Where do you draw the line with humour?

I've been thinking a bit lately, no honestly I have, about do I go past a point with some of the things I say in jest on here and in general.

We had Tony Hooper's crusade against Jimmy Savile jokes and somebody on here wasn't happy with the Oscar Pistorius jokes recently and I just wondered what people's opinions of where something has overstepped the mark.

For me personally I have no problem with jokes about disability even though I have had lots of personal experience of it, I have no problem with people taking the piss out of the Scottish and don't even have an issue with anyone taking the micky out of my obscenely large penis. Others can get upset about disabled jokes but I just think that it matters in what context the joke is told in. If a one legged man gives himself the nickname stumpy then that is their business even if it offends someone else, but if I saw a gang of youths teasing somebody in a wheelchair I know that I would do something about it, like take the brake off and push them down a hill, but seriously there is a big difference between telling a joke about something and teasing somebody about the same thing.

I also think it matters who is telling the joke. If a black person tells a joke about black people then that is fine, but if a white person tells the same joke then it is not considered PC, when I think it depends on whether there is malice in the joke or not or if the person telling the joke has personal experience that qualifies them to take the piss out of themselves and their own circumstances.

So recently ago I saw a clip of a US TV show where Joan Rivers was talking about the Oscars and the fashions of the big stars on the red carpet and she was talking about Heidi Klum and said "The last time I saw a German looking that hot they were pushing Jews into the ovens". Now the co-hosts laughed at the joke and I found it really funny, but I think I only found it funny because I know that Joan Rivers is Jewish and her husband lost most of his family to the Holocaust. If the joke was told by a skinhead who was obviously meaning to spread hatred of Jews then obviously it isn't Ok. Joan Rivers was picked for the show because they knew she was going to be outrageous and with her you know what the level of her jokes are going to be so don't get her to co-host a TV show if you don't want controversy.

Like I said, there was laughter from her co-hosts, even if it was the kind of bite your lip laughter that you can't help, but I didn't hear too much fuss about it at the time. Then last week Joan Rivers is on The Letterman Show and she was talking about Adele and the Oscars again and she made several quips about Adele being fat. This was met with boos from the audience and Letterman looking horrified that she could say such a thing and there was plenty of fall-out about it because she repeated some of the jokes on Twitter and got absolutely panned for it. Another American stand-up comedian, I don't know his name as he's shit, on TV was giving Rivers shit about her "sexist" abuse of Adele and it made the headlines. So when did being fat become a more taboo subject than millions of people dying at the hands of a madman?

I wondered if it was a racist thing because so many people didn't give a shit because it was only Jews but I don't honestly believe that to be the case. I just think it is because Adele is sooooo popular right now and not in a Justin Beiber/ Lady Gaga kind of way, she is actually talented, and that makes her off-subject because she hapens to be larger than Katy Perry with twice as much talent in her little finger than Katy Perry has in her body.

Everyone knows at the moment that whatever the big new story is there will be jokes flying around within minutes, usually the same ones altered to fit the current situation. How many horse jokes were doing the rounds? Some really funny and some just tedious. We saw all the Oscar Pistorius one's, the Whitney Houston one's, the Amy Winehouse one's etc. Going back a few years I remember the Ethiopian jokes when their famine was first brought to the worlds attention, and when the Space Shuttle blew up the jokes about astronauts drinking 7 up, when Lord Mountbatten was blown up in his speedboat by the IRA the "How do you know Lord Mountbatten had dandruff? They found his head and shoulders on the beach" jokes.

So it has been going on for years and years. I even remember "What was Marc Bolan's last hit? Wrap a yellow mini round an old oak tree". This means it's not a recent phenomenon by any means and yet the people who told these earlier jokes are sometimes the one's who complain now. Or is it a case of these people have certain subjects that they perceive as "Overstepping the mark"? Which is what I believe it is.

Even as a father I tell and laugh at paedophile jokes. I know when it is just humour or attempted humour and it doesn't bother me. If I heard Jimmy Savile doing a stand up routine about kiddy fiddling if he was still alive and all the stories about him had surfaced then this would be way, way too far in my book.

Anyway I just wanted to know what anyone else thinks about humour and what is acceptable or not.

While I was writing this I got to thinking about Jerry Sadowitz who you really don't see very much of now, he was really feckin outrageous in his time and for some strange reason someone at the BBC gave him his own show years ago. I don't think they aired all of the episodes because it was considered so shocking He says it isn't an act with him and he really is that pissed off and angry at the world and his shite life. I couldn't find very much footage of him online but while I was searching I came across this and I remember it from back in the 80's. How feckin well known was Savile's depravity if this mad half Scottish, half Jewish, mental case comedian/magician had a routine about it?

Simple test for me - if it makes me laugh it's funny, if it doesn't it isn't - each to their own.

Quality find there, Jocko.

As far as where to draw the line, everyone has different tolerance levels. The trick is to try and tailor your humour to fit scenarios. A large number of us on ATD are what would probably be described as 'broad-minded' and not easily offended. Speaking for myself, I honestly don't think anyone could actually offend me with words. But everyone is different of course.

The moderation here is relaxed, and for me near-the-knuckle humour is a huge part of making ATD exactly what Pasoti isn't.

Long may that continue, you bunch of cnuts.

I object to your use of the word bunch, which should only be applied to flowers, bananas, or coco nuts.

what is the collective noun for cnuts anyway.

pepsipete wrote:

what is the collective noun for cnuts anyway.

A Newell or a Hooper of cnuts.

pepsipete wrote:

I object to your use of the word bunch, which should only be applied to flowers, bananas, or coco nuts.

Or crooks or keys...

Czarcasm wrote:

pepsipete wrote:

I object to your use of the word bunch, which should only be applied to flowers, bananas, or coco nuts.

Or crooks or keys...

or fives

Mike Searle wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

pepsipete wrote:

I object to your use of the word bunch, which should only be applied to flowers, bananas, or coco nuts.

Or crooks or keys...

or fives

Or grapes.

It's a bunch of cnuts Pete

This for me is summed up by Franky Boyle to some extent. I know people find him funny but I don't particularly. I think his attempts at humour are often malicious rather than funny and he says stuff to shock rather than entertain. The other side of attempted humour I don't like is when something said is aimed a belittling somebody else. Nothing wrong in a bit of blackish humour for me or a bit of piss taking but making somebody look really small is not funny. If it makes you smile I suppose it's funny and if it makes you wince it isn't but many people will either smile or wince at way different things. I hate PC people who don't allow any humour about anything. Being able to laugh at yourself also helps.

The line is drawn by society and it fluctuates contiguously, hence debates like this.

The moderation is very laid back on ATD yet almost everyone knows where that line is and it pretty much mirrors society's line. Pasoti has false lines that are often used for point scoring and settling scores, hence Hooper's pathetic and cheap tantrum that devalued the very issue he claimed was so offensive to him. He provided an excellent example of attempting social engineering under the pretense of offence, unfortunately for him it backfired big time because he appeared cheap and it's not been forgotten by his fellow pasotians and neither will it ever be.

If you don't have the noggin upstairs to know where that line is then you shouldn't be permitted to use a public forum.

If you can create humour without causing emotional pain to others then you probably have the balance right, but that shouldn't be confused with using humour to defend yourself.

Well that's my take on it, roughly!

So is it wrong to laugh at this? I was disgusted. The guys never even skinned the hamster! Yuk!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Greenjock wrote:

So is it wrong to laugh at this? I was disgusted. The guys never even skinned the hamster! Yuk!

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

What about the nutter in the story after that - cooking his mates cat in the microwave!

To a degree, this is where I fully back the stance taken by some of the Arab countries - an eye for an eye. If someone had done that to my pet, I wouldn't want them jailed. I'd just want 5 minutes in a locked room alone with them - and we wouldn't be having 'sexytime'.

Free speech innit?

Jimmy Carr did a test on his live audience. He started with a joke in poor taste and stopped when over half the audience "groaned" in shock.

Paedophilia and disability didn't overstep the mark. A joke about the gas chambers didn't but a joke about Princess Diana did. His point was that he can joke about the deaths of millions of people but not one woman in a car accident.

humour is subjective, so there are no limits. someone will be appalled, others will laugh.
me? i personally like sweary feck shit cnut humour

Pokesdown wrote:

Jimmy Carr did a test on his live audience. He started with a joke in poor taste and stopped when over half the audience "groaned" in shock.

Paedophilia and disability didn't overstep the mark. A joke about the gas chambers didn't but a joke about Princess Diana did. His point was that he can joke about the deaths of millions of people but not one woman in a car accident.

That simply serves to highlight the kind of wanker that would pay to listen to Jimmy Carr.

Modern, so called comedians, are all shiite, the best of a bad bunch is that fat tw@ from Bolton, Boyle, McIntyre, Evans the Carrs, all shiite, I have given up even looking for one with the gift any more. These people sell out freaking arenas where 10,15,20 thousand plus people laugh at them for no discernable reason.

On thread no there isn't a subject about which a joke cannot be told between half a dozen guys in a pub, I remember jokes about Aberfan that I would never repeat outside of a small body of people. The dividing line in it all is of course, is it funny? So much of what is presented as humour simply isn't funny on any level, Boyle is the best example, what a boring, talentless tw@.

They're all a load of naughty little boys saying rude words in the primary school playground.

OK not all of them.....

I watched the last episode of Derek the other night. It was a controversial topic that attracted a lot of "poor taste" criticism. The last episode drew all the threads together and left me misty eyed. Ricky Gervais is a bit Marmite but for me he is an acute observer of the human condition.

I can pretty much give and take any kind of humour. Only if it's funny though, soz Jocko.

I can pretty much give and take any kind of humour. Only if it's funny though, soz Mocko

Greenjock wrote:

pepsipete wrote:

what is the collective noun for cnuts anyway.

A Newell or a Hooper of cnuts.

jock one of your finest!

A quim of cnuts.

Charlie Wood wrote:

I watched the last episode of Derek the other night. It was a controversial topic that attracted a lot of "poor taste" criticism. The last episode drew all the threads together and left me misty eyed. Ricky Gervais is a bit Marmite but for me he is an acute observer of the human condition.

I really like Ricky Gervais when he does stand up and The Office, Extras and even the one about the dwarf was pretty good, but I don't like the films he's been in so far, apart from the one he wrote, Cemetery Junction, which was better.

I loved him presenting the Golden Globes and making the yanks squirm like feck

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I think that you could probably bump into Ricky Gervais in a pub somewhere and have such a good night just having a few beers and talking about shit you've observed. Where some comedians are obviously scripted I get the impression that RG would be able to make me piss myself just talking about everyday stuff and would know where I was coming from with some of my observations. He's probably nothing like that really but it's how I perceive him.

So I watched Derek and was looking forward to it. The fact that he's playing someone with learning difficulties doesn't mean he's taking the piss out of that, but I just found it mildly amusing and nothing special. If it were a choice between that and the Missus watching soaps I would watch it every time, or listen to some music. I watched another episode in case it got better and it was just the same, mildly amusing to me. So I was disappointed really because I really think he's funny. I even like his podcasts with Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington who cannot be for real

So maybe I'm missing something about Derek but it was just Ok in my opinion.