone a bad person because they don't get offended or because they laugh at things they shoudn't. Laughter is the best medicine and actually in my opinion how we overcome tragedy.
It can also be used to highlight. Bill Hicks did it to great effect in this day and age but before him think Pope, Jonson, Austen, Swift, Rochester... I could go on. Humour is a very powerful tool. Raging satire in particular. Nothing quite like making someone laugh and hammering home a point too. Usually has a pretty significant effect on the induhvidual that's laughing.
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