Comedy and offense

[Guy Bifkin]

I wonder what repressed minority David Baddiel has to say about it on Twitter. 

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Has anyone ever been less funny than David Baddiel, who maintained a career based off good choices in who his friends were?

[wordsfromlee]

37 minutes ago, Scott Malbranque said:

I would imagine Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr are anticipating a fierce rotten furore over Tropic Thunder any minute now

There was a big thing on Twitter earlier this year where a bunch of teenagers discovered Tropic Thunder for the first time and tried to get Robert Downey cancelled. 

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Every single article I have seen about this has had someone comment about White Chick's within a few minutes. Predictable and shite. Much like the non Terry Crews bits of the film.

[tiger_rick]

Just now, ReturnOfTheMack said:

Every single article I have seen about this has had someone comment about White Chick's within a few minutes. Predictable and shite. Much like the non Terry Crews bits of the film.

It would only be fair if Comedy Central were banned from showing it every other week.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Just now, tiger_rick said:

It would only be fair if Comedy Central were banned from showing it every other week.

I see no issue with that 

[Monkee]

This is a really interesting topic to read. A couple of months ago I was asked by an audience review website I’m on to watch Lenny Henry’s Race Through Comedy. It’s available online if anyone’s interested:

https://www.sky.com/watch/title/series/7b374772-d68d-476a-bf19-706efc78e4b7
 

It’s very enlightening (from my perspective of being white) as to how comedies from the past were seen from a BAME perspective. I’m not sure the programme did the subject justice really as it was crammed into an hour and I got bored for about 20mins in between however it looked at the Black & White Minstrel Show, Love Thy Neighbour, Rising Damp, etc.

I think I remember someone saying that even though Love Thy Neighbour was taking the piss out of the Alf Garnett character it still promoted racism. Either because people didn’t get it (as previously mentioned) or because this was the only representation of black people that some white people had seen so they learned new [profoundly racist] terminology they might never have learned if it wasn’t for these programmes.

What struck me though is that I was left feeling that these programmes that are now deemed unacceptable shouldn’t just be erased for no-one to ever see them again. They should be held up as examples of what is not acceptable. A good example is Disney and their old non-PC films. Instead of just deleting them and pretending it never happened, there are now disclaimers saying they were made in a different time and some content is not acceptable now but it teaches children (and some adults) to understand WHY it’s no longer acceptable.

You can’t delete history but you do have to learn from it without glorifying it. Having said that, I saw a tweet earlier saying something like, “This is ridiculous, it’s comedy FFS!” in relation to Little Britain being taken off air. Comedy is subjective but it doesn’t give a free pass to being offensive and you can’t object to the offence if you’re not the one offended. If that makes sense.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Monkee

[Nexus]

1 hour ago, wordsfromlee said:

Or Fawlty Towers

I watched Fawlty Towers for the first time ever a month or so ago. I really did not find it funny and I thought the way Manuel was talked about has aged horribly. 

[Monkee]

7 minutes ago, Monkee said:

Lenny Henry’s Race Through Comedy. It’s available online if anyone’s interested:

https://www.sky.com/watch/title/series/7b374772-d68d-476a-bf19-706efc78e4b7

Ah, ok so there were actually 3 episodes looking at sitcoms, stand-up and sketch shows. I only watched the sitcoms one so it might be interesting to see what’s covered in the other 2 for more insight.

[SuperBacon]

2 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

Someone's at work ringing around to find out how much the streaming rights to Desmond's will cost right now as we speak.

Must include Porkpie as well (I loved it)

[gmoney]

Desmond's used to be on every day on London Live. Worth moving to the capital for. 

[wordsfromlee]

49 minutes ago, Nexus said:

I watched Fawlty Towers for the first time ever a month or so ago. I really did not find it funny and I thought the way Manuel was talked about has aged horribly. 

So has the conversation between Basil and the Major where they discuss which racial slur the India cricket team is and which the West Indies cricket team is. 

[BomberPat]

10 minutes ago, wordsfromlee said:

So has the conversation between Basil and the Major where they discuss which racial slur the India cricket team is and which the West Indies cricket team is. 

This is an interesting one, in that it's (I think) a very well constructed joke, where the punchline is that a character like the Major would uncharacteristically object to a racist slur, only for the revelation to then be not that he objects to the slur in principle, but that he's being specific about which slur to use. It's about subverting expectations.

The problem is that for this to work, part of the joke has to be taking some degree of joy from the transgression of saying the slur in the first place.

It's aged badly and that's fine. Comedy reflects the social values of the time, so it's only right that it would age faster than most genres.

[Mr_Danger]

2 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

So they should. It's dreadful.

It does offer a fascinating insight in to the sense of humour of Tom Cruise as I remember him laughing hysterically at his Les Grossman character and talking about getting a franchise out of it.

A Tom Cruise gross out comedy would have been a befuddling curiosity to behold.

[FLips]

My mindset when it comes to blackface in terms of purely impressions are they're ok if the joke is about the impression of the person and not the fact they're in blackface. 
For example that shockingly bad Ainsley Harriot impression earlier, the joke was the big daft eyes and the character, not the blackface or doing a voice. Don't get me wrong, it could just not have been done at all, but I don't find it that offensive. 
Things like Little Britain or Come Fly With Me where the character is black for the sake of being black so they can do blackface is wrong because that person doesn't exist. They've made one up just to do blackface.

Obviously this is my personal stance on it and it has no meaning or bearing on what people should and shouldn't find offensive. I certainly would understand not doing it at all.