AIBU to find this " Best Gag of the Edinburgh Festival in poor taste?

[speakout]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-49389208

I have seen and read this "joke " repeated several times on TV in the past few days and find it in very poor taste. Newsreaders on TV have been chuckling. Tourette's can be a serious and debilatating condition and sufferers have huge challenges in everyday life. Surely we are a bit more grown up these days than to poke fun at people with a neurological condition?
Is is just me being stuffy?

BertrandRussell

I agree. I don't think anyone on this thread has even said they are "offended".

Nope. Not offended - saddened that this is normalising making jokes about vulnerable people who are the very ones who often don't have a 'voice'.

Nope. Not offended - saddened that this is normalising making jokes about vulnerable people who are the very ones who often don't have a 'voice'.

...

I wonder how many people with Tourette syndrome are upset by this? I’d be very interested to know.

and whilst we trivialise the lives of people with disabilities by making crass jokes and making that main stream and acceptable, whilst we defend and dismiss such behaviours we end up with the situation we are in: Disabled people being denied benefits, disabled hate crime increasing. It's a small trigger, but a trigger it is.

Both my son and my daughter, Also.

I wonder how many people with Tourette syndrome are upset by this? I’d be very interested to know.

It's much wider than that though- this is about the idea that people with disabilities and minority are fit subjects to be riduculed and poke fun at.

This is about human dignity and tolerance and compassion.

“I wonder how many people with Tourette syndrome are upset by this? I’d be very interested to know.”

Why? We’re not talking about individuals - we’re talking about the sort of society we want to live in. I am sure there are plenty of people with Tourette’s who would say that they personally are not offended or upset, by the normalising and validation of jokes about disability is a worrying trend.

No @speakout, it isn’t. The over reaction to a trivial joke is the complete opposite of tolerance.

Alsohuman

So by that reasoning a tolerant society should be accepting of homophobic behaviour or racial slurs?

I'm not buying into your fallacious reasoning.

Repeat (for all those who can't see the harm in it) Let's see who can come up with the best child autism joke!?

My child's autism means he has CDO. It's like OCD but worse, because he has to have the letters in alphabetical order.

(I'm here all week)

Not funny

I’m not asking you to buy into it @speakout. We disagree, that’s fine. I think your logic is fallacious. That’s fine too.

“The over reaction to a trivial joke is the complete opposite of tolerance.”

I don’t think anyone has said he wasn’t entitled to make the joke, have they? (They might have done- it’s a long thread- but I think they would be wrong)

I think comedy is always a bit like this - close to the bone sometimes. Michael McIntyre jokes about living with children all the time but I don’t get offended because I’m a mom. It’s just a joke. Soon we’re going to live in a world where comedy is always offensive because people are ‘offended’. I think if you have nothing else to worry about, bravo!

@Lifecraft

or the one about the dyslexic atheist - with added religion

(I'll get my coat)

Just remembered it's Thursday, so this evenings viewing will be a catch-up of Jon Richardsons "Ultimate Worrier". An entire series (and the second to boot) built around it's hosts being a self-admitted sufferer of OCD.

“An entire series (and the second to boot) built around it's hosts being a self-admitted sufferer of OCD.”

If you could explain why that’s relevant that would be great......

And if I was the “getting offended” type i’d be questioning “self admitted sufferer.......”

Repeat (for all those who can't see the harm in it) Let's see who can come up with the best child autism joke!?

My aspie son is currently obsessed with tornados, earthquakes and tsunamis. You might say he's the Disaster Autist.
.....................................................................................................................

Copyright 2019 Joy
Would the above offend me personally?
Well, no, because it's my own wordplay based on my own son who actually is doing that at the moment. Others might have a problem with it not being particularly funny (it's actually quite hard writing a joke I didn't realise how hard until now), others might hate the term aspie (I am not going into identity-first versus person-first, that's another thread) but the joke itself doesn't punch down (it might have I guess if that punchline followed a different set up I guess).
If someone else told the joke who didn't have a child with SN or had a fictional child for their routine, could they tell the joke? Would Olaf's joke be acceptable if he himself had Tourette's?
It is an interesting question.

If we're straying into kids jokes, here's one DS came up with aged 4 or 5 (so possibly it's soooooooo last millennium ...)

I say, I say, I say. My Dogs got no ears.

How does it hear ?

Pardon.

Is that potentially offensive to a deaf person ? And if so, where does that offense come into existence ? In the mind of a 4 year old child ? Or in the mind of an adult reacting to the joke ? Or does it exists outside both, floating around in the aether just waiting to come into existence at the most inopportune moment ?

Or could a lot of this be overthinking things ?

(I'm starting a one-person campaign to distinguish "offence" - as in serious criminal matter dealt with by the judicial system, and "offense" as in what people like to froth about on the internet. It's not too late to sign up )

“I'm starting a one-person campaign to distinguish "offence" - as in serious criminal matter dealt with by the judicial system, and "offense" as in what people like to froth about on the internet”
I would be delighted to sign up. I am always being told by frothers on the internet that I am offended. It’s incredibly annoying and just their way of avoiding any sort of nuanced response.

I am partially deaf rosetti and the joke's fine. My middle child interrupts all the time and loves the interrupting cow one from Home.
Jokes are all to do with intent.
That's the main thing followed by who or what is the target and then who is telling it.
pp wanted a joke aimed AT rather than BY children - but if I am the joke teller and my child's condition is the butt of the joke - or at least the word play (disaster artist is the name of a movie but the pun is a bit lame tbh) is it still offensive?
There's an argument there you exploit your child by telling jokes about them or that you cannot appropriate someone's condition - whereas comics with cerebral palsy, I can think of two, can make jokes about their disability or other people's reaction to it as it is their right/experience. Other comics might be able to reclaim words in their routines that others cannot. Comedy and Offence always makes for a fascinating debate.

My autistic DS is currently playing on a 1980s personal computer. He's on the spectrum.