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.

"And the paragraph about parents of children with SNs looking out for people making fun of the children or being distraught over having children with disabilities ... well, it was incredibly condescending. Not to mention ridiculously stereotypical."

It was meant to be a comment about how I found a lot of the representations of people with disabilities on this thread to be quite patronising and offensive themselves. And how actually it is shitty out there but the shittiness is not that fault nor the responsibility of a comedian and that the link between the two is dubious at best.

Not to mention the irony of insults being thrown around - I guess it's OK to throw them only one way.

MmeLindor Re your comment:

"...And I still did not have a "Ohhh, now I see. Yes, you are absolutely right, how silly of me not to see that" moment..."

I actually did have one of those moments... when someone said he was a bit of a knob.

People won't necessarily go to analyse the jokes but nevertheless they will do so because that's what we do when we communicate

Either consciously or subconsciously.

Carr trained as a therapist before becoming a comedian and a lot of his words hint back to that, it's in there if you look.

Therapists often do see the darkness and the nastiness of the world and human nature, can't be ignored. At that moment there is a lot of nastiness around about disabilities and SN etc so that is what gets reflected. How people interpret that is another matter.

Well JC can defend himself if he so chooses. It's not that ironic really. TBH most of my arguments have centred around those with LD's - not 'disability' as a whole. Partly because my experience is with those with LD's and partly because many with PD's have a pretty strong voice and are generally not marginalised in the same way (and can fight their corner). That's perhaps not true of those with CP - they're probably treated the same way by society as those with LD's. Perhaps it really does come down to having easy access to a voice.

And agree with triggles. As I said earlier I'd like the same line applied to jokes about those with LD's as is applied to jokes about race.

"It was meant to be a comment about how I found a lot of the representations of people with disabilities on this thread to be quite patronising and offensive themselves."

As I said... stereotyped. And still condescending.

It is a rather valid point that someone made that JC chose to become a comedian, he is an adult that can defend himself and his choices. Children with disabilities did not choose their lot in life and often cannot defend themselves.

In time it will be applied. The line is being worked out right now

BTP
I didn't see it either, but one of my friends wrote that she had unfollowed someone for posting it. I have a lot of cousins/extended family on FB. I would not rule it out that I would see something like that. In fact, I just checked to be sure.

So let me get this straight. The point of Jimmy Carr et al is to say progressively more unpleasant things in the hope of what? that the audience walks out? that he gets ostracized and no longer has a career? Sorry if I don't accept that. Maybe Jimmy Carr is somehow hilariously funny every time I haven't had the misfortune of having to listen to him, but to me he is and has always been an unfunny smug abhorrent little man who likes getting a raise knowingly saying 'shocking' things.

The likelihood is that the majority of people who buy his stuff and chose to go to his shows are not in the least bit offended by the jokes, no they enjoy them very much because they themselves would love to say this sort of crap, but feel its off limits. Then they hear it from someone with license to say whatever they like, think it's hilarious, share it with their friends, and it gets normalised.

Well while the line is being worked out (not helped by the likes of JC) people like my son still suffer derogatory comments because it's okay to do that.

It's not really a difficult line to work out. Don't kick people below you in the social pecking order. Easy.

As I said... stereotyped. And still condescending.

Yeah, actually meant to be - a reflection of the tone directed at me when I had in fact been quite reasonable.

BY the way, a lot of my patients do have very distressing and difficult lives and I get to see it in detail. My own family do too. I have had people who have been utterly distraught at their circumstances, and I can't blame them one bit.

But the vitriol has to be directed in the right quarters.

I have thrown insults on this thread, and will continue to,
the people who support this kind of "comedy" have made a choice they have chosen to lol at vulnerable people, and to support a person who is paid to do so.
the people the are ripping the piss out of have no choice, no voice.
some one has to stand up for them ffs.

(Jimjams good post earlier)

I can't see at all how relating how this 'humour' can and will affect my life, my childrens' lives and the lives of my friends is patronising or condescending. I am not theorising or intellectualising I am telling truth as to what can and does happen.

By the way you don't HAVE to look for people making fun when it is thrown at you. We're not being over sensitive here it really does happen to our children - human beings - every single day.

Lots of assumptions on this thread too.

I see the JC supporters haven't answered my earlier question.

We may have, was anyone actually listening?

There's nothing more to say.

I didn't aim any vitriol in your direction. A simple comment about the paragraph being stereotyped and condescending, which IMO it was. And a rather bemused comment about the rhapsodising of the perceived intellectual qualities of the joke.

I do find JC to be lacking in a few areas (most notably creativity, ethics, and intelligence based on some of his humour), but again no vitriol, just some disgust at his using children with SNs as a vehicle for a "joke". If he is so intellectual, then he should be clever enough to know that this type of thing only normalises the ostracising of children with SNs and makes it more socially acceptable for some to abuse them because they are different. Which means he is also socially irresponsible and lacking morally as well.

I'm sorry if that doesn't twig with the whole idea that he is a clever man who uses his comedy to test society's boundaries but that's my take on it.

well surprise surprise none of the JC supporters have,

Having patients with difficult lives is very different from having a child with a learning disability.

Although admittedly I have one helper who I have to calm down when we're in receipt of comments because she sees red and starts shaking and getting really angry on ds1's behalf (it's very sweet). The first time it happened ds1 was looking at a door (not doing anything else just looking at a door) when a shop assistant had a go at him. It was my poor helper's first experience and she was really angry. I had to teach her about having crocodile hide.

Don't you mean above rather than below them in the pecking order saintly??

Well yes. But not many see it like that. Unfortunately.

From your experience saintly, would you say it's a minority who actually take this type of stereotype into RL and openly abuse (whatever form that might take) people who have LDs?

I know I'm not saintly but ignorance in general is widespread. A significant minority I'd say but enough to affect our standard of life.

The problem is that even if it's a minority that opening abuse, there is also the percentage that will stand by (either comfortably or uncomfortably) and not call them on it. So there are TWO levels of it, really. Both are dangerous.

openly, not opening* yeesh... can't watch telly and type at same time obviously