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frankie Boyle

100 replies

mymatemax · 22/10/2012 19:24

how can that awful bigoted idiot who seems to take enjoy targeting the disabled & those less able to defend themselves be awarded damages in a libel case.
It stinks, he constantly defends his right to speak out but sues when a paper publishes something he doesnt agree with.

The world has gone mad, something very wrong!

OP posts:
ShirleyRots · 23/10/2012 11:43

How does one go about banning a person anyway? Hmm

The issue at hand is to prevent hate speech - This is not a confusing concept is it? Confused

looples · 23/10/2012 11:46

Can I totally sink to his level and say he'd really looked like he'd packed on the pounds in his 'victory' photo??

EldritchCleavage · 23/10/2012 11:46

Gosh, I do get bored with the constant unenlightened trottings-out of 'freedom of speech'.

We don't have unlimited freedom of expression in this country. Speech that incites racial and religious hatred is criminal, for example. I think the same should apply to hate speech against the disabled personally, because we increasingly see that they are taking the brunt of the mob's apparent need for victims. If you use hate speech in the course of another crime e.g. assault, it aggravates the offence.

If you criticise a person for something he or she has said, you are not infringing their freedom of speech, you are exercising your own. There is nothing wrong with posters saying of FB that while he is and should be free to say what he wants, many of the things he has chosen to say are immoral, wrong, dangerous, offensive, or whatever.

That does not add up to a world in which people are afraid to say anything in case someone is offended (though caring about whether you gratuitously cause offence to others is just being a grown-up, in my book, hardly equivalent to living in some kind of Stalinist gulag).

And telling a hard-hitting, controversial joke doesn't automatically mean that the comedian is bravely using satire to highlight society's prejudices. He might just be exploiting hatreds for cheap laughs.

Which is not to say I disagree with the verdict. I never though FB was a racist, but I do see the irony of a comedian who accepts no restraints or boundaries imposing them on someone else.

looples · 23/10/2012 11:47

His head looked like a potato with glasses

looples · 23/10/2012 11:48

Oh and I agree with Eldritch.

VeritableSmorgasbord · 23/10/2012 11:55

I agree Eldritch: hate speech has to be defined and for now we haven't defined it well enough.

Basically there is something wrong with a person who writes comedy which contributes towards a tolerance of abusive behaviour. They clearly tell themselves it's all just a joke, though. Jimmy Carr wrote a fucking book about what humour is. He's just fine with what he does (until it stops him making money, presumably).

threesocksonathreeleggedwitch · 23/10/2012 12:37

why is FOS always used when it is disabled people who are the victims?
so if we go down the route that a "comedian" (I use the word sarcastically ) makes jokes about rape/dead babies/ abusing children or racist stuff
is that ok under FOS.

noddyholder · 23/10/2012 12:43

I think the audience are key in this argument. Why does FB sell out huge arenas when so many of his topics are so distasteful? I don't for a minute think that those theatres are full of racist/disablist/bigots what I do think is that they enjoy the sensation of recoiling in sheer horror and feeling uncomfortable. I do think FOS should be upheld but the people who buy the tickets have a choice and they still keep buying into it.

drjohnsonscat · 23/10/2012 12:58

I thought he had a bloody nerve to even bring the case. He wants to reserve the right to be vile but he's careful not to cross over the line to inciting racial hatred because that is a crime - and is also somehow "worse" than being vile to other groups. So anyone who is not actually protected by the law is fair game. Including children.

I'm sure the courts were right in the application of the law but shame on him for shouting "poor me" when someone said something about him that he didn't like, after all he's done to others who actually don't have his power and influence.

He just didn't like being tarred with the same uncool brush as Jim Davidson when in fact he's no better than Jim Davidson -worse actually - but has a different target.

AvonCallingBarksdale · 23/10/2012 13:20

His "reputation" was at stake, too. He'd probably lose more revenue if he became labelled as a racist comedian, because that's very old school - think Manning and Davidson - than if he's labelled as a disablist comedian. Because, sadly, one of those "ists" is perceived as worse than the other.

AvonCallingBarksdale · 23/10/2012 13:21

It's no doubt OK for him to be thought of as a cunt, but not a racist cunt!

megandraper · 23/10/2012 13:27

secretlover Tue 23-Oct-12 11:13:49
You can't tell him wat he can and can't say though because it can't be policed, what I may find offensive you may not and vice versa.
You shouldn't pick on people smaller than you but these are jokes not violent abusive threats.

  • but there are indeed laws about what people can and can't say, secretlover. There are laws against racist speech, for example. Just not against disablist. Yet. I hope that will change.
EldritchCleavage · 23/10/2012 13:36

You can't tell him what he can and can't say though

You can. We're free to say it, and he's free to ignore us.

mayorquimby · 23/10/2012 22:51

"so if we go down the route that a "comedian" (I use the word sarcastically ) makes jokes about rape/dead babies/ abusing children or racist stuff
is that ok under FOS. "

yes absolutely imho

threesocksonathreeleggedwitch · 23/10/2012 22:56

so then
how could FB sue for being called a racist as the person saying it was using FOS

EldritchCleavage · 24/10/2012 13:55

Saying 'I'm exercising my freedom of speech' isn't an automatic defence to any legal objection to something you've said though, because we have laws that restrict your freedom of speech-libel, harassment, malicious communications, incitement to racial or religious hatred etc.

looples · 24/10/2012 17:24

Sadly no incitement to disability hatred or being a sexist shitbag though. Shame.

VeritableSmorgasbord · 24/10/2012 17:31

It will come. The world is changing. It's shameful that it hasn't happened already though.

looples · 24/10/2012 17:45

I do hope so, Veritable.

Now Boyle has won his case (and £50k) I doubt he's going to be winding his neck in any time soon. He says he will give the money to charity.

MrsVincentPrice · 24/10/2012 18:08

Just to correct an earlier poster - Peter Sutcliffe probably couldn't successfully sue for libel if someone accused him of homosexual rape because in order for a libel claim to succeed what is said must be a) untrue (more accurately not provably true) and b) that would damage the person's reputation.
Sutcliffe doesn't have a reputation that could possibly be damaged and I'm pretty sure a judge would throw any libel action by him straight out of court. This is relevant because I suspect that some people on this thread would have found for the Mirror if they'd been on the jury because they don't think that their opinion of FB would lessen if they found he was racist as well.

mayorquimby · 24/10/2012 22:26

"so then
how could FB sue for being called a racist as the person saying it was using FOS "

sorry I don't follow your logic/get what you're asking.

Freedom of speech can protect jokes about subjects we find distasteful etc.
Our freedom of speech is not unlimited, it has certain legal restraints placed on it. On of them being defemation laws.
The paper made a defamatory statement about FB which was found to be untrue.
So in the same way I am free to make a joke about rape, I am not free to randomly claim that Joe Blogg at #12 is a rapist if the truth of that statement can not be proved or brought in under one of the other valid defences to a suit of defemation.

limitedperiodonly · 25/10/2012 12:04

The mirror rightly got burned. The comment he made wasn't racist. It wasn't interesting either but that's beside the point. They lazily think the worst crime is racism when he isn't, or wasn't racist in that context. If they'd have pulled him up on the other things he says I'd have more admiration for them. Only they can answer why they chose to ignore his other jibes. Privately I think jokes about women and disabled people don't matter to them.

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 26/10/2012 18:15
  1. If he's playing a character he should be more obvious about it. False nose perhaps?

  2. His jokes are neither funny nor clever enough to represent satire against bigoted people. Many other comics do it better, and never get mistaken for cunts themselves.

  3. I agree with limitedperiod.

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 26/10/2012 18:15

JC is also a cunt

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 26/10/2012 18:17

I also agree that this is about racism being deemed more unacceptable that sexism or disabilism

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