Comedy Being Strangled?

diy_fun_uk said:
To me his points are still valid, both in 74 and now. We'll never square the circle because comedy/humour can mean dramatically different things to people. Of course it's not right for comedians or anyone else to incite any of the isms and in the main comedy has significantly moved on from the 60s/70s. However if we try to completely re-mould it to the point no one is ever offended, what do we end up with? Bland, vanilla 'comedy' that doesn't achieve what comedy sometimes should ... that is to provoke, make us think and challenge perceptions. In doing that, people will sometimes be offended.
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Fair comments, but comedy can easily alienate, or promote the alienation of large swathes of society, potentially creating an us and them divide. Then the danger is some people with low morals exploit such comedy to promote division and hatred within society for their own perverted ambitions.
I think Les touched on that briefly when he referred to personal experiences.
When large swathes of society have similar experiences of being ridiculed or mythological characteristics being exploited for humour, it sets dangerous precedents.
 
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Think yourself lucky how do you think i feel going through life being a black irish jew with ginger hair
 
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AngleEyes said:
Fair comments, but comedy can easily alienate, or promote the alienation of large swathes of society, potentially creating an us and them divide. Then the danger is some people with low morals exploit such comedy to promote division and hatred within society for their own perverted ambitions.
I think Les touched on that briefly when he referred to personal experiences.
When large swathes of society have similar experiences of being ridiculed or mythological characteristics being exploited for humour, it sets dangerous precedents.
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But it's often not large swathes, is it? Again I'll say no one should ever feel bullied etc, however we can't expect to never be offended. Sometimes an individual might be caught out e.g. innocently going to a Chubby Brown gig with no prior knowledge of his material. They might then be offended by said material. However surely these cases (no prior knowledge of a comedians material) are quite rare. We can all do some basic research before booking for a show.

The danger re bit in bold is, we're now going down the route of cancelling things to appease minorities, sometimes small minorities at that. OT but look at the Brits cancelling the best male and female awards ... is that actually progress? When the majority, HIGH majority of the world's population still identify as male or female?

I'll no doubt get slated cause this is a GB News clip, but I think we need to be very careful re comedians (and others) getting cancelled because a small number of people take offence or feel 'unsafe' by the material.

Mary Bourke on being cancelled by a comedy club after audience members said they felt 'unsafe' - YouTube
 
I'm mixed race. I used to go to shows with my sister to see a certain singer. They'd have a first half support act on. Usually end of the pier type comedians with quite dated material. So more often than not there would be some jokes in there that some might deem racist. Nothing on the Chubby Brown / Manning scale but low level stuff. Me and my sister would have our own little joke, tapping each other by the foot and whispering 'here it comes.' We'd often joke to ourselves about being the only half Asians in the audience!

Did we enjoy those jokes? Nope. Would we on balance prefer the comedian didn't do them? Yep. But we knew 9/10 those were the type of support acts booked so we had a choice. We could have missed the first half and gone in after the interval. We never chose to do that cause the other 90% of the comedians act didn't enter the 'possibly racist' sphere. And I like mother-in-law jokes etc ;)

Would we ever have dreamed of writing to the theatre saying the act should be banned? That we felt 'unsafe' by the material.

Never. We all have choices in a democracy. If we're not careful, they'll be eroded beyond all recognition and not for the better.
 
fillyboy said:
Was looking at some Ricky Gervais on youtube, hosting of awards do's and so on, this appeared, very similar if not the same as the Jimmy Carr 'joke', Ricky seems to have got away with it, same joke but with a slightly different nuance. Carr was insulting the gypsies whereas Gervais is insulting Hitler. Both are acceptable in my opinion.

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Could not stand the bloke until watching after life on Netflix. It then became apparent he’s a no nonsense type of guy. Changed my opinion of him totally.
 
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The guy on Netflix is a character, not the real person playing him ............
 
securespark said:
Should comedians have to rethink their gags to make sure they are not offensive?

Or should freedom of speech be allowed so they can joke about anything?

I'm thinking about Jimmy Carr and his comments about the Holocaust on his Netflix special.

Maureen Lipman fears comedy is in danger of being "wiped out". She says comedians tone down material as they worry audiences will take offence. She said that "something has to be forbidden to make you laugh… It's when you shouldn't be laughing".

Rowan Atkinson also fiercely defends freedom of speech.

Personally, I feel that freedom of speech is crucial and that comedians should be able to use any subject matter in their material

What do you think?
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Too strong in my opinion.. No need for it what so ever
 
gas112 said:
Think yourself lucky how do you think i feel going through life being a black irish jew with ginger hair
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Funny you should say that, there was once an Englishman, a Scotsman and a Irish black Jewish man with ginger hair who was also disabled, and they went in to a pub .....
 
securespark said:
The guy on Netflix is a character, not the real person playing him ............
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I’ll not bite.
Turns out , based on what i’ve since seen of his stand-ups and interviews etc , the character he plays has more than a passing resemblance. Almost as if he’s just being himself.
 
^woody^ said:
Funny you should say that, there was once an Englishman, a Scotsman and a Irish black Jewish man with ginger hair who was also disabled, and they went in to a pub .....
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And the Welshman thought , wtf is going on here ?:LOL:
 
^woody^ said:
Yeah LOL, They always seemed to be left out :rolleyes:
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Perhaps it's because they are out worrying sheep or are we not aloud to joke about sexual abuse towards sheep now. I can just see the great upset marching on the Welsh Parliament
 
Dark humour is humans way of being able to contemplate and confront tragedy without going insane.

It a ****ing vital tool for civilization.

I know all the bet wetting liberals who are too scared to get out of bed would rather tragedy remain hidden and out of view but that is a bad idea,. Just because you don't want to believe in monsters doesn't mean they don't exist.
 
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