[Humour] Is this joke offensive?

[West Upper Seagull]

Attended a dinner in London night.

One of the Comedian's gags was...…

"I went to the Doctors last week and he said I've now got to have a pacemaker, so I've a got little Kenyan bloke comes everywhere with me now"

As one of the organisers of the dinner I was approached at the end and told by a guest they found that gag had crossed the line.

No doubt I will get flamed on here by some, but sorry with all that's currently going on in the country and the world in general, are we danger of becoming a little too precious?

The person who thought that joke crossed the line needs to give their head a wobble and clearly has no understanding of who the top pacemakers are in the world of marathons. Not offensive in the slightest

 

[Baldseagull]

I think that’s rather splitting hairs given racism is unquestionably negative. Anyway, if you ever go to an int.football tournament please don’t associate Brazilians with football. They hate it. Don’t want to talk about it. And for gods sake don’t mention Pele. I remember taxi drivers overseas asking if I knew Bobby Charlton back in the day, and I asked them to stop the car and got out outraged at the casual racism endemic across major European countries if Taxi drivers were anything to go by.

I didn't start a thread about it, it is yet another "PC gone MAD!" thread from Harty, because someone mentioned that they felt a joke had crossed a line. I wasn't there, but it didn't sound like that guy was outraged, left the building in disgust etc. If I had been there I probably would not have said anything to anyone about it, but Harty asked a question, I gave my view. In case you missed it, I said if mild casual racism offends you, it's offensive, if it doesn't, it isn't. It doesn't particularly offend me, more disappoints me.

 

[maffew]

Perhaps someone so easily offended would do well to avoid going to any event where there might be a comedian

Dont think it is particularly offensive, nor funny really personally

 

[The Clamp]

Full of beans, those wee Kenyans.

 

[Pevenseagull]

Is he still just putting up stuff to fuel culture wars/ still smarting from the window licker incident?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Is he still just putting up stuff to fuel culture wars/ still smarting from the window licker incident?

Ah, the window licker incident......

Well, you can either move on, or ask Ron Atkinson for a loan of his shovel. It was a gold shovel, so I recall.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

I'm afraid you are 'wrong off the bat' there though. The 'little Kenyan' reference is an essential part of the joke. It is the visual humour. You have to be able to see the two characters in your mind's eye to appreciate the idea that this is not a heart pacemaker, so the Kenyan character is active.

Do we need to even reference his nationality? For example...

"I went to the Doctors last week and he said I've now got to have a pacemaker, so I've a got this little bloke in running shorts in front of me everywhere I go."

Your joke doesn't work though.

The nationality is important because the world's most famous nation for talented distance runners is Kenya.

Their renown for this talent is world wide.

You don't need to visualise it because the punchline is all about the person telling the story being rather thick. That's the jist of the joke.

 

[birthofanorange]

.....

 

[birthofanorange]

Your joke doesn't work though.

The nationality is important because the world's most famous nation for talented distance runners is Kenya.

Their renown for this talent is world wide.

You don't need to visualise it because the punchline is all about the person telling the story being rather thick. That's the jist of the joke.

Sorry, but you're so wrong.

You don't have to be Kenyan to be a pacemaker (runner), and that isn't important to the joke itself.

The joke works without the need for it, but if you think it doesn't, you really need to ask yourself why that's the case.

Why does their prowess in pacemaking matter? A pacemaker is a pacemaker, isn't it?

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

Sorry, but you're so wrong.

You don't have to be Kenyan to be a pacemaker (runner), and that isn't important to the joke itself.

The joke works without the need for it, but if you think it doesn't, you really need to ask yourself why that's the case.

Why does their prowess in pacemaking matter? A pacemaker is a pacemaker, isn't it?

It works because Kenyans are the best pacemakers in the world and pace making is associated with Kenyan runners.

Not little men in shorts.

If you're telling a joke you need to use language that to a broader audience will associate with the best known example of that.

Remove the joke aspect and turn it into a trivia question.

Which nation produces the best pacemaking runners in the world?

The answer is Kenya.

Is that racist?

If it's not racist then the joke has referenced a widely held view. That is indeed a fact.

 

[birthofanorange]

It works because Kenyans are the best pacemakers in the world and pace making is associated with Kenyan runners. Not little men in shorts.

If you're telling a joke you need to use language that to a broader audience will associate with the best know example of that.

Remove the joke aspect and turn it into a trivia question.

Which nation produces the best pacemaking runners in the world.

The answer is Kenya.

Is that racist?

If it's not racist then the joke has referenced a widely held view.

The point of the joke is in no way lost by removing the 'little Kenyan' reference, unless of course you're of the kind that needs all their jokes spelled-out for you, in nice little bite-sized chunks.

Do you truly 'need' to know the apparent 'best' pacemakers in the world to understand it? Really??

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

The point of the joke is in no way lost by removing the 'little Kenyan' reference, unless of course you're of the kind that needs all their jokes spelled-out for you, in nice little bite-sized chunks.

Do you truly 'need' to know the apparent 'best' pacemakers in the world to understand it? Really??

Yes it makes the joke funnier and work better by referencing the best pace makers in the world and where they come from.

Out of interest if you told a joke about caber tossing and you referenced a Scottish person in it would that be racist too?

 

[wellquickwoody]

Rule of thumb, if a joke needs to mention a person's nationality, race, gender etc then yeah, it's possibly offensive to some people. It's not rocket science.

Amended for accuracy.

 

[birthofanorange]

Yes it makes the joke funnier and work better by referencing the best place makers in the world and where they come from.

Out of interest if you told a joke about caber tossing and you referenced a Scottish person in it would that be racist too?

No, it doesn't make it funnier, unless you think that all pacemakers are Kenyan - if so, wow.

As to your question, I really wouldn't need to add that they were Scottish, as caber tossing speaks for itself, as does pacemaking.

If you were to make a joke about a swimmer, would you need to make a reference to a white American/Australian? After all, they are the most successful in the world.

 

[wellquickwoody]

People do that shit all the time though. Think of football. Two teams playing, one with a very big white player up front (we'll call him Wout Weghorst) and one with a very big black player up front (we'll call him Adebayo Akinfenwa). In the stands there will inevitably be people who refer to Weghorst as the big lad up front and Akinfenwa as the big black lad up front. Why? It's totally unnecessary. It's not some kind of woke yoghurt knitting to point out this disparity, you literally get small, almost insignificant, casual racism in the stands of this sort all the time. Is it enough to get the game called off and people thrown in jail? No, of course not, that would be ridiculous. It's just enough to put off a BAME fan at their first game from returning, or a copper overhearing it, stopping and searching an innocent black youngster because they were on the large side and wearing a hoody.

The "joke" isn't offensive, per se. Nor is it particularly funny. It is, to quote Pink Floyd, just another brick in the wall.

Would it be OK to mention colour if Weghorst and Akinfenwa were playing in the same team alongside each other?

 

[birthofanorange]

Would it be OK to mention colour if Weghorst and Akinfenwa were playing in the same team alongside each other?

If that was the case, wouldn't you simply use their names, in the same way as Dunk and Duffy, rather than the big English lad/big Irish lad?

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

No, it doesn't make it funnier, unless you think that all pacemakers are Kenyan - if so, wow.

As to your question, I really wouldn't need to add that they were Scottish, as caber tossing speaks for itself, as does pacemaking.

If you were to make a joke about a swimmer, would you need to make a reference to a white American/Australian? After all, they are the most successful in the world.

Well you can add American or Australian to the joke to give it some less bland language if you want.

What if you made a joke about cricket cheating and added Australia to it, is that racist or does it in fact make the joke work better?

I think the joke would work far better mentioning Australia in it than mentioning nobody at all and making it a boring generic reference.

 

[birthofanorange]

Well you can add American or Australian to the joke to give it some less bland language if you want.

What if you made a joke about cricket cheating and added Australia to it, is that racist or does it in fact make the joke work better?

I think the joke would work far better mentioning Australia in it than mentioning nobody at all and making it a boring generic reference.

I think you're clutching at straws, tbh. The more specific the joke, the more need to give additional detail/reference (see Australia/cricket/cheating above).

The OP wasn't specific - it was a joke involving two entirely separate things and a simple play on words.


I guess the OP could be enhanced by specifying that the chap at the docs needed an Osypka pacemaker - world-beating, according to Mr. Google.

 

[wellquickwoody]

If that was the case, wouldn't you simply use their names, in the same way as Dunk and Duffy, rather than the big English lad/big Irish lad?

If you didn't know their names? Perfectly plausible.

Big English/Irish lads may be visually quite similar, apart from the ginger hair of course.

 

[Tyrone Biggums]

I think you're clutching at straws, tbh. The more specific the joke, the more need to give additional detail/reference (see Australia/cricket/cheating above).

The OP wasn't specific - it was a joke involving two entirely separate things and a simple play on words.


I guess the OP could be enhanced by specifying that the chap at the docs needed an Osypka pacemaker - world-beating, according to Mr. Google.

So why can't pacemaking be considered specific?

It's a rather specific talent that one nation is overwhelmingly involved with.