Frankie Boyle on Down Syndrome - horrific

[Lymond]

interesting blog post from a mother of a DS daughter who was blasted by a 5-10 minute diatribe containing all the old stereotypes about people with DS at a Frakie Boyle show. I'm turning off any TV show he's on in future.

blog here

Grauniad article on it here

Just interested - are some of you saying that it's OK to make jokes about conditions where the people who have these conditions have a 'voice' and can participate in the joke rather than be the butt of the joke??

I mean young DS children can't 'fight back', but eg I loved the Office and remember the fire drill episode where the woman in the wheelchair was left half way down cos she was too heavy to carry. Also in the Office, there were race jokes involving black and asian actors, and I remember in Extras (am big Ricky Gervais fan!) there was an actress, who is also a comedian I believe, who has cerebral palsy who was involved in joke scenes relating to her disability.

What's your feeling on that? Do you think they have demeaned themselves by doing that?

Ikwym Riven, like it's ok for black people to call each other nigga

was anyone actually there? does anyone know what the gags were?

how can anyone judge when no one on this thread has actually heard with their own ears what was said and in what context.

i agree that on the face of it to simply take the piss out of disability isnt good, but he tells some pretty tasteless jokes that are also funny but i think you have to hear the context in which they are said.

and channel 4 are cashing in on this publicity. showing frankie boyle live in standup. (which i will watch) seems this may all be in his favour. the more i think about this the more i think the blogger was unreasonable. i dont want comedians censored. if i dont find them funny i wont see them, and she was fine with him being offensive as long as it didnt touch a nerve with her. when it did she cried foul. frankie boyle isnt ever going to apologise for this, another storm in a teacup.

she could have just walked out.

FB couldn't give a toss...

VicarInaTuTu...have you decided who you will be voting for..?

Well, I think the woman in question sounded pretty level-headed and reasonable.

A lot of people are saying "you know what you are getting", but perhaps the blogger had only ever seen Frankie Boyle on TV, and had enjoyed a fair bit of his (censored)humour. I know I did think he was quite witty and amusing on the couple of occasions I saw him do a 5-minute stint on some panel show or another, and would have posibly gone along to one of his shows expecting much of the same.

I went off him after watching his dvd- some of his "jokes" were too close to the bone, and made me uncomfortable, even though they had no direct relation to me. jimmy Carr is the same. When stand-ups try to be shocking rather than actually clever-funny, it turns me right off. I like comedians who do observational humour, but it is entirely possible to be observational and funny without resorting to sad stereotypes. If I want to wince awkwardly, I can always watch politicians on the telly. Someone with a bit of intelligence can surely be originally funny?

My personal feeling is that FB has shot himself in the foot a bit. I imagine that a good proportion of his audience are parents, given the target audience for the panel shows he frequents. A good few of them will have/ know someone that has a child with DS (I do, and she would now never go to see FB and neither would I) I do think he would do better to issue an apology.

She didn't want to see his censored humour though, and even when it is it's extreme imho. She said she wanted to see him without the constraints imposed on him when he appears on television.

I don't like him but I've watched MTW on occasion and he makes extremely offensive jokes on there imho.

From the few episodes of MTW that I've seen I know he has made jokes about disability before, certainly acquired disability in regards to Richard Hammond's accident.

In the Guardian article she also states that she was prepared for some jokes about disability.

I don't enjoy his comedy and think he's a real twat but while she may not have expected jokes about people with Down's syndrome she did go there to enjoy him being offensive,even about other disabilities that weren't so personal to her if the quote in the Guardian article is correct.

'" I'm a comedy fan, so is my husband, we see a lot of stand-up. I was even ready for some jokes about disability, and decided I'd try to ignore them."

exactly lethereberock. i really feel she should have given as good as she got, id have respected her more if she'd called him a twat and walked out instead of snivelling about him in a blog.

DP, not a clue. dont much care for any of them tbh.

well said Fio - especially the bollocks part.

Hmmm, that's why Frankie Boyle is a millionaire comedian FioFio and you spend your days on MN....people love him...

Missing the point by miles again Riven...

Because he's not purporting racial hatred or disability discrimination. He hasn't excluded disabled people from any job or excluded them from coming to his shows and hearing his views (though I doubt many would). If a politician said these things he wouldn't be brought to justice in any formal way he'd just be committing political suicide. The same goes for FB, it may be commercial suicide or it may not because some people may want this from their comedians yet they would not want it from their politicians.
He's broken no laws so how can he be brought to justice. That's akin to saying a comic who writes a joke based on the failings of the opposite gender rather than just being sexist, which is not any sort of offence, are actively committing sexual discrimination which can be an offence in certain circumstances.

why am I not suprised that you are defending him DP...
maybe we should all start making jokes about you...

Bring it on 2shoes...I'd be the first to laugh...

lol..Riven, where have you been for the last few months..? there isn't a week that goes by without someone calling me something...yesterday I was a jumped up stoned out of my head bored housewife....I lol before telling her to naff off....her message was deleted, I didn't report it...could have stayed there for ever for all I cared, couldn't give a toss...