[News] Jimmy Carr

[amexer]

On the basis they have been very funny on programs like Would I lie to You and Have I Got News For You We have gone to see Comedians at Dome/ Theatre .Apart from very odd exception have regretted . Nothing like TV appearance and most end up with no clever humour just loads of crude F g and C g and some racism etc.
Trouble is once well known on TV they will fill out venues with ease.

 

[Peteinblack]

Very old, must be a slow day on twitter ... there needs to be at least one social media witch hunt/cancelling to keep the hordes happy.

...and to lure you out from under your rock

 

[Questions]

There are a lot of jokes - bad taste or not - that are upsetting more and more people….

That’s a fact.

 

[lawros left foot]

Very old, must be a slow day on twitter ... there needs to be at least one social media witch hunt/cancelling to keep the hordes happy.

So, you think Carrs comments are okay?

I notice that Carr doesn’t have a pop at Jews or Asians or blacks. Could be he knows hat , that is a bit too far beyond the pale, and that it’s really not acceptable these days and it might affect his bottom line. But Gypsies, yeah , let’s have a pop at them, cos no one likes them!

The man is a racist coward.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Alternatively we could wait 6 months for the annual 'P###y S**m ruined our cricket pitch' thread.
Then try and claim the moral high ground.

Hang on. So disliking the ruining of cricket pitches is akin to wishing genocide ? Blimey

 

[Stato]

Q - Why aren't there more right wing comedians on the TV?
A - because they are not funny.

Q - How do you know they are not funny if they are never on the TV?
A - Jimmy Carr

Carr isn't right wing in his politics. He has actually said the opposite. However, he does divorce his personal politics from his stage act and is of the view that he's just telling jokes and that he doesn't need to have a consistent point of view, because they're just jokes and advertised as that. Its an interesting debate. I remember that, after Carr threatened Jim Davidson with legal action for theft of one of his jokes, Stewart Lee wrote something along the lines of, although the racism in Carr's joke was supposed to be post modern and ironic, if Jim Davidson can steal your material and tell it without irony, you might want to reconsider your material. It gets more and more difficult to put forward the 'just offensive jokes, don't really mean it' argument as the internet so often now strips any performance of its context.

I always think of Carr being the modern day Bob Monkhouse - He is obsessed with comedy and its history, he writes some very good jokes, but his slick onstage persona puts off large sections of the British audience. He tries to walk the tightrope between shocking offensive comedian and light entertainment host and he suffers artistically, but is rewarded financially for doing this.

I didn't like this particular joke. It panders to prejudices and punches down, but comedians don't ever get it exactly right and I've laughed at many things that others would have found offensive. It's obviously old footage as it precedes the hair transplant. I'm guessing that, as cultural attitudes has shifted, he probably doesn't do it anymore. Yes, its a dodgy joke, but social media seems to make us all tend towards condemning someone for telling a dodgy joke about a minority group and then congratulating ourselves for our actions, rather than focusing on taking any real world steps that might try to change the opportunities of people who are part of that minority group. Its understandable: One is very very easy and the other has proven particularly difficult.

 

[keaton]

There are a lot of jokes - bad taste or not - that are upsetting more and more people….

That’s a fact.

Is it a fact? Or is just something people say at they don't get young people and think things were better in their day

 

[lawros left foot]

So if we all call out racism, we’re all hypocrites?


Okay, I understand now.

 

[vegster]

Sounds like Lightly Baked and his mates will be along to defend Carr anytime now.

 

[hart's shirt]

"Carr has regularly been in trouble for his gags, from both the left for “punching down” – often towards minorities such as travellers, disabled people, fat people, gay people, victims of sexual violence – and the right. One infamous joke ran: “Say what you like about those servicemen amputees from Iraq and Afghanistan, but we’re going to have a f*cking good Paralympic team in 2012.” A recent Guardian review said: “Many of his one-liners are barely jokes at all, just boorish cliches.” But Carr is unflappable when it comes to defending his act. “To be punching down you need to be looking down. And it’s saying you can’t joke about those people, because they can’t take it … whereas actually, some people with disabilities like really rough, dark stuff.”

And, of course, many don’t. In 2019, the charity Little People, which was co-founded by the Harry Potter actor Warwick Davis, criticised one of his jokes that targeted people with dwarfism. “We are saddened that in 2019 we have to deal with such prejudice to the dwarfism community (and other minority groups) in a time where we all strive to live equal lives and celebrate diversity without fear of humiliation or preconception.” Carr uses parts of his book to justify his comedy, but his arguments – “people know it’s just a joke” – can feel flimsy. Today he says: “It’s not as if I’m shouting these things through people’s letterboxes,” which is true, although he acknowledges that with social media the jokes no longer stay within the confines of his show.

Sometimes, though, his jokes land a punch that rings true in a gallows humour kind of way: the Afghanistan joke, for all the furore, seemed to me to be more about the calamitous invasion than mocking the veterans who served in it. There was a brutal honesty to it and Carr has an anecdote to back that up. He recalls being at the GQ awards two or three years later; Seb Coe was onstage with a group of Paralympians. “He talked about how incredible they were at 2012, and said: ‘Obviously the cause of a lot of their injuries were military service.’ I was sitting next to Michael McIntyre and he turned to me and said: ‘He’s doing your bit!’”

Carr says that he’s actually an “uber-liberal” when it comes to politics, but when I ask about the current government he’s remarkably sympathetic to its situation. “I think when we look back on the pandemic, it’ll seem like it was handled pretty well,” he says. “I mean, what else could they have done? It’s not enough just to piss and moan. Not unless you have a strong alternative idea.”

He seems to have witnessed a different pandemic to me, in which well-signposted icebergs were frequently ploughed into and alternative ideas were plentiful, yet often ignored or mocked. Perhaps what frustrates the left isn’t that Carr is unfunny – he’s clearly very skilled with wordplay and springing a surprise punchline – but that he doesn’t use his obvious talents to target the powerful more often."

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/sep/29/jimmy-carr-on-booze-taxes-and-being-a-virgin-at-26-do-i-sound-like-an-incel-elder

 

[Guinness Boy]

I didn't like this particular joke. It panders to prejudices and punches down, but comedians don't ever get it exactly right and I've laughed at many things that others would have found offensive. It's obviously old footage as it precedes the hair transplant. I'm guessing that, as cultural attitudes has shifted, he probably doesn't do it anymore. Yes, its a dodgy joke, but social media seems to make us all tend towards condemning someone for telling a dodgy joke about a minority group and then congratulating ourselves for our actions, rather than focusing on taking any real world steps that might try to change the opportunities of people who are part of that minority group. Its understandable: One is very very easy and the other has proven particularly difficult.

Yep. Looks to me like the Twitter poster has decided to find an old clip to get outraged about again (or the OP has) which again divides the reader into "isn't the comedian terrible / what about muh free speech" instead of addressing why these attitudes are around. Because then he'd also have to do some uncomfortable soul searching.

It goes beyond cricket pitches too [MENTION=435]Stat Brother[/MENTION] . I know that Irish Travellers and GRT are different but perhaps you'd like to talk about it with my friend who owns a business on Hove Seafront and used to spend a few day every year when the caravans were on Hove Lawns with constant efforts to steal his stock and get free goods while others raced quad bikes on a prom full of families with kids and dogs and then someone had to come along and remove all the rubbish and human waste when they finally ****ed off.

 

[dejavuatbtn]

Like many others who get into people’s psyche (or on their nerves) he gets too much air time.

 

[chimneys]

Carr is not funny never was . He’s very careful who he picks on . He is a tw@t

Not sure he has been at all careful there! He's surely a marked man by the GRT community, and they don't tend to mess around.

 

[Uh_huh_him]

So, you think Carrs comments are okay?

I notice that Carr doesn’t have a pop at Jews or Asians or blacks. Could be he knows hat , that is a bit too far beyond the pale, and that it’s really not acceptable these days and it might affect his bottom line. But Gypsies, yeah , let’s have a pop at them, cos no one likes them!

The man is a racist coward.

Tbh I don't know that he doesn't.
I have heard him defend his targets along the lines of him being offensive about everyone therefore he isn't discriminating.


Personally I found the joke mildly amusing, not because it's racist, but because I acknowledge who Jimmy Carr is and what he does,
If it was Roy Chubby Brown, it would be racist, bizarrely for exactly the same reason.

Jerry Sadowitz is a far more offensive and better comedian than Carr will ever be. IMO

 

[Guinness Boy]

I have heard him defend his targets along the lines of him being offensive about everyone therefore he isn't discriminating.

Pretty much why I loved South Park. Absolutely nothing was off-limits and anything and everything was a target, paradoxically meaning nothing was. Contrast that with some on NSC who only ever seem to target one or two groups.

I don't much like Jimmy Carr though, because I don't find him funny.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

It's racist.

I was wondering whether it was prosecutable.
Not funny. Vile.

 

[lawros left foot]

Tbh I don't know that he doesn't.
I have heard him defend his targets along the lines of him being offensive about everyone therefore he isn't discriminating.


Personally I found the joke mildly amusing, not because it's racist, but because I acknowledge who Jimmy Carr is and what he does,
If it was Roy Chubby Brown, it would be racist, bizarrely for exactly the same reason.

Jerry Sadowitz is a far more offensive and better comedian than Carr will ever be. IMO

You think that racism depends on who is racist?

Really?

Sir Oswald Moseley was well educated, very posh, and a brilliant orator. His racism was as bad (if not worse) than any working class, knuckle dragging, bigot.

Carr gets away with all his bigotry because he has conned people into believing that he is being clever and racist in a post modern, ironic kind of way. He’s really not .

 

[Seagull58]

I have never found Carr funny. His persona is extremely irritating before you even consider the jokes he tells. Frankie Boyle, in my opinion, is very funny and tells very edgy (offensive to some) jokes. This particular joke is offensive and not funny at all.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's racist.

It's that, but it's also worse than that. It's claiming that the extermination of significant members of a group (ie genocide, or very close to it) is something that is positive.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Jimmy Carr cracks tasteless joke. Its not exactly hold the front page is it?

I'm not even sure it's in the top 10 of his worst.