Ditto. Steven Colbert did a joke during “The Word” where he said something like, “And how many reasons can you think of for caring about the rest of the world?” and the graphic said, “2,134?” or something like that. And the audience completely clammed up. Not cool, Colbert. Not cool at all.
There is no subject that I can’t handle jokes about. Some jokes simply aren’t funny, but that’s a different thing. Also, it’s very different when I tell jokes about gays, women, blacks, Jews and so forth to my ex, when we are both very aware that the other is pro-gay, feminist and anti-racist, and when some known homophobe, misogynist, racist or anti-Semite tells the same jokes.
I tell plenty of jokes to people I know well that I’d never tell to someone I don’t know. How are they supposed to know that I tell the joke more to ridicule people who would say stuff like that with a straight face than to ridicule the ostensibly targeted group in question?
Huh. My impression was that wasn’t a joke. I think the Word is the greatest when they’re stringing you along, line, text, chuckle, line, text, chuckle, line, text, chuckle, line, and suddenly whooof, they sock you in the gut with something serious. I think they wanted the audience to go silent on that one, and for us couch potatoes at home to be knocked on our asses by it, too. But, that’s just my take on it, and in my personal opinion, Colbert walks on water, so I’m obviously not unbiased.
Off hand, I can’t really think of a category of jokes that I could never find funny, but there are plenty of classless unfunny jokes in the world.
Why wouldn’t a left-winger do the same thing?
Racist jokes, bathroom jokes, practical jokes: for all the reasons already given by other posters.
Nothing I can’t handle. Some jokes may make me question the mindset of the teller, though.
“The fact you think this is funny indicates you might have a distorted view of reality.”
This can include some racist jokes, some sexist jokes, and things only funny to stoners.
“huh huh. Ceiling fans.”
Family argument jokes, sometimes. I know it’s something we can all identify with, but sometimes it gets depressing if it goes on too long. There was a comedian years ago–it might have been Eddie Murphy in his stand-up days–that kept on about how when he was growing up, his mother would get angry at him and throw her shoe at him. All through his set, he would gesticulate the taking-off-shoe-and-throwing routine.
I cannot stomach jokes about starving children.
Back when Victoria Jackson was on SNL, she did a parody of Sally Struthers begging people to remember the starving children overseas. My dormmates practically bust a gut laughing, but I thought the joke was in very poor taste. I couldn’t even crack a smile.
Oh, and I can’t stand practical jokes, either.
You tell jokes about cross-dressing nuns with vertigo and you’re no longer my friend.
I hear people say this often, but never with a real explanation. So I don’t mean to single you out, but I’m hoping you can answer this for me: what, precisely, makes it “different” when you tell the jokes?
It’s sort of like Don Rickles’ style of humor. If you knew he meant it, it wouldn’t be funny.
Jokes about the mentally retarded are offensive to me. Whether it’s a joke or someone doing an imitation, it it extremely objectionable–enough to where I’d immediately think less of the person who said it.
That could go for a lot of topics, but that’s the big one for me.
To me, jokes are a way to reward and encourage creativity, which is a healthy thing. I see nothing wrong with it, regardless of the topic, so long that the joke isn’t meant to single one person out, or that the benefit comes at the cost of one (or two) specific people.
Dead baby jokes, for example. I’ve never heard a dead baby joke that referred to an actual dead baby or babies. That would be horrible, and come at the cost of someone’s dead baby.
Of course, how/when/where the jokes are told/presented in social context needs to be taken into account, but to me that’s obvious.
I’ve never understood why dead baby jokes are supposed to be funny.
I don’t care for most practical jokes- I sympathize with how the victim of them must feel.
I don’t like racist or sexist jokes.
I can take jokes about attributes that are less “loaded” than racism or sexism, though- less-nasty religious jokes (I’m sure there are some that would offend me, please don’t try to provide examples), anti-Republican/anti-Democrat jokes, anti-fill-in-nationality-here jokes, as long as I know that the person who’s making them isn’t really prejudiced against that group. If I don’t know you very well, and you make one of those jokes, I might assume you are prejudiced. I wouldn’t tell one of those jokes to someone who didn’t know me well enough to know I’m not really prejudiced, either. If someone were offended by a type of joke that I don’t find offensive, I’d try my best not to tell them any of that kind of joke.
LonesomePolecat kinda has it: if you mean it, it isn’t funny. If I, a PC pro-gay anti-racist person tell another PC pro-gay anti-racist person a homophobic racist joke, we both laugh and nobody’s hurt. If a homophobic racist tells the same joke, it’s just mean. If someone you don’t know tells the same joke, it’s just awkward. If someone you don’t know tells it in the presence of someone of the sexual orientation or ethnic background in question, it’s again just mean.
There are different standards in different contexts, of course, but there are a few topics that seem to be totally taboo in popular culture, even the edgy borderlines of popular culture. Among them:
-The Holocaust
-Child Molestation
-9/11
-Dead soldiers
I think that TheBoneyKingofNowhere nailed it. When you tell a dead baby joke, you’re not actually talking about a real dead baby. No babies needed to die in order for your joke to be told. It’s much harder to see how a joke about dead soldiers or 9/11 or The Holocaust could pass this hurdle, although I guess The Holocaust may now be far enough into the past that it gets, uhh, grandfathered in.
I think the point of the skit (I seem to remember seeing it) was to poke fun at the way Struthers was getting fatter and fatter while pleading about starving children.
MaxTheVool, I think the only 9/11 joke I ever heard/saw was Tourist Guy. What was funny about it wasn’t actually the 9/11 connection, but the way the joke took on a life of its own.
(For the few of you who didn’t see Tourist Guy, it was a photograph allegedly retrieved from a camera found in the wreckage of the WTC. The photo depicted a tourist standing on the WTC observation deck. Behind him, you see the plane approaching the building. It was quickly debunked - the observation deck wasn’t open at that time of day, and the plane was the wrong kind. What followed was this same guy being photoshopped into photos of other disasters, and it became more and more ridiculous as time went by.)
The only jokes I have a problem with are those said in order to cause hurt to another and those which cause hurt to another by accident. The second is forgivable with an appology. But in this I mean real hurt, not simply the slapping of someones ego or self image, I mean something that is said to humiliate and distress another person.
I agree with a number of topics that other people already said, but one that I wanted to chime in on is blonde jokes. I have met a number of blonde girls who have expressed genuine hurt with regards to them, and I think the jokes permeate our cultural mindset enough in a tangible way that they are harmful and distastefully offensive.
Shyeah, right, like you’re Superman already. 