to feel that nothing is off limits comedy wise?

[Heathcliffscathy]

when I think of things that have really made me laugh some of them would be VERY offensive to some groups (mostly religious, and I believe in god)...I'm thinking about Sarah Silverman, Dennis Leary's no cure for cancer, Chris Rock etc etc.

Comedy is about offence to a certain extent isn't it as the funniest things are the ones that are closest to the bone, laughter relieves anxiety and therefore the graver and most serious something is (like the nazi's for eg) the funnier it can be (vis the producers for eg).

Dave Allen had it in for Catholics and my catholic mother used to weep with laughter at him. Derek and Clive take the piss about Cancer to great effect.

Now there are some 'comedians' that I think are shit: Bernard Manning springs to mind...but I don't think that banning them or censoring or protesting is the way forward, just don't view!

There are threads on here regularly about topics that mner's feel are off limits to comedy, most especially special needs. But I'm pretty sure that many special needs adults wouldn't appreciate being singled out as something that cannot be a source of humour...the ability to laugh at oneself including the tragedies and limitations of our lives is really important isn't it?

I maybe totally wrong, and maybe it's only ok if it is a special needs person doing it?

I saw a 'comedian' at a pub not too long ago that did a routine about how funny it would be to abort or miscarry female fetuses and kick their bodies under the sofa and hide them because women were useless or something like that. For some weird reason, nobody really found it funny...

I love Jo Brands "getting on" I'm guessing laughing at old people with dementia isn't on either.....

Sparkling, I think the difference between laughing at and laughing with has been done to death already in this thread.

Capricorn, I also witnessed a breast cancer 'joke' that went down like a lead balloon. In contrast, the same comedian's 'retard' jokes were well-received. I think it says something really negative about society's attitude towards disability, learning disabilities in particular.

One of my chief complaints about the current batch of stand-up comics is that they are largely male and of the Nuts Generation tosser variety

Comedy is a tool that can be used for good or evil.

It can unite people, lampoon those who are abusing their position.

When used badly it might encourage people to abuse those who are less powerful than themselves.

Some are just terrible comedians who confuse being offensive with humour. Little britain wandered into this territory and I just couldnt watch it anymore, they disgusted me. At stand-up comedy I think we should take action and boo them off the stage, and heckle them until they go away and learn their lesson heehee.

daftpunk, 'Getting On' is brilliant. They are laughing at a system, not at the dementia patients. Isn't it obvious?

I am a little shocked at this thread. There seems to be a distinct lack of understanding that poking fun at people because of their disability, for example, is completely different to poking fun at the way the world around them operates and deals with their disability. No, it is not acceptable to mock, belittle and sneer at disabled people in the name of humour. There is a lot of intellectual argument going on about this issue - freedom of speech etc - but many people seem to be lacking in the emotional IQ to understand that very basic difference.

The Office example is a good one - why are people holding it up as an example of "oh well it must be OK to laugh at disabled people - look at the Office"? It was, as many others have said, a very clear example of how comedy about disability can be funny, because it is NOT about the disabled person, but about other people's reactions to them.

Good quality comedy is not just about making people laugh. Any idiot can stand up in a pub backroom and pull silly faces and tell knock-knock jokes. That doesn't make them a comedian. A true comedian makes people laugh and makes them think. Or perhaps, if they are really skilled, makes people laugh, and then makes others look at the people who are laughing, and realise that there is something wrong with their reaction.

If a comedian made a joke along the lines of, and the inappropriate terminology is intentional, "Downs people look funny" and pulled a face, some people would laugh. That wouldn't make the "joke" any less offensive. If a comedian stood up and made a joke about an encounter with someone with Downs Syndrome where the joke-teller behaved in a cliched, inappropriate manner, that probably would be funny, in that slightly dark way that makes you think. In the first example, the person with the disability is the butt of the joke, in the other, he is the tool who the comedian uses to make a point.

Good comedy is about humour, humanity and creating a sense of fellow-feeling in people. It is about letting people laugh together and at themselves. It is not about letting people band together to laugh at a sub-section of society who will be made to feel marganilised as a result.

Anyone who does not get this is, quite frankly, an idiot and deserves to have jokes made about them.

lifelimbo, DH challenged a comedian about his use of the word 'retard'. DH and I got booed out of the room by the audience.

poor daftpunk, giggling away at telly comedy, but not really understanding any of it.

It's like those morons who watched til Death us do part etc and didn't realise that Alf Garnet was a caricature of the worst of the bigots. The audience were laughing AT his dull thinking, not agreeing with it (well, those with any intellectual capacity anyway)

What is hilarious to one person could reduce another to tears. We are all different and should recognise that its really not ok to prod and poke at others who do not have the platform to prod and poke back.

I cant bear Russel Brand since he made a joke about youngters with cancer. Do you REALLY expect me to find that funny or shrug it off with 'oh well must be too sensitive'?

Come off it.

Jokes about mongs and retards and spazzas are shit too. Because they are just too close to home and they are usually woefully fucking ignorant. The joker rarely seems to have any idea about the people he is taking the piss out off.

Disabled people laughing at how their condition impacts on them and how other people perceive them is very different from Frankie Boyle being hilariously funny about people with Downs Syndrome.

I hate this new excuse of 'irony'. Irony, shymrony. Its sexist bollocks dressed up in a smart new Nuts cover.

Ok so people dont want to be told what they should not find funny? Well dont tell me what I SHOULD be laughing at. Cancer, rape, child abuse, learning disabilites, I have heard mainstream comics tell jokes about them all.

How dreadfully modern

There is a huge difference between finding humour in a serious situation (eg when I was on dialysis sometimes I used to come back and say to dp I could imagine someone writing an amazing sitcom set on a dialysis unit as sonetimes all of us had to laugh at some aspects of it)and laughing AT someone in a difficult situation.They are not the same thing.

At the time of the HM divorce DS was awaiting surgery that could well have left him with a below the knee amputation. I was beside myself with fury at the endless streams of jokes on MN about her prosthetic leg. It seemed the jokes were because everyone hated her, and were a way of belittling her or being bitchy. And it was definitley ABOUT her, in an unpleasant way, as NoddyHolder says.
I couldn't find anything remotley funny in it, and was horrified that a prosthetic leg was seen as a reason to make cruel fun of someone.

Oh - it's about the 'system' is it?

Well thank you so much for that. I'll try and remember not to laugh at the actors playing dementia patients in future.

kungfu, I really like your definition of good comedy.

donkey, I think it would liven up my evening and do some good! Seriously, listening to such a bad comedian was depressing and we had paid real money to see him. Not much laughter in that room. I think it would give him some useful feedback (perhaps to change career?).

Taking you point into account, would be best to go as a group, and would have to pitch comments at the 'lowest common denominator'. Perhaps just a strong boo to start off with?

Agree up to a point.

BUT I think Borat/Bruno Sacha Baron Cohen does go too far fairly often.

I find his stuff very very funny and can't deny that at all, he's a brilliant comedian.

Where I think he's out of order is when he sets up ordinary people to be laughed at by others and enshrines that public humiliation on film for all time. Sometimes really lying to the contributors. What's very naughty in my opinion is that he's now rich enough to keep those people away from suing him because he can have an army of lawyers.

Some of his victimes 'deserve' some ridicule for sure. The sexist pigs in the winnebago for example and the racists etc. But in a movie for ALL TIME and when Cohen who is a massively privileged, highly educated, multi millionaire is getting rich through making us laugh at those Albanians for example (in Borat's 'home town' in the film - were they Albanians?) they're trying to sue but good luck with that guys! How much money can the village raise?

SWC;

It really isn't necessary to bring that up. This is a thread about comedy and what people find acceptable. There is no need to single me out - as I'm far from the only person agreeing with the op;

And fwiw, your language is terrible.

What question?

I wasn't talking about your spelling.

twonk is appalling

Nodding to kungfupannda's post. Well written and full of good points.

For some reason I had Michael Macintyre in my mind when I wrote that post. I always have the feeling that he is setting his audience up to laugh and then having a private little snigger to himself when they do.