Jimmy Carr Holocaust ‘joke’

[PurpleParrotfish]

Just seen this on Twitter.
'”No one ever wants to talk about the thousands of Gypsies killed by the Nazis, because no one wants to talk about the positives”
twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1489586961656516608?s=21
That would be the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Romany and Gypsies in death camps, maybe up to 1.5 million. Fucking hilarious.

@Suzi888 He probably nicked it off Gervais.

He's a despicable little man.

If you don't like offensive jokes don't watch Jimmy Carr 🤦‍♀️
There is no limit with him.

@Bortles

But Jimmy Carr isn't seriously saying how great that a lot of gypsys were killed. He's a comedian, not a politician or journalist. He's playing on the idea of racism against gypsys not being as publicly condemned as anti-semitism in modern society. He's laughing at the people who would fist-pump at that joke and challenging others to confront their own feelings about the joke, whether or not they feel gypsy's deaths are as bad. Some people won't feel it is and they won't like that feeling and they'll question why they feel it - social conditioning perhaps? Education? The media? And the end result is, they've been challenged, they've addressed their feelings and concluded it is, in fact, as bad. If you're just offended, that's just a feeling you've had. It means zero to anyone else really.

Really? I think you are thinking too deeply about it. It was a joke told for shock value and I'm sure people laughing/ offended at it are not going to spend hours mulling over the wider debate.

I'm not easily offended but that joke made me feel physically sick. Why do I feel like that? Because people living in death camps and then being gassed is horrific and not something to joke about.

I also felt sick at the laughing and clapping from the audience.

@RandomDent I thought so, I like Gervais- Carr no.

Ages since I read his book. However he is quite a deep student of comedy (much as Paul Daniels was of magic).

I saw him interviewed years ago and the demonstrated that - despite what we all may like to think - laughter does evade our morality. It was very simple. He told a very "off-colour" joke. There wasa groan and gasp - but only after several people had laughed.

How many people here would laugh at seeing someone slip on a banana peel - even if it may have killed them ?

The thing with challenging comedy is that you need really, really unimpeachable credentials to make your point successfully. An example (from another age) would be Alf Garnett being played by the Labour supporting, Jewish, Warren Mitchell. The joke was on Alf, although Warren Mitchell himself was perturbed by how many racists saw him as some kind of role model.

Jimmy Carr doesn't have those credentials, he just has a reputation for causing offence (and poor plastic surgery) and consequently his so called "joke" just comes over as vile and cheap. However, if it (even accidentally) raises awareness of the possibly 1.5 million Roma and Sinti people who were murdered in the Holocaust, it is some good out of it.

Carr’s point/justification is that it is a joke about a terrible thing, not the terrible thing itself.

For that justification to even begin to work, it needs to be funny. I don't see how anyone who actually has a good sense of humour (rather than laughing indiscriminately to 'shocking' bilge) would call that a joke.

If he had made that joke about another group, what would the reaction have been?

Are there some groups that it's more acceptable to make such a joke about?

Maybe he's just a fkin cnt 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Bortles - he’s really not doing that. The butt of the joke is travelers. Like the butt of his rape jokes is not rapists or mysoginists.

I compare
Him to Ricky Gervaise. Who is genuinely ethical - he could make a joke about race or rape but it would be very different

@HoliHormonalTigerlilly

Maybe he's just a fkin cnt 🤷🏻‍♀️

Absolutely.

I guess Jimmy Carr is a measure of who are the most vilified and oppressed groups . I am sure there are some 'marginalised' groups that he does avoid jokes about to avoid being cancelled

@Bortles

RE. a PP saying girl from work made a racist joke: entirely different thing. I doubt she was clever enough to be laughing AT racists 'ie. this is the type of thing people think (!!) but was instead racist herself. There's a difference. James Acaster talking about the latter.

oh please

it's bad when other people do it but it's fine when Carr does it because he's so clever.

Roma and Travellers are two of the easiest demographics to make a racist gag about, because they're groups that still face such a huge amount of hate in 2022.

No surprise coming from Carr. It wasn't a joke. It's hate speech and he gets paid to do it - thankfully never by me.

Good for him.

I’m getting rather bored of censorious, puritanical policing of language and speech. Comedy should be edgy, should push boundaries and should retain an ability to shock. It’s an indictment of the current climate that Brass Eye’s Paedogeddon satire could not be broadcast today. We should be pleased that Jimmy Carr is willing to make a stand for artistic freedom and freedom of speech.

When prejudice and bigotry stop being a source of violence and hatred towards gypsies/travellers - completely stop - THEN maybe he can have his little self-congratulatory post-modern metahumour moment and look down on the rest of us for being disgusted.

Until then - fuck him, and fuck anyone thick enough to be fooled into thinking they have to pretend he's funny.

@PlanetNormal

Good for him.

I’m getting rather bored of censorious, puritanical policing of language and speech. Comedy should be edgy, should push boundaries and should retain an ability to shock. It’s an indictment of the current climate that Brass Eye’s Paedogeddon satire could not be broadcast today. We should be pleased that Jimmy Carr is willing to make a stand for artistic freedom and freedom of speech.

I wonder what would have happened if someone had said at the time to his face that they didn't think it was funny.

If they had said how many people from minority groups had been murdered by the Nazis?

Would it have been different if it had been a member from that community making that joke? Instead of someone like Carr? Maybe.

It's really not funny, therefore it doesn't pass the test of being a joke.
He's a despicable oily little man whose jokes are only designed to shock. I won't watch him - there are plenty of clever comedians out there. Was watching Bill Bailey on YouTube last night and crying with laughter. Carr only makes me feel sick, and it's not because I need him to challenge my thinking about rape, disabled children or the Holocaust, thanks. Same with Frankie Boyle - not funny.

@Bonheurdupasse

Cultural relativism - do we determine that entire population is racist etc? Because the majority of the populations in a few central/Eastern European countries would actually agree with the joke.

The majority of white US citizens living in the south in the first half of the twentieth century were racist. The fact that those people held the majority view for their time/region does not make them any less racist.

The same goes for people living in eastern European countries where anti-Roma racism is considered normal. They are still racists.

The same goes for people living in eastern European countries where anti-Roma racism is considered normal. They are still racists.

In my job, HR manager, I employed many eastern Europeans. At times I had to deal with less than positive attitudes from British people who objected to working with them. One of the things that made it so difficult would be them asking me, "Why is it wrong for us to say anything racist about them when they are so racist about other people."

I would despair at some of the things said on both sides and I would detect a distinct change of attitude towards me when the East Europeans found out my husband wasn't white. Let's just say the level of respect definitely dropped.

@ancientgran That whole thing sounds like a fucking nightmare! Did you also have non-white Brits in the mix too?

I listened to him on a podcast he was saying that the last half hour of his tour show is all career ending jokes. He is trying to test people/wind them up. It's a persona he isn't like that in real life