Every few months or so, a comedian makes a joke somewhere and someone gets offended by it. Fair enough. Fine. Let’s move on from it and all get on with our lives. Although that’s never quite how it happens because it’s (inevitably) someone from the BBC that’s made the joke, The Daily Mail, never one to miss out on a good bit of public outrage, join in the fun and begin the campaign to get somebody hung, drawn and quartered and we have the debate on boundaries in comedy.
And, to be honest, I love it when the debate comes up because it’s exactly what I done this here documentary on and it’s a chance for me to shamelessly plug it again. Y’know, like I just did there.
This week, it’s all been kicking off about a joke that Frankie Boyle made some time ago about Katie Price’s disabled son, Harvey. I don’t wish to offend anybody, but I am going to copy that joke below here because I think it’s important to put the whole argument into context.
On his Channel Four show, Tramadol Nights, Frankie Boyle said:
“Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey – eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him. I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter – she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her…”
You can see why there has been offence caused. Then, in response, a representative of Katie Price said:
“Harvey Price is a little miracle. Every day he overcomes so many difficulties and has so many battles to win due to his medical problems. I love him and am deeply proud to be his mother. If Mr Boyle had a tenth of his courage and decency, he would know that to suggest, let alone think funny, that Harvey may sexually attack me is vile and deeply unfair. Mr Boyle clearly has serious issues and those that give him a TV platform to say such disgusting things need to look at themselves very honestly.”
While a representative for Peter Andre added:
“We’re all disgusted by these comments. Peter is angry and very upset at Harvey being mocked in this way. Children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits.”
First off, let’s take a look at the joke.
Maybe it’s just me and maybe it’s just that I don’t ‘get’ Frankie Boyle’s style of comedy. People’s tastes differ and I’m prepared to accept that I like some comedians and not others and they’re probably not the same comedians that you like and dislike. That doesn’t make one comic good, because it’s an entirely subjective topic and it always will be. But, no matter how hard I try, I struggle to actually find the jokes in nearly all of what Frankie Boyle says.
When I look at that offending joke, my first instinct was that the idea ‘parents fighting over custody of a child – because they don’t want him’ would make a fairly decent gag. Nothing to do with a disability, nothing to do with anything other than it being a situation you don’t expect to see coming. Maybe I’ll pop it on the pad for that sketch show I keep meaning to write.
But then comes the second bit; the bit about Harvey sexually assaulting his mother. And I read it over and over again and I just can’t find the punch line. I don’t see what’s funny about it – not because it’s offensive, but rather because I can’t see what the joke is. It feels remarkably like a statement intended just to push the audience to the point of going ‘ooh, that’s a bit naughty’. But doing that, in my mind, isn’t funny.
The frustrating thing I find about Frankie Boyle is that I think he can be quite a funny guy. When I’ve seen some of his proper jokes on television – things he’s said that have had a feed line and then a punch line – I’ve found him to be quite witty. But saying offensive things with no joke attached isn’t being witty; it’s being offensive for the sake of it.
Perhaps it’s a gut reaction of the audience to laugh when a man on stage says something horrible about a disabled child or an ethnic minority or victim of paedophilia or someone who’s had cancer. Maybe it’s a way of dealing with the gruesome material. I’m not convinced, though, how that is comedy. It’s just saying offensive things on stage and that, by definition, isn’t funny.
Offensive jokes, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. When Jimmy Carr, for example, says something racist, it’s pretty clear that the joke isn’t on the ethnic minority, but rather himself for being a racist. It’s not a “haha – these people can’t speak English properly”, rather a “haha – aren’t my views so awful and outdated that they make me look like an idiot”.
I can’t remember who told it to me, but there was a joke I’d heard about Wayne Rooney. It went along the lines of the Manchester United forward being at England training, dribbling the ball past all of the black players in the squad and scoring. Capello would then shout: “No, no, no! I said around the cones!” There, the joke isn’t on the black players; it’s on Rooney, for being stupid enough to (a) believe that his manager would set that training drill and (b) for believing it’s okay to still use an offensive term for black people. The overall message is ‘racism is bad’, yet it’s pretty clear to see why that joke could be considered offensive.
And that’s the point of offensive humour. It makes us look at the world and look at the true nature of all the bad stuff that happens and it makes us laugh at them. Sometimes, laughing at a situation is one of the best ways to deal with it. But, in order to laugh at jokes about disability or cancer or paedophilia, there have to be good jokes. Not simply statements that are gruesome and ugly.
I find it interesting when Peter Andre’s representative said that jokes about “children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits.” I have real sympathy with him in the situation and what was said about Harvey was horrible, but I vehemently disagree with him on this one. No subject, no matter how awful, should ever be off limits for comedy. Comedy should never be censored.
If it were to be censored, then there’s whole issues with who says what you can and can’t joke about? Why is it ok to make jokes about X, but not about Y or Z? And is that line the same for everybody – can a black person make a joke about black people or can a cancer sufferer make a joke about cancer, so long as nobody else does?
I’ve not done the research to this, but, as far as I’m aware, that would make Andre Vincent one of the few comics on the circuit that was able to crack gags about cancer. And he has cracked gags about cancer before and they were bloody funny, too. They weren’t funny, though, because he has had the disease. They were funny because they were good jokes. Other comedians have also cracked good gags about cancer, despite never suffering from it.
And that’s the difference, I find, between Frankie Boyle and other offensive comedians out there. I can see the point to some of the others; the point of challenging those outdated beliefs or the point of becoming comfortable with taboo subjects. And it needs material of a high standard to do that because talking about difficult subjects isn’t a breeze and so the punch line better good. But with Boyle, all I end up seeing is “here is some offensive statement” and then the audience laughing. And I wonder if they heard something I didn’t.
I don’t find Boyle offensive. But I don’t find him funny, either.
Of course, another side to this argument is that Frankie Boyle’s joke has been aired on television. And that presents a whole new problem: You’ll hear far more offensive material used in live, not-for-broadcast, stand-up shows than you will on the tellybox. The simple reason is that, when going to see a live show, you know what you’re getting; you’ve paid for the ticket and you’ve chosen to see a performer. With the TV, though, there’s always the possibility of catching that channel-hopper.
All this being said, though, being offended isn’t a bad thing. It’s ok to be offended by what a comedian has said on stage. It shows you’re alive and it shows that you have feelings, but being offended by something doesn’t mean that it isn’t funny. If you’ve been affected by cancer and you don’t find it funny, then that’s fair enough – but is it then hypocritical to complain based on that if you find jokes about, say, disabilities or paedophilia funny?
When it comes down to it, offensive comedy is important. Without it, taboo subjects would be even rarer talked about and radical viewpoints would be left much more unchallenged. However, I think the biggest lesson we can learn from this debate every time it crops up is that, if you’re a comedian and you’ve got offensive jokes, then they need to be good ones.
Good and offensive jokes will make people think about the subject and laugh. Bad and offensive jokes will make people complain.
And then the BBC will issue an apology anyway.
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~ by David Mooney on July 1, 2011.
Posted in Comedy, Comment, Current Affairs, Media
Pushing The Limits Of Comedy
And, to be honest, I love it when the debate comes up because it’s exactly what I done this here documentary on and it’s a chance for me to shamelessly plug it again. Y’know, like I just did there.
This week, it’s all been kicking off about a joke that Frankie Boyle made some time ago about Katie Price’s disabled son, Harvey. I don’t wish to offend anybody, but I am going to copy that joke below here because I think it’s important to put the whole argument into context.
On his Channel Four show, Tramadol Nights, Frankie Boyle said:
You can see why there has been offence caused. Then, in response, a representative of Katie Price said:
While a representative for Peter Andre added:
First off, let’s take a look at the joke.
Maybe it’s just me and maybe it’s just that I don’t ‘get’ Frankie Boyle’s style of comedy. People’s tastes differ and I’m prepared to accept that I like some comedians and not others and they’re probably not the same comedians that you like and dislike. That doesn’t make one comic good, because it’s an entirely subjective topic and it always will be. But, no matter how hard I try, I struggle to actually find the jokes in nearly all of what Frankie Boyle says.
When I look at that offending joke, my first instinct was that the idea ‘parents fighting over custody of a child – because they don’t want him’ would make a fairly decent gag. Nothing to do with a disability, nothing to do with anything other than it being a situation you don’t expect to see coming. Maybe I’ll pop it on the pad for that sketch show I keep meaning to write.
But then comes the second bit; the bit about Harvey sexually assaulting his mother. And I read it over and over again and I just can’t find the punch line. I don’t see what’s funny about it – not because it’s offensive, but rather because I can’t see what the joke is. It feels remarkably like a statement intended just to push the audience to the point of going ‘ooh, that’s a bit naughty’. But doing that, in my mind, isn’t funny.
The frustrating thing I find about Frankie Boyle is that I think he can be quite a funny guy. When I’ve seen some of his proper jokes on television – things he’s said that have had a feed line and then a punch line – I’ve found him to be quite witty. But saying offensive things with no joke attached isn’t being witty; it’s being offensive for the sake of it.
Perhaps it’s a gut reaction of the audience to laugh when a man on stage says something horrible about a disabled child or an ethnic minority or victim of paedophilia or someone who’s had cancer. Maybe it’s a way of dealing with the gruesome material. I’m not convinced, though, how that is comedy. It’s just saying offensive things on stage and that, by definition, isn’t funny.
Offensive jokes, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. When Jimmy Carr, for example, says something racist, it’s pretty clear that the joke isn’t on the ethnic minority, but rather himself for being a racist. It’s not a “haha – these people can’t speak English properly”, rather a “haha – aren’t my views so awful and outdated that they make me look like an idiot”.
I can’t remember who told it to me, but there was a joke I’d heard about Wayne Rooney. It went along the lines of the Manchester United forward being at England training, dribbling the ball past all of the black players in the squad and scoring. Capello would then shout: “No, no, no! I said around the cones!” There, the joke isn’t on the black players; it’s on Rooney, for being stupid enough to (a) believe that his manager would set that training drill and (b) for believing it’s okay to still use an offensive term for black people. The overall message is ‘racism is bad’, yet it’s pretty clear to see why that joke could be considered offensive.
And that’s the point of offensive humour. It makes us look at the world and look at the true nature of all the bad stuff that happens and it makes us laugh at them. Sometimes, laughing at a situation is one of the best ways to deal with it. But, in order to laugh at jokes about disability or cancer or paedophilia, there have to be good jokes. Not simply statements that are gruesome and ugly.
I find it interesting when Peter Andre’s representative said that jokes about “children, especially a disabled youngster, should be off-limits.” I have real sympathy with him in the situation and what was said about Harvey was horrible, but I vehemently disagree with him on this one. No subject, no matter how awful, should ever be off limits for comedy. Comedy should never be censored.
If it were to be censored, then there’s whole issues with who says what you can and can’t joke about? Why is it ok to make jokes about X, but not about Y or Z? And is that line the same for everybody – can a black person make a joke about black people or can a cancer sufferer make a joke about cancer, so long as nobody else does?
I’ve not done the research to this, but, as far as I’m aware, that would make Andre Vincent one of the few comics on the circuit that was able to crack gags about cancer. And he has cracked gags about cancer before and they were bloody funny, too. They weren’t funny, though, because he has had the disease. They were funny because they were good jokes. Other comedians have also cracked good gags about cancer, despite never suffering from it.
And that’s the difference, I find, between Frankie Boyle and other offensive comedians out there. I can see the point to some of the others; the point of challenging those outdated beliefs or the point of becoming comfortable with taboo subjects. And it needs material of a high standard to do that because talking about difficult subjects isn’t a breeze and so the punch line better good. But with Boyle, all I end up seeing is “here is some offensive statement” and then the audience laughing. And I wonder if they heard something I didn’t.
I don’t find Boyle offensive. But I don’t find him funny, either.
Of course, another side to this argument is that Frankie Boyle’s joke has been aired on television. And that presents a whole new problem: You’ll hear far more offensive material used in live, not-for-broadcast, stand-up shows than you will on the tellybox. The simple reason is that, when going to see a live show, you know what you’re getting; you’ve paid for the ticket and you’ve chosen to see a performer. With the TV, though, there’s always the possibility of catching that channel-hopper.
All this being said, though, being offended isn’t a bad thing. It’s ok to be offended by what a comedian has said on stage. It shows you’re alive and it shows that you have feelings, but being offended by something doesn’t mean that it isn’t funny. If you’ve been affected by cancer and you don’t find it funny, then that’s fair enough – but is it then hypocritical to complain based on that if you find jokes about, say, disabilities or paedophilia funny?
When it comes down to it, offensive comedy is important. Without it, taboo subjects would be even rarer talked about and radical viewpoints would be left much more unchallenged. However, I think the biggest lesson we can learn from this debate every time it crops up is that, if you’re a comedian and you’ve got offensive jokes, then they need to be good ones.
Good and offensive jokes will make people think about the subject and laugh. Bad and offensive jokes will make people complain.
And then the BBC will issue an apology anyway.
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~ by David Mooney on July 1, 2011.
Posted in Comedy, Comment, Current Affairs, Media