To find Jimmy Carr's latest 'joke' really disgusting and pathetic

[runningwilde]

Jimmy Carr has done it again. Nor content with making deeply disrespectful and horrid jokes about soldiers, he has now made a joke about children with Down's Syndrome and the Sunshine Variety coaches that do so much to help these kids and others too.

I used to like him but he goes too far. I really think that some things should not be joked about. Why do some people feel the need to tell
Jokes like that?

Yet, I am also aware of the fact that we can't censor jokes, but I wish some comedians actually set out to make us laugh with properly funny jokes rather than the nasty shit that Jimmy has been peddling again.

(actually I am a 'defend your right to say it' type too mayorquimby. Freedom of speech is so important)

Without saying I think the 'joke' and others like it are acceptable, the way humour changes over time could be seen as a dynamic part of society.

It's like it's a measurement of how social norms change, at the same time as giving some hope that it's not something we're powerless to change.

It shouldn't be 'if you don't like it don't watch' it should be 'if you don't like it, tell the person saying it'.

Social pressure can be very powerful, especially if the person telling the 'joke' depends on acceptance to make their living.

Do they need the acceptance though? They appear to absolutely thrive on objection.

We made a point of turning over when he was on TV last night. I have seen him live (I somehow didn't realise he was like this) and he was vile, as usual.

There is something about him which I find very creepy and a bit frightening.

Of course they need acceptance Fo0ffy, if they were unacceptable to the majority nobody would pay to see them.

I suppose there's a tipping point Foofy - if the majority shnned them for this they'd soon shut up.
As Elenor said above, the process of complaining etc IS the process of progress, eventually the cycle will stop just as it did with the acceptability of racist jokes.

there will always be inadequates who NEED to sneer at others to feel good about themselves. But there are far more relatively well meaning but a bit thoughtless people who just fall in with what society expects. Who ARE society. It's them us who can change.

I was going to leave it at my last post, but I have to defend the response that suggested that I considered Nazi's gassing people and lynching black people as ok. You have have to understand that there is a MASSIVE difference between agreeing with freedom of speech and thinking that horrific acts of violence are acceptable.

Is it really the majority view on MN that freedom of speech is a bad thing? If so it is very sad. Of course you all have the right to dislike JC's joke, but the attitude that everyone, everywhere should now believe that all the jokes he has ever made are not funny is ridiculous. Also the 'I used to think he was funny' bit really grinds my gears as well. The jokes you used to laugh at don't suddenly stop being funny just because he told one that you don't like.

Gemjar - you are missing the point spectacularly - no one is asking you to defend horrific acts of violence, they are asking you if you consider that jokes about Nazi gassings, lynching black people etc. are acceptable, since you claimed that everything is fair game to a comedian, IYO.

'The jokes you used to laugh at don't suddenly stop being funny just because he told one that you don't like.'

I wondered about that as well Gem, but posters saying it would think anyone who can make 'jokes' in that vain aren't nice people.

Which is why I'm a bit confused about myself, I think some of Frankie Boyles jokes are very funny, but I can't get away from the fact that he says some twatish things I don't like.

Do you think it's possible to separate the person out from their choice of routine?

WMW is not here to genuinely enter into dialogue. That's not his/ her bag

I am disagreeing with you, that's a form of dialogue last time I looked. And I love the way MN feminists always accuse you of being a man if you disagree with them. It's that's being man-ist and that's OK cos it's OK to hate men.

As to racism, that's just another ism in my book, to be treated exactly the same way as any other. If it offends you, don't go there. (As an aside, I'm Irish - I find some Irish humour very funny and some very offensive. I would not dream of trying to censor the jokes i dont like. Does that help?)

I think I would go with pretty much everything Pagwatch says, especially this:

Actually I think anyone should make any joke they like. As long as I am allowed to say that I think the joke is shit and that they are a massive twat for making it. Well without being considered intimidatory or professionally offended.

I didnt think the Jim Carr joke was funny but i think all this frothing is way OTT. And frankly, to be told I need to be "educated" etc because I am arguing against this sort of intolerance really offends me.

And I can't tolerate that. :o

Yes I do think it is possible to separate the person from the routine, as it is just that, a routine. Who they are as a person means absolutely nothing because it is none of my business and frankly I don't care.

Ok Thumb so maybe I missed the point about what jokes are acceptable, but I DO think that people should have the right to make jokes about anything, just as I have the right whether or not to think those jokes are funny. As has been said, if people speak out about what they think is funny or not then that will determine what is said and what isn't. I am still a little shocked that freedom of speech is considered to be so terrible on here.

Gemjar
Are you reading the same thread as me. I think most people are saying freedom of speech is fine
But freedom of speech is not really the point.
The point is (as far as i can see) he made a joke that wasn't funny, that was pointing and laughing at disabled children, and that makes him a bit of a cunt really.

I am assume g that we are mostly in agreement on the freedom of speech point as whatmeworry, with whom I disagree on almost every point regarding this issue and I am sure feels the same about me, has just quoted me.

watch out! its those damn feminists again! thanks for raising the alert wmw.

I'm Irish too, I think someone put it well above that they're not against Irish jokes just anti Irish ones.

And no, no one is calling for censorship fgs. Just reserving their right to tell people who say ignorant things that they're ignorant. I think I'll have you all know i said that first and Pag agrees with ME.

whatmeworry - would you tell someone like Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca that they just have no sense of humour?]] Would you tell her son that being attacked at knifepoint is fine and he should just ignore the bullies?

People have repeatedly tried to explain to you why Carr's jokes are dangerous. And why they cause real harm, to vulnerable people who aren't able to defend themselves.

Do you genuinely not understand that defenseless children suffer as a result of the prejudice that Carr stokes? Or do you not care?

excellent xpost with pagwatch.

now I feel a bit daft

I'm all for freedom of speech - I earn my living as a writer. But freedom of speech is no reason for Channel Four to keep commissioning Carr. Channel Four executives are middle class, educated people who wouldn't dream of commissioning someone in the vein of Bernard Manning, or Roy Chubby Brown. They realise that racism is not socially acceptable. But they think it's fine to hold children with learning disabilities up to ridicule. They are rank hypocrites. It is the job of comedy to ridicule hypocrisy, not encourage it.

Jimmy Carr is funny and so is Frankie Boyle. Their timing is great and they tell some really hilarious jokes.

However, they both like to taunt disabled people and defend their right to do so in the name of free speech and being cutting edge, while mysteriously steering well clear of racist abuse. If jokes at the expense of disabled people are funny, why aren't jokes about black people, Muslims and Jews? We have to ask ourselves why this minority group is such a target for comedians currently, while others are absolutely taboo. All these arguments about free speech and no topic being off limits is nonsense,

I would happily see both of them become parents to disabled children, or become disabled themselves. They would stop that crap immediately. Why? Because they would suddenly realise that disabled people and their families are human beings.

Fiona and Francecca Pilkinton were such a sad and tragic case edam, and I can see why you might use them as an example, but they were let down by a system that should have protecting them from violent criminals.

I think what's really sad here is the subject isn't a theoretical one. SN parents have been on informing of how this brand of 'humour' will directly impact their lives and in return have been accused of being humourless and frothing. We and our children are real human beings just like you and I challenge anyone to not react this way if it was their child on the receiving end.

Yet this point has not been acknowledged by the froth brigade. Why? Is it uncomfortable? It's the truth...

I understand the general idea behind your need for acceptance of freedom of speech. I understand that people should be able to voice their opinions without fear of reprisal; but I cannot accept that people should be allowed to incite others to denigrate or hate another group of people.

It's not allowed for racial hatred; why should it be allowed for "disabled bashing"? WHY is it still acceptable to make disabled children (and adults) a target for derision? Start by laughing, then taunting, then writing stuff on their walls, then throwing stuff, then attacking them, because "it's all just a larf, innit, it's not like they really know what's going on or anything".

Read that link I posted earlier, from the Canadian bloke - the chat he had in a pub with 2 people, discussing an advert against child abuse. No disabled children are shown in the advert - and the man he was talking to said this: ‎'?Well, of course, not,? said the young man, ?because you can understand why a parent would want to hit a disabled child.?
Really. So a child with a disability is a legitimate target for physical abuse, hmm? Obviously to some people, they are a legitimate target for derision, then it's not that big a step from derision to bullying to abuse.

I think that there is room in a thread that has progressed to 11 pages to discuss the wider issues, and not just stick to the first OP's point.

And the thing is that it comes across as though lots of people here don't think that freedom of speech is a good thing, from all the 'if you accept joke A, then you think that joke x,y and z' are also acceptable'. Well yes, the thing about freedom of speech is that it extends to everything, from the things that I agree with to those that I don't, surely that is the point. It is an uncomfortable thought that people like Nick Griffin for example should be allowed to say what he wants, but that is far better IMO than a world where we are prevented from having opinions at all.

Someone has already said it, but those threads calling for things to be banned (and this one has come close to is as well), make me feel very uncomfortable. It is not ok to stamp your foot and get something banned just because you don't like it.

Why were Fiona and Francesca Pilkington targetted so repeatedly? Would they have been targetted if Francesca didn't have learning disabilities?

I'm Irish too, I think someone put it well above that they're not against Irish jokes just anti Irish ones

You see, I'm not even against the anti Irish jokes - in fact I find some of them funny.

I am assume g that we are mostly in agreement on the freedom of speech point as whatmeworry, with whom I disagree on almost every point regarding this issue and I am sure feels the same about me, has just quoted me.

Actually Pag I often find myself agreeing with a lot of what you say. But I will always - always - come down on the side of tolerance over restriction. Because my reading of history is that when intolerance starts, a whole lot of other bad stuff follows.

I agree Edam. But that needs to come about by persistent arses (like us) endlessly explaining to the broadly disinterested majority that our children are people and picking on them, the least able to defend themselves, is just about as low as a person can go.

I think it persists because people don't think about it. We are supposed to shut up and just not watch it. I am quite prepared to be persistent and take the accompanying suggestions that to say 'finding that funny makes you a twat' makes me a bully.
The irony of which is fricking hilarious when you think about it.

I am the one who comforts my son when some cunt screams 'fucking retards' at his school bus. But saying that a person who finds the school bus joke funny is a wanker makes me intimidatory and potentially frightening off posters. And anti- freedom of speech. And a frothier.

Life must seem very straightforward to some people.