Jo Brand and battery acid comment

[decisionsindecisions]

I love Jo Brand. I love her stand up comedy and I think she's great when she presents HIGNFY.

I don't know what to make of this comment that she has apparently made regarding throwing battery acid instead of milkshake. Some people are saying this is comedy. Some people are disgusted by the comment. I sit somewhere in the middle of this. I think it's in poor taste and to be honest I am surprised that someone of her obvious intelligence would say something like this. But at the same time we live in a free society.

I just wondered what people on here think about it?

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jo-brand-sparks-fury-by-saying-politicians-should-have-battery-acid-thrown-at-them-instead-of-a4165941.html

I hate the likes of Farage with a passion but I still think this comment is terrible. However if you read it it does say that she immediately said she was joking and went on to say the whole milkshake throwing thing is pathetic. So probably been made to sound worse than it was but still pretty poor form regardless imo

I do think there is an element with these celebrities that when their career/popularity is on the wane that they come out with something controversial just for the attention.

Can’t say as I have heard much of her in recent years, I can’t stand her and have never found her funny so would actively avoid watching her but haven’t had the need to as I haven’t come across her in ages.

It’s like the other Brand, Russell, it’s all gone a bit quiet for him so he’s come out with saying he wants to meet the more famous Katy Perry and apologise to her.

He’s a desperate attention seeker so it wouldn’t surprise me if Jo Brand has done this as a publicity stunt knowing full well her comment would garner media attention and public debate.

@Soola

Making blanket comments about the left being hate filled does not help.

There are a proportion of the left who are like that but also serious right wingers who are equally odious.

A tongue in cheek comment from Jo Brand which is not funny in today's climate.

No she isn’t. She’s proved by this comment (and others) that she’s a bigoted moron.

No. She's a national treasure. Certainly not a moron, very well educated, actually. And no bigot. How odd that you think so, especially as you use disablist language. Now that's a bigot.

And anyone defending her needs to take a long hard look at themselves.

Had a good hard look. Sense of the ridiculous in working order. Dislike of the po-faced still intact. Sense of humour still in place.

If she was talking about Corbyn she'd be vilified by now.
Yes, or any Labour politician.
It was a vile comment but the BBC thinks it’s ok......

Alexa there's no comparison because it's one thing to make homophobic, racist or antisemitic jokes aimed at a whole section of society and another to make one aimed at one individual.

Sagrada. Ok then. Address the other two categories that I included but you ignored. Would it be ok to say that acid should be thrown at pensioners or SAHMs and then backtrack and say it was just a joke?

What’s funny about wanting to throw acid in someone’s face?

Alexa, include those two categories as well. I wasn't going to type out your whole post but had hoped I'd made my point without you nitpicking. Of course it wouldn't be fucking ok, only a sick mind would think it would.
HTH

It's disgusting but not uncommon for left wing types to do or say things which they think are excused by their so called moral superiority.

‘Very well educated’.

She has a joint social science degree with a Registered Mental Nurse qualification at Brunel University. That hardly makes her Socrates. 🙄

There are lots of "comedy" things i dont find funny but i dont expect people to be sacked.

Non-comedians have been sacked for similarly hate-inciting comments. Why should comedians be exempt?

’bigot’

‘a person who is intolerant towards those holding different opinions’

That sounds a spot on description of Jo Brand’s comment.

She has a joint social science degree with a Registered Mental Nurse qualification at Brunel University. That hardly makes her Socrates.

Wow! Bitchy or what? A degree is a degree. Is your degree so much more superior? Listen to yourself. Shameful.

@daisieareoursilver

I wasn’t knocking the degree, it was in reply to someone saying how well educated she is as if she is some great philosopher.

Jo Brand a national treasure?? I alway's found her a ghastly horrible woman, joking about throwing battery acid over politician's just show's how much of an idiot she really is, she won't care if the BBC sack her she's not skint.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48623046

I guess I'm the only one who thinks Farage's gross hypocrisy should be highlighted.

Jo will survive this. Even though she isn't "a great philosopher". She's an inspiration to feminists of a certain age, of whom I'm one. and let's not forget when she put the boys in their place on HIGNFY.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2017/nov/04/jo-brands-speech-on-sexual-harassment-silences-all-male-panel-on-have-i-got-news-for-you-video

Daisies no, I mentioned it as well.

but that doesn't take away from what Jo said. She's an inspiration to me, as a feminist of a certain age, but it doesn't excuse what she said.

Has anyone listened to the full context of the show (or just the first 9 minutes of it, when they are arguing against the "received wisdom" that "brexit has divided the nation")? She is evidently not recommending throwing battery acid at anyone, nor justifying anyone who would... and anyone who did that claiming she had would rightly be prosecuted and hopefully imprisoned. Her point, for comic effect, was that brexit had actually united the nation by putting forwards characters it was so easy to hate that one could imagine wanting to do this. It was a distasteful joke, but most comedy is to some extent or other, distasteful. (even the "what's brown and sticky" kind beloved by 8yr old DS). The structure of her contribution was very clever, and she knew it was distasteful, by her planned "sorry!" right at the end.

It is totally different from a politician or anyone else inciting violence by saying they would take up a rifle to deliver brexit, or whatever. She was not inciting anyone to throw anything at anyone.

The rest of the first 10 mins of the show which has escaped censure included a conflation of women and the mentally ill "as if there were a difference", insulted the entirity of the house of commons generally, and several politicians including Jeremy corbyn personally, was rude about the Welsh and called the audience a bigoted bunch of racists (or similar). Against that background, the free speech of Jo B wasn't out of place or inappropriate. IMO.

I listened to it all on broadcast.

She definitely said she thought milkshakes were pathetic and people should use something more effective, like battery acid. The audience sounded a bit shocked

let's not forget when she put the boys in their place on HIGNFY. You can be right on one occasion and wrong on another.

Absolutely Fibbke that was my understanding on her use of the word "pathetic".

I really can't see anyone chucking battery acid instead of a milkshake because Jo Brand made a not very funny joke about it. I think it's the professionally offended out in force again.

She can't be sacked. She's self employed. What she said was really nasty and not funny in the slightest. Joking about acid attacks is a step over the line.

I like her, but I don't think anybody should joke about acid attacks. I am a left wing feminist, and I don't appreciate the anti-brexit stance being made easy to dismiss and ridicule or even shut down.

If Tommy Robinson had said it about a Muslim leader, I'd want him arrested and dealt with. Should she have a special note excusing her from being held accountable, because she was joking and I dislike farage and I think what he's incited the country into is worse? Nah. Whole bloody point of feminism and left wing politics is equality for all. We should be held just as accountable.