To find Dan's "jokes" regarding epilepsy on Show me the Funny last night extremely offensive??

[frazzle26]

Did anyone else watch Show me the Funny last night??

Dan one of the contestants made some extremely offensive "jokes" regarding epilepsy which I was quite surprised that ITV broadcast. Epilepsy is misunderstood at the best of times and people with this illness (myself included) do not appreciate being made fun off in front of a national audience.

I sent an email to ITV to complain but so far have been fobbed off. Did anyone else feel that his "jokes" were really out of order and unfunny?

Oh, John Cleese's car-bashing moment actually scared me; I had a boss who acted a bit like that at the time, and I was only a youngster myself... boss turned out to have bi polar. :(

Dan has epilepsy in this link he talks about it and is shown telling the same joke (about 15 seconds in)

He has epilepsy, so he's allowed to make jokes about it. But it wasn't funny. Wasn't as bad as his whelk bit, mind.

It was funny.

You can get insulted about things easily, or you can choose to see them in the light they're intended and then make a decision about your reaction. This was clearly not intended to be insulting. It's a possibility that some of the stuff he was talking about was actually said to him as a kid and he might even have found it offensive then, but since then he's grown up and recognised that actually, he doesn't have to find it offensive. It's clever word play. Insults only work if the person they're aimed at finds them insulting.

I figure when anyone says anything supposedly insulting to me (and they do, often enough - I have the sort of appearance and behaviours which invite this) I can see it one of several ways:

a) What they're saying about me is incorrect, and therefore they don't know me and aren't qualified to judge me. I know they're talking rubbish and that's all that matters.
b) What they're saying about me is correct, and I don't care. (e.g. "You look like a hedgehog!" when I have my mohawk up. Perhaps not entirely literally correct, but the essence is there.) Therefore why bother to be insulted?
c) What they're saying about me is correct, and I care. In which case I'd be much better off putting my energy into changing myself instead of getting upset when other people point the truth out. Them stopping pointing it out won't stop it being true.

I just come from a family which use dark humour a lot as a way to cope, and I think we're a lot more pragmatic because of it. Some people would've been shocked to hear how we talked on the day my nan died, in the hospital while waiting to go in and see her, but it wasn't a slur against her.

Intention is everything. I'd be a hell of a lot more depressed if everyone stopped making jokes about anything negative.