And…what? You stop attending his shows? Fine. If enough people think he’s offensive, they’ll stop seeing his shows, he won’t make any money, and that will be the end of his career. The problem arises when people decide that we need to do more than that, i.e. prevent him from performing. No one person, or one group of people, can determine where the funny/offensive line is for everyone.
Why does this apply to comedy and not drama? Why aren’t you oh so terribly offended that Anthony Hopkins portrayed a serial killer in Silence of the Lambs? Surely that portrayal was more hurtful than anything a comedian could say.
You know what? All in the Family went over the line, The Jeffersons went over the line, George Carlin went over the line, Richard Pryor couldn’t even see where the line was. All of these things did more to help us as a society than anything that the Family Research Council or any of these nonsense groups that want to limit free expression could ever hope to do. I’m glad these guys didn’t worry about where the line was.
So when everyone pretends to be offended by Don Imus, or is faux outraged by The Onion’s tweet or gets the vapors from Joan Rivers they can shove it. There is nothing that “ought not be said”.
Do I have things I don’t like to joke about? Of course! We all do. But, I don’t let my sensitivities preclude others from finding humor in it. Go ahead and make dead baby jokes, and I’ll be here when you get to something I find more palatable.
I’m saying if some of the audience were deeply offended, then even if the rest of the audience found it funny, that doesn’t necessarily make things OK. I’m sick of this attitude that any time anyone is offended by anything, the only answer is they need to grow a thicker skin. Sometimes someone is justified in being offended. Sometimes, saying something that upsets people means you’re a jerk and should knock it off.
I think it’s kind of a privileged attitude that says “Just because I’m never offended by anything, no one should be.” A rape victim might not find a rape joke very funny. Someone who has been the victim of racism might not find a racist joke very funny. Then again, they might, everyone is different. But the fact that someone can’t just “grow a thicker skin” doesn’t make their feelings invalid. Sometimes people have a good reason to be sensitive.
I am not advocating preventing anyone from performing. I’m not calling for any kind of censorship, except perhaps self-censorship.
I’m saying people have feelings, and words can be hurtful, and people (even professional comedians) ought to be at least somewhat sensitive to that. I don’t buy into this notion that it’s always the person who’s offended who’s in the wrong.
And he made it into a long-running, Saturday-morning cartoon, as I recall.
As for the thread’s title: When it’s joking about my mother. Anybody else’s mother is okeh*.
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- (adjusting my bow tie) I’ve just started using it. It’s retro and cool. Yes, “okeh” is cool.
- (adjusting my bow tie) I’ve just started using it. It’s retro and cool. Yes, “okeh” is cool.
What some people don’t get, and many other people pretend that they don’t get, is:
There is a difference between what an artist says and what s/he is saying.
If The Onion had called Quevenzhané Wallis a cunt, I would have said that was going too far*.
But The Onion didn’t call Quevenzhané Wallis a cunt. The Onion called Quevenzhané Wallis a sweet and adorable little girl for whom it is impossible to not feel love. They used the word “cunt” to make this statement that she is sweet and adorable and lovable.
*Actually, if The Onion had called her a cunt I wouldn’t have said it was “going too far”, I would have said that it was not a joke but rather it was a verbal assault meant to be hurtful- and that’s why it would be wrong not that “it went too far”.
It does apply to drama. But Silence of the Lambs doesn’t meet my threshold for “so offensive it shouldn’t be said”. Birth of a Nation probably does (going by descriptions here, I haven’t seen it.)
Also, I should just note that many of the things comedians say in their acts are presented as true observations which are also funny. In contrast, I don’t think Silence of the Lambs was promoting Hannibal Lecter’s views on whether humans should be paired with fava beans and a nice chianti.
Part of the problem comes from trying to analyze a one-liner. Joan Rivers is known for offensive humor. She is self deprecating and an equal opportunity offender. One line taken out of her act, which is a lifetime of performance, can’t be qualified by itself to be any greater offense than any of her other jokes.
Edgy humor goes too far when it offends those whose ox has not been gored.
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Is there no place where “a joke” becomes hate speech? To your mind can “a joke” *never *be at someone else’s expense or be used as a means of bullying or even oppression? As long as someone finds it funny it is okay?
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With very few limits individuals should and do have the right to say all sorts of things. It would be very odd if then they want to cry foul when people then say things back. You want the freedom to say things that you know will offend and hurt people but you want them to not have the freedom to tell you that you are an ass for doing so? You have the right to the speech but not the right to the stage. That’s up to the person who owns the stage and they will care a bit more about the speech of those who impact the bottom line. And as you have the right to speech, offensive as it may be to some, so do those who are offended; you have no business trying to censor them.
No. There is no place when a joke becomes hate speech.
There are some cases of hate speech that are disguised as jokes.
There are cases of the speaker making a verbal assault with the intent of hurt a person or to aim invective at a group, and the speaker disingenuously hides behind a claim that “it was just a joke.”
Claiming something is a joke doesn’t make it a joke. Actual jokes are fine and nothing is off-limits.
I appreciate what you are saying, especially in context of your previous post, that sometimes the intent can be to mean the exact opposite of what is actually said or to make fun of a bigoted belief. But as a general principle I believe you are wrong.
A bigot or a racist or a homophobe usually does not perceive themselves as one. They do not see themselves as hateful; they see themselves as merely acknowledging what they see as truths. In many cases the honest answer a bigot or a racist would give is that they do not think there was anything hateful in what they said, it was just being funny and people could not take a joke … their intent was not to hurt per se, that was just a consequence of little matter or concern. The intent is to appeal to the in-group. To make them laugh. And those who share the same version of reality will receive it that way and be honestly offended that anyone has such thin skin as to take offense.
The joke teller’s self-perceived lack of intent of wanting to hurtl does not mean that such cannot be hate speech.
Well, wait, who says? If there was ever a statement that deserved an IMHO at the end of it, that was one.
I could just as easily say “Nope, you’re wrong, actual jokes are sometimes offensive and beyond the pale” and I’m just as objetively correct as you are, which is to say not at all; it’s a subjective decision.
I see a hell of a lot of standup comedy, more than most people. In my opinion, it absolutely is possible to go to far with a joke. It depends on a thousand contextual cues, but I see it happen every other week. Thre are legitimate jokes that simply are not appropriate for certain settings, audiences, or times, or that can be extended inappropriately. I love dark humor but it’s silly to pretend a Holocaust joke would be a good choice at Elie Weisel’s funeral.
Flip flops and bermuda shorts would be inappropriate at Elie Weisel’s funeral. Doesn’t mean flip flops and bermuda shorts are wrong. There are many many ways to be rude by doing something in the wrong setting even though the act itself is not inherently wrong.
A comic’s Twitter account is a perfectly appropriate setting for any joke a comic wishes to make.
A comic’s T.V. show is a perfectly appropriate setting for any joke a comic wishes to make.
A comic’s blog is a perfectly appropriate setting for any joke a comic wishes to make.
A comic’s book is a perfectly appropriate setting for any joke a comic wishes to make.
If a comic who is well known for a particular brand of humor is booked for a major event, it is not simply the comic’s physical presence that has been booked- it is that comic’s particular brand of humor that has been booked. Thus, the booked event (Oscars, Golden Globes, etc.) is a perfectly appropriate setting for any joke that comic wishes to make.
Please note:
I am in no way saying that comics must be protected from the wrath of public opinion. It’s not like I’ve never found a joke distasteful. But I would never join in the throngs demanding an apology from the person who told the joke.
When comics en masse are afforded the leisure to go down any path they are inspired to explore, it opens up a world of possibilities for wonderful entertainment and insightful comedy. Just like with any artistic medium, many comics are just bad. If I’m in a comedy club and hear a lousy comic make a horrible joke that I find distasteful, I am NOT offended. It is because that hack has a venue allowing him to make a crappy joke that much better comics have a venue that allows them to make truly inspired jokes.
A comedian who crosses the line and become too offensive quickly becomes unemployed. It is self-correcting.
(I am certain I can Google up any number of “funny” webpages that I would find offensive. I wouldn’t do this to try to have them shut down.)
If you’re enforcing and encouraging hate, you’re using words to hurt other people.
It is not only possible but it is not at all uncommon for people to not be honest with themselves about any number of issues. Some people are so successful at being dishonest with themselves that the convince themselves that they’re not being dishonest with themselves.
There may be a self-perceived lack of intent to hurt on behalf of the joke teller, but that doesn’t hold up when it’s a person who’s not being honest with himself. He’s appealing to the in-group and eliciting a laugh by way of using words to hurt other people.
Although not explicitly stated in the Thread Title, the clear context of the OP discusses entertainers/artists.
I’m not at all making a case that it is impossible for Uncle Jerry to make an ass out of himself at Thanksgiving dinner.
We live in an age where celebrity can be had without talent. Infamy is as good as celebrity, it seems. Sarah Palin got much more press for talking outrageous nonsense than anyone talking sense did.
Attention seekers will say anything, it seems to me. I don’t see how it could be more overt.
Bingo. I’m sure there are a ton of young comedians who have to learn the difference between edgy and offensive. Michael Richards (who despite being a well known comic actor, was not much of a standup) never learned this and was drummed out of comedy when he crossed the line without the experience to know how to do so effectively. I truly believe that he might have had a point he was trying to make (it wasn’t just the racist tirade it was made out to be), but he made it very, very poorly; the system self corrected.
It’s not about self censorship, and I think that concept is abhorrent. It’s about learning the art form.
In other words, the comic that would tell Holocaust jokes at Elie Weisel’s funeral doesn’t exist, so it is pointless to discuss.
But some do not believe that they are enforcing and encouraging hate even though that is the result. You think they know it; they do not think that. You think you know what they believe better than they do and that they are being dishonest with themselves; I doubt that.
My position remains that if the result of your words is to enforce and encourage hate, your words hurt other people, no matter how benign you imagined your intent.
I do not imagine myself as good a mind reader as you imagine yourself to be.
Again this in no way implies anything about censoring those trying to make a living offering offense as a substitute for wit. Or who manage to pair the two (a smaller number but they exist). It also does not imply anything about demanding apologies (a silly exercise in my book).
As to a Holocaust joke at Elie Wiesel’s funeral, it might depend on the joke. Wiesel is himself very aware of the value of dark humor. In Night for example there is this bit:
Humor often risks offending some people by its very nature. We joke most about that which we are uncomfortable about after all. Often the discomfort is what drives the joke. Sometimes the joke allows us to deal with what we are having a hard time dealing with. Sometimes it intends to offend and sometimes with good reason. But that does not mean that everything is okay to say no matter how many it hurts and no matter who the hurt one is. (Okay to aim at the powerful and pretentious, less okay to aim at the weaker or oppressed, for example.)
When I read the OP about a joke going “too far”, it didn’t occur to me at first that the joke was offensive, but rather that it was being over-told, i.e. someone tells a joke, gets a neutral or negative response, then tells it again, perhaps trying to explain the humour to the audience, perhaps telling it again because of the negative response…
It puts me in mind of that guy who makes (or made) the repeated “throw stuff down in the quarry” reference. It may have been mildly amusing the first times, but it quickly wore out. Similarly, I sometimes find myself in conversations along the lines of:
Person: [lame attempt at humour] LOL! ROFL!
Me: [Long pause] Uh, yeah.
Person: Don’t you get it? [repeats lame attempt at humour] LOL! ROFL!
Me: Yeah, I get it.
Person: You have no sense of humour.
Me: [mostly internally] Fuck you.