[Humour] Is any subject taboo when it comes to jokes?

[blockhseagull]

I don’t think either side is right or wrong.

People are allowed to feel those cards are offensive and wrong .... other people are allowed to feel that any subject is open to humour.

I suppose the lines between causing offense and bullying/criminality are becoming more blurred in modern society and it’s becoming more sterile because of it.

I think my main concern is the people who will watch a comedian like Gervais and laugh at the cancer/disabled/aids jokes but then be outraged and offended at the rape joke because it’s personal to them.

 

[B-right-on]

Jokes are supposed to be funny.

Sending a stalkers card for valentines day isn't funny if you are the one being stalked.

 

[Questions]

Jokes are supposed to be funny.

Sending a stalkers card for valentines day isn't funny if you are the one being stalked.

And at £3.95 a card it’s not funny for the stalker either.

 

[Swansman]

Plenty of subjects are taboo. Try making racist or sexist jokes and watch how society reacts.

 

[Arthur]

Jim Jefferies nails it in his Netflix special Freedumb. Comedy sketches aren't meant to be seen as a Ted Talk.

Before you click play if you are easily offended probably best you don't!

[yt]RIwrnFLwOlI[/yt]

If you don't like something don't go and seek it out. Certainly don't use your elevated position to promote it by spewing faux outrage.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I’ve joked about cancer quite a lot this year. Or rather my wife has. I’ve cried about it a lot as well.
So know your audience.

Absolutely. Context is everything.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Not really. A stalker won't stop stalking on valentine's day because he doesn't have the appropriate card to send. They'll still do it.

Thus providing evidence for a police prosecution along with other evidence.

 

[m@goo]

I think my main concern is the people who will watch a comedian like Gervais and laugh at the cancer/disabled/aids jokes but then be outraged and offended at the rape joke because it’s personal to them.

This is exactly the point he's made. Many people are hypocritical when it comes to what they will laugh at.

 

[m@goo]

Plenty of subjects are taboo. Try making racist or sexist jokes and watch how society reacts.

You're missing the point. A joke can be about racism or sexism but not racist or sexist.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

You're missing the point. A joke can be about racism or sexism but not racist or sexist.

Semantics. One is a noun and the other an adjective.

 

[Swansman]

You're missing the point. A joke can be about racism or sexism but not racist or sexist.

Ok let me rephrase it: jokes about races and sexes are (often) taboo.

Not saying they should or shouldnt be, but its certainly the case.

 

[Questions]

Plenty of subjects are taboo. Try making racist or sexist jokes and watch how society reacts.

God , imagine if you could get disability and cancer into that one one gag as well.

 

[Hugo Rune]

I remember seeing a Jerry Sadowitz show in London whilst we were on my brother’s stag.
He is on another level compared to folk like Frankie Boyle.

He pretty much went through the whole range of protected characteristics and made cutting and offensive jokes about the people from those groups. He was spitting and swearing at any hecklers and even produced his Johnson at one point , waving it about and inviting the hecklers to felate. No group was safe from his wretched observations; it wasn’t that he was that funny, it was just that he was very very shocking and somehow, that made me laugh. I would share some of his jokes but it would lead to an instant ‘ban’ for me.

Sadly, one of our group did take offence when the comedian finally got to the subject of disabled people as a family member was disabled. I did make the point that it’d be very odd if disabled people were excluded from his scorn as every other group had got it in the neck but the experience was ruined for him.

The magic he performed was brilliant however and made a stark juxtaposition with the filth coming out of his mouth.

Unlike your old school Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson, Jerry plays a character, I suspect that he is a liberal lefty like Gervais and Boyle but his stage persona could not be more offensive. Looking back on it, the performance was a lot deeper than just the racist, homophobic, sexist, antisemetic, Islamaphobic and ableist jokes; maybe it was some sort of test for the audience, was the material really that funny?

 

[RossyG]

Plenty of subjects are taboo. Try making racist or sexist jokes and watch how society reacts.

The vast majority would laugh as individuals.

In groups they’d go, “Ummmm, you’re not allowed to say that nowadays” as they’ve been conditioned to do so.

 

[Fred Oliver - Legend]

Soon we won’t be able to make racist jokes too, in case we offend the fools.

 

[RossyG]

I didn’t find the card funny, but I didn’t find it offensive either.

If others are offended, that’s their choice.

The manufacturer should be free to sell it and customers should be free to buy or not buy it. Left to the free market it would’ve probably sold a couple of hundred at most and then just fizzled out.

The idea that personal offence is a power that can be wielded to silence others or even get them arrested is one of the most poisonous aspects of our society.

 

[Taybha]

Chests

 

[usernamed]

I’m with Gervais on this 100%. It’s fine to find the cards distasteful, I can’t imagine they’re going to be a huge sales success (or wouldn’t have been if they hadn’t received such huge free publicity from the crime commissioner, leading to the “let’s trigger a liberal” brigade buying them in bulk)

What we have here is a crime commissioner who has identified a real and serious social issue, then instead of doing the hard work of working with the police on how best to prevent and deal appropriately with it, has used their platform to bully a card company.

I don’t doubt that the commissioner is sincere, but we need to lose this weird obsession with trying to whitewash the world and make everything “of good moral character” - the last time we did that was the Victorian era, and anyone whose read about that era will know that the very worst atrocities went on in that time, often beneath a veneer of respectability.


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[Wardy's twin]

Some subject matters just don't lend themselves to humour as they are not funny or have become not funny as societies values changed and that's why the dinosaur comedians such as Bernard Manning audiences shrank.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

I’m with Gervais on this 100%. It’s fine to find the cards distasteful, I can’t imagine they’re going to be a huge sales success (or wouldn’t have been if they hadn’t received such huge free publicity from the crime commissioner, leading to the “let’s trigger a liberal” brigade buying them in bulk)

What we have here is a crime commissioner who has identified a real and serious social issue, then instead of doing the hard work of working with the police on how best to prevent and deal appropriately with it, has used their platform to bully a card company.

I don’t doubt that the commissioner is sincere, but we need to lose this weird obsession with trying to whitewash the world and make everything “of good moral character” - the last time we did that was the Victorian era, and anyone whose read about that era will know that the very worst atrocities went on in that time, often beneath a veneer of respectability.


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Katy Bourne has herself been the victim of stalking so I don't doubt that she is sincere. Very sincere.