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.

Agree stealth. GGM doesn't really work because you have a minority group making fun of their own culture and the majority. It works. It's fine. It's not bullying.

Black and white minstrels is ewww because it's the majority making fun of a minority.

JC is making fun on a minority and vulnerable group.

How nice.

of not on

Sadly NG can and does broadcast his opinions.

Yeah I was thinking more along the lines of channel 4 light entertainment for 'freedom of expression'

NG neither articulate nor charismatic though.

true, and given all the people he'd need to attend to be true to his principles, if everyone who didnt like it just didn't watch he'd have 2 viewers - his parents.

Although maybe not his dad. Judging by the wiki entry.

Okay. Bed.

GZ
I really hope I have not given the impression Bernard Manning et al should be back on tv. I don't (they are not funny).

I just think with a lot of comedy someone will be offended by it. I can see why people are so offended but I honestly can't understand why you don't simply choose not to watch.

It's not about choosing to watch/ not watch - it's about the fact that a sizeable proportion of the adult population will watch, will laugh and will perpetuate the idea that it's okay to laugh at the disabled children.

It really isn't. And until that "humour" is challenged on a much wider scale, then the problem will persist.

In Ireland we're mostly Catholic. And mostly not virgins at 26.

Exactly thumbwitch

Whenshewas - do you understand that when people with learning disabilities walk down the street they are sometimes pointed at and laughed at? As I said earlier up the thread our idiot (ex) neighbour called a bunch of friends over to look and laugh at ds1 when he was about 8 years old. ds1 I mean, the neighbour was late twenties.

This 'joke' is that type laughing at the funny people. Anyway how are utter morons like the ex neighbour ever going to Understand it's totally unacceptable to point and laugh at an 8 year old child in the street if people like JC are doing the same thing. RG when challenged on this point claimed to have no idea that this sort of thing went on - he was supposedly stunned that people with DS are laughed at and called mong. What a sheltered life he's led.

Had I complained to our moronic neighbour no doubt I would have been told I was stuffy and uptight.

As I said earlier I have no problem at all with wisecracks about something he's doing. Some I've heard are very funny - and they're always friendly. Pointing at laughing entirely different.

Stewart Lee has a series on R4extra at the moment. Last weeks prog was all around disability.

It was brilliant. It was funny and it didnt take the piss out of disabled people.

I tweeted him and he tweeted me back

I think it is perfectly possible if you are in that environment to become desensitised (sp). Good for him for listening and finding ways to use the subject for comedic affect without ridiculing people with disabilities

(sorry about all the crap spelling).

I watched one of those Friday night tv comedy shows a few weeks back. Most ot the comedians managed to get in a poke at people with LDs. Fucking hilarious it wasnt.

It really isn't. And until that "humour" is challenged on a much wider scale, then the problem will persist

So I've been on MN about 6 months, I have seen a large number of small groups of people frothing about wanting to stop this or ban that etc etc. I can also count on the fingers of one hand the number of threads arguing for tolerance, freedom of expression etc etc. If every one of these lobbies had their way then we would be in a three monkey world where there could be nothing said, heard or seen in case someone, somewhere is offended

And the though of living in that sort of dull, humourless, puritanical world offends me :o

And complaining about offensive comedians to me is dangerous, the irritating jester has been a necessary part of human culture for aeons. Next it will be wanting to burn books that you don't like and we know where that leads. Anyone promoting that path really offends me.

So in my opinion a far better approach is for everyone who thinks something might offend them to just choose to not to see/ hear/ watch it, and accept that others may not agree with their point of view.

Re : andrew It's a challenge to think of a joke that (1) won't offend anybody but (2) will amuse somebody!

If thats the case then maybe they shouldnt be in the comic business

blogs.canada.com/2011/11/22/the-devaluation-those-with-disabilities/ slightly off topic but kind of illustrates the bollocks attitudes that people with disabilities have to put up with on a daily basis. Fully supported by knobends like Jimmy Carr and his ilk, and anyone who thinks it's ok to laugh at disabled children.

So hands up who thinks its ok to ridicule disabled children?
Thats what it comes down too. Is it ok or not.

I think there's no point directly engaging with WMW because to be frank, s/he either simply doesn't understand any complex argument (about any subject) or deliberately chooses to be obtuse.

It is worth refuting some of the stupid arguments though, the main one being: "if you don't like it, don't watch".

I can choose not to watch creeps like Jimmy Carr. But people with children with SN, can't choose not to have the weak-headed stare, point and laugh at their children. They can't choose not to have their children bullied and excluded by the children of the weak-headed. They can't choose to go about their business unimpeded by sneering and obstructions caused by the climate of contempt for people with disabilities.

Inadequates like Carr, contribute to that climate. Either you're part of the problem, or you're part of the solution. I regard him as part of the problem and I regard people who refuse to acknowledge the wider influence that creeps like him have on the individuals whom he is holding up for ridicule, as part of the problem.

Exactly, EleanorRathbone. Well said.

I don't think it's possible to argue that it's offensive. However people with SN have only become integrated into mainstream society relatively recently and I think there is a natural accptance cycle which can't really be controlled. Take racism. You have maintstream racism- Bernard manning joking about black fellows. Then you have disgust; these jokes are no longer acceptable. Then you have "pc gone mad"- people of BM generation having no idea what to call black people without offending. Then you have now; the fact that BM don't work because black skin just isn't funny go anyone anymore. Even actual racists cant laugh at "I didn't think there were any black fellows in tonight until he laughed and I saw his teeth" there is nothing funny about a different colour skin anymore. In 30 years it will be the same with SN. I understand the desire to speed up the process but not sure it's controllable, although ofcourse regulations etc is important.
Fwiw I had no idea what mong meant until a few years ago (from using forums) on the very odd occasion I heard it I thought it was short for mongolian, but slang for stupid person. It's a very old saying, used by people in their 50/60s now. I think it's fair enough to accept that younger people would have no idea. Will a baby now know what a spaz is in 20 years time, probbaly not.

Possible to argue it's inoffensive, that should be. Damn I pad

You're wrong to say there's no point directly engaging with WMW, she's who should be engaged with if anything is to change Eleanor.

Because then it can be pointed out that WMW is wrong in thinking a time that had jesters was a time when anything could be said.

Any time that had trial by ordeal or the state lopping off your ears/nose/tongue, definately made people very careful about what they said and not a golden age of freedom of speech.

I can see what you're saying WMW, but the fact that humour does change and it's the audience who decides when and what shape it takes shows humour has to have boundaries.

Are you not reading anything that's being said on here whatworryme?

Or are you just unable to comprehend that what amounts to pointing and laughing at the learning disableds isn't funny? (and yes I did expressit like that on purpose).

Good humour is clever. The YouTube link I posted last night from Adams hills about having an artificial leg is funny. It is about disability but makes the joke without ridiculing those with disabilities. Rather it ridicules the rest of us.

You really think humour would disappear if ridiculing those lower in the social pecking order was banned? Do you laugh at groups of people with learning disabilities as they walk past? Some do. Maybe you're one of them.

It was about thirty years since 'spaz' came onto the scene Serenity, and it's still used at DD1s school

Along with the new one of 'spech'