# Is lots of comedy off limits today because it is a "PC" era? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768 "2013-08-21T00:57:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/81 "2013-08-22T16:49:11Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > What’s not allowed is discourse that does not start from within the rules of PC as a basic premise. Witness, for example, the call for a boycott on [a kickstarter PUA guide](http://jezebel.com/redditors-pua-kickstarter-project-recommends-sexual-as-514264056)because it “advocated sexual assault”. The reason the response has been so harsh is because the guide is not approaching the subject ironically or subversively, it simply starts out from a completely separate set of premises from the PC worldview. > > So yes, I do think a lot of comedy is off limits and Louie CK is not a good counter-example to this. That’s supposed to be comedy? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/82 "2013-08-22T16:51:48Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > That’s supposed to be comedy? 😕 No, but people complained about what was in the book. So no fair. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/83 "2013-08-22T17:04:03Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > I think some of you really dont understand how much frier things were. > > Human Centipede? Its kiddy stuff compared to Salo:120 Days of Sodom > > The combat in Cross of Iron was just as brutal as Saving Private Ryan…AND…was told from the German POV > > And then there was Pink Flamingos from the early 70s. Real gay (oral) sex; a Transvestite eating dog shit…a revival theater hit for years. > > FTR…Salo:120 Days of Sodom will be screening next week at the James Bridges Theater at UCLA for anyone with the stomach to handle it. I just took a look at Salo and Cross of Iron. From skimming through looking for intense scenes, it would appear to me that all the worst stuff happens either off-screen or, if on-screen, with characters posed such as to hide any direct view. I haven’t seen Human Centipede but I gather it is quite blatantly explicit. And of course so is Saving Private Ryan. I don’t think the two movies you named in comparison are more intense at all. They seemed tame by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/84 "2013-08-22T21:12:47Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > No, but people complained about what was in the book. So no fair. But the argument is that comedy can’t be made. So, comedy can’t be made because _non-comedy_ got protests? > [@madsircool](#): > > Blazing Saddles…has there been another film like this since? Modern media just does not do slapstick racial humor…even if its anti-racist. You’re right, movies like that totally can’t be made any more. Why, recently Quentin Tarantino tried to make a movie about pre-Civil War slave owners and a freed slave that becomes a bounty hunter and brings some slavers to justice, but protesters got that movie totally quashed. There’s no way they’d let a movie get away with using “nigger” anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/85 "2013-08-22T21:37:02Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > You’re right, movies like that totally can’t be made any more. Why, recently Quentin Tarantino tried to make a movie about pre-Civil War slave owners and a freed slave that becomes a bounty hunter and brings some slavers to justice, but protesters got that movie totally quashed. There’s no way they’d let a movie get away with using “nigger” anymore. Absolutely. That movie got five lousy Oscar nominations and won only one. And the government may get shut down this year. I’m sure there’s a direct correlation. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/86 "2013-08-22T22:47:08Z")
I don’t think these UN PC jokes/situations would fly in the present day TV ==================== A Hollywood Squares question to George Gobel back in the early 70’s. Peter Marshall: Can you cross a Pumpkin with a Watermelon? George Gobel: Yes, but what you get is a jack-o-lantern with an Afro. ================= Can you imagine what would happen these days if _I Dream of Jeannie_ made its debut in 2013. A man, keeping a woman locked up in a bottle, who calls him Master. But she would be able to show her navel. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/87 "2013-08-22T23:11:02Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > Can you imagine what would happen these days if _I Dream of Jeannie_ made its debut in 2013. A man, keeping a woman locked up in a bottle, who calls him Master. I’m quite sure the confused souls of 2013 would be able to understand the concept of a genie. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/88 "2013-08-23T00:26:26Z")
> [@moriah](#): > > 1. The Post-PC satirization of Non-PC attitudes. This is stuff the Louis CK, and Tosh, and Jelsenik, and **Rivers** … Wait–when did Joan Rivers become “Post-PC?” Was there a week in the '80s when she had laryngitis that draws the line between when she was Pre-PC and when she was Post-PC? Because I don’t remember a point when she was PC. Even on her talk show. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/89 "2013-08-23T01:59:41Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Was there a week in the '80s when she had laryngitis that draws the line between when she was Pre-PC and when she was Post-PC? I laughed. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/90 "2013-08-23T02:24:28Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I just took a look at Salo and Cross of Iron. From skimming through looking for intense scenes, it would appear to me that all the worst stuff happens either off-screen or, if on-screen, with characters posed such as to hide any direct view. > > I haven’t seen Human Centipede but I gather it is quite blatantly explicit. And of course so is Saving Private Ryan. I don’t think the two movies you named in comparison are more intense at all. They seemed tame by comparison. Like you can judge a films intensity by ‘skimming’ through it. :rolleyes: And you havent skimmed through Salo because nothing is hidden. Its an updated take on a Marquis de Sade story. From Wiki: > [@](#): > > His final work, Salò (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975), exceeded what most viewers could then stomach in its explicit scenes of intensely sadistic violence. Based on the novel 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade, it is considered his most controversial film. In May 2006, Time Out’s Film Guide named it the Most Controversial Film of all time. Cross of Iron is much darker than SPR. It takes place on the Eastern Front and was told from the German perspective. Peckinpagh was known for making intense violent film. This didnt disappoint. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/91 "2013-08-23T13:48:16Z")
_Eastbound & Down._ ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/92 "2013-08-23T13:54:10Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > I’m quite sure the confused souls of 2013 would be able to understand the concept of a genie. And even in the original he insists she not call him master, and eventually frees her and they get married. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/93 "2013-08-23T15:25:36Z")
Somebody still has a notion of non-PC movies. The suit filed by Cody A. Fitch, [Fitch v. Republican Party (Cal. Super. Ct. filed Aug. 19, 2013)](http://volokh.wpengine.com/2013/08/22/disgruntled-republican-sues-republican-party-political-malpractice/), accusing the Republican Party of malpractice includes this paragraph: > [@](#): > > 1. Then I want a movie script for me and my African American honky cousin. I would > like to play in Blazing Saddles with him for his first starring role and many other funny as all movies. If he gets his $50,000,000 in punitive damages - which I’m sure the Court will increase to insure that these miscreants have no incentive to pull these shenanigans again - he’ll have plenty of funding for it. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/94 "2013-08-23T16:51:06Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Like you can judge a films intensity by ‘skimming’ through it. :rolleyes: The worst I saw explicitly depicted in full view was: Several women in a vat of excrement, and a woman beginning to have her scalp cut off. My post (the previous one and this one) were meant to be understood as invitations for you to tell me what I’d missed. The movie can be found on youtube, so time markings could even be supplied. There’s no need for rolleyes here… I’m telling you what I saw, and you get to now tell me what I missed. It’s dialogue. We’re dialoguing. > [@](#): > > And you havent skimmed through Salo because nothing is hidden. Well, this statement, at least, is provebaly and straightforwardly false. In one scene, a boy is invited to sodomize an older man. We see the older man smile as it happens, and we see the boy thrusting back and forth from behind, but the actual action itself is hidden from view by a table. Something was hidden in that scene. So your claim that “nothing was hidden” is not true. And what I’m saying is that as I looked at scenes in this film, the same kind of hiding and not-quite-on-camera-ing seemed to take place in every scene I watched. Heck, one man gets shot to death by like twelve bullets. Did they show it happening? No. They showed the men firing, and the showed the man falling, but they did not show him getting shot. You think that’d be held back from in today’s cinema? > [@](#): > > Cross of Iron is much darker than SPR. It takes place on the Eastern Front and was told from the German perspective. Peckinpagh was known for making intense violent film. This didnt disappoint. Again, I didn’t see anything more explicitly graphically violent than SPR. Again, what I did see seemed tame by comparison to SPR. Again, _this is an invitation for you to explain to me what I’m not seeing._ ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768/95 "2013-08-24T00:28:34Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > I don’t think these UN PC jokes/situations would fly in the present day TV > > ==================== > > A Hollywood Squares question to George Gobel back in the early 70’s. > > Peter Marshall: Can you cross a Pumpkin with a Watermelon? > > George Gobel: Yes, but what you get is a jack-o-lantern with an Afro. While the “[watermelon stereotype](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermelon_stereotype)” isn’t completely dead, it’s so dated that I suspect many people today wouldn’t even understand what this joke was supposed to mean. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-lots-of-comedy-off-limits-today-because-it-is-a-pc-era/666768.md?page=4)