Sick humour, RL and sensitivity....discusss!

[Blu]

I am genuinely interested in this because it poses personal dilemmas for me.

(This is not a thread to intended to carry on opinions about individual MN-ers).

I remember watching the Zebrugge disaster on tv and crying. But the next day, someone told me two very sick jokes - at which I did laugh. Without feeling any less horrified at what had happened. Had a relative of the drowned been close to me my sympathy and sensitivity would have been, I hope, total.

On the other hand I have been hugely upset on MN by some of the relentless jokes about HMMc's leg, because I felt that people could well make jokes about my own DS's leg, and also that her leg was becoming a focus for all sorts of other things about the way HMMc is seen.

Is it about whether we think these thjoughts at all? Whether we write them down, and consider them 'legit' and ok to share widely if we write them down?

Do we encompass all our emotions in the face of verything we eencounter, and humour is in there somewhere?

And where does the sensitivity we would show if we were in the front room with someone bereaved stop, and free speech become an issue? I have seen things discussed as free speech issues on Mn when personally i would have seen them as 'someone's fromnt room sensitivity' issues....

Really glad you started this thread.

My view is I wouldn't make fun of/light of an individual's situation unless they did the same themselves - I take my cue from them. I don't know the HMMc's leg story so can't comment there.

On issues like the thread over there [points] I think a) it was taken out of context and b)it was a pretty harmless comment regardless. There's a reason jokes circulate after disasters and deaths, and reasons we all get inappropriate thoughts at the time (was I the only one to picture Steve Irwin diving in those khaki shorts when I heard of his death?) - it helps us manage the aftermath, put it into context, reassure ourselves that life goes on.

What I strongly object to is this very female [sorry but it is] tendency to go "ooh you can't say that it could have been me/my dog/my sister/my daughter...oooh imagine if it had been our Caitlin... etc". Yes and equally it could have been an aardvark. Life is that wierd sometimes. You cannot defend people from the realities of life and difficult situations, otherwise no one would ever spill McDonald's coffee ever again because the cups do warn you it hot coffee, no one would ever be dumped by a lover etc.

As far as I see it, humour is important in the grieving and coping processes. What I see as self-indulgent vicarious 'me-too' hysteria is just making oneself feel part of something.

The thread over there [points again] wasn't even sick humour - it was just the OP being a bit shaky on E Anglian geography

I think finding something to laugh at in connection with ghastly news stories is probably very cathartic for most people - laughter is often an instinctive response in embarrassing situations (I used to get into trouble at school all the time for inappropriate smirks ).

I can see it's hard when you are personally affected in some way by it, like you and the leg, Blu - but the Mucca leg jokes were against her, because of her personal unpopularity, not about people with leg problems in general.

And we couldn't talk about anything sensitive on MN, ever, if we always had to allow for the fact that even 1 of the 000s here might be offended by it.

Good thread and good posts

OH! just got who HMMc is. Am strangely dense when it comes to that woman.

I spent years working with City Boys and NO subject is taboo as far as they are concerned for a sick joke. I remember the day after the twin towers were destroyed in NY, the jokes were flowing thick & fast.
My sister is a GP & hospital/medical humour is some of the blackest & most distasteful of all. No condition is without its jokes.

All I can think is that often humour is a coping mechanism.

I agree with JanH.
I was listening to a,local radio program the other day about the increase of gun crime. It had a mother who had lost her son a few years ago in a shooting incident. Of course dp and I were listening to this and feeling very sad for the woman but when she said that he had been 'murdered to death' we both sniggered. Some may think that is insensitive however it didn't mean we felt any less sorry about what had happened to her or her son just that her turn of phrase was amusing.

yes, it's a bit like getting uncontrolable giggles in church.

I remember on the day of my mum's funeral many years ago, a passing family acquaintance who had no idea my mother had died, saw our family dressed ready to go to the funeral.

'Christ' he said 'you lot look like your off to a funeral'.

It was a sane, funny, real moment in an otherwise very surreal day.

Agree about humour being a coping mechanism for medics and people on the front line so to speak but I'm not sure that works for the rest of us who only view things through our tv screens. I used to work with one particularly awful man who told the most tasteless jokes. There really was no point in challenging him - if you did he'd just say "I'm only having a laugh". The same probably applies over there .

I think that it?s necessary to take humour from most situations, because if you don?t, then you run the risk of being too serious and being consumed by the serious aspects of your life rather than the humerous ones. When a tragedy along the lines of the twin towers, Dianna?s death, Steve Irwin?s death happens, the jokes are invariably out there within hours. I think partly it is a relief from the sadness, and partly it is a case of people having to make light of the situation because some people just don?t know how to deal with tragic events. I actually think that there is only one situation that should be immune from jokes being made about it, and that is where people have learning difficulties and are thus unable to appreciate/comprehend the humour that is being spread about them. I think that other jokes about the disabled are generally fine, because in those instances the disabled people about whom the jokes are being made have the ability to either laugh with the joker, or to put it down to being just in bad taste and ignore it. And I speak as someone who has no issue at all with people making jokes about my disability.

I agree with a lot of all that....but what abour disabled children, Wannabe, when there is a fine line (often) between jokes / hhumour, and teasing or worse?

I saw a number of Mucca jokes that were beyond being about her as an individual, and seemed, to me, to be a cue to tell prosthetic leg jokes per se. And because it was on MN, where I go for support, it was very sensitive to me, at that moment. I think in any case, we have to admiot that jokes and humour do illuminate what we carry in our monds - of all the things to be said about HMMc, her leg and her former relationship with an Arab seemed to become a focus for humour-based criticism. I do think jokes are a sort of one-way moiiror to the darker parts of our psyche.

I am posessed of a very naughty / sick / black sense of humour, but i am aware that it gets occluded when I feel personall touched or sensitive about something. But I wouldn't carry a long term thing about it - people certainly wouldn't MEAN to make someone feel raw.

I told some very sick jokes about Diana - and Steve Irwin. And part of that was a sort of reaction to the huge emotional outpouring, not a reflecion on how I felt for their families.

"Yes and equally it could have been an aardvark."

I may live my life by this statement from now on.

you'll find it helps you through many a difficult moment BahHunkBug.

arf!

I haven't seen any jokes about litvinenko yet bit I'm sure they must exist..seems kind of permissible for those as it is weird to start ewiht

My views are unaffected, not related and have no bearing on the other thread [end of disclaimer emoticon].

I tend to respond to all manners of issues with my emotions rather than intellectually, hence whilst having read the other posts on this thread and acknowledging that perhaps black humour over tragic events can validly be part of some people's coping mechanisms, I personally find black humour somewhere between distasteful and hugely offensive (on a continuum... depending upon the joke and the situation)

For example the day after Twin Towers my Finance Director showed me a mocked up photo on the internet of a tourist standing at the top of the Twin Towers (in a viewing area) and looking through binoculars...as a large passenger plan flew on a direct trajectory towards him.

Oh how the Finance Director guffawed whilst I stood there expressionless and said rather weakly - "Oh, that's a bit much isn't it". But actually I was thinking 'you complete wanker'.

i have a sick sense of humour and Im afraid I often have to watch how I post things on MN however one reason I like particular posters is that they often post what I am thinking. As a rule though I do try to keep things to myself

it is part of the human condition in many many cultures to laugh about everything. there is a balance between encouraging sensitivity on one side, and encouraging a certain level of robustness on the other. IMO it is particularly unhelpful to every possible remark just in case it might offend someone, somewhere, somehow. IMO that encourages people to look for offence, and encourages victimhood, and deepens divisions in society, and leaves people unprepared for the realities of life. Which isn't healthy imo. On of the most important lessons in life, in order to get on and live in the world successfully, is to be able to ignore comments we don't like, or jst simply deal with them calmly without getting upset.
none of which excuses people from exercising taste and judgment in their dealings with others.
I am often struck by the level of righteous indigation on mn, over remarks that would not cause the tiniest ripple in RL. I find it bizarre.

btw I have no idea what the other thread is, a I haven't been here all day

"On of the most important lessons in life, in order to get on and live in the world successfully, is to be able to ignore comments we don't like, or jst simply deal with them calmly without getting upset"

I agree with that....it is a lesson I am belatedly learning.

don't worry fio, there are plenty of people on mn who are always ready to ridicule one if one can't do it for oneself

A joke that is made about disabled children when someone listening to the joke is/has a disabled child is one thing. A joke about Princess Diana or the Twin Towers when all the listeners have no personal involvement is quite another - they have the choice to be disgusted or to laugh or to ignore. It doesn't seriously affect them one way or the other. And to pretend that it does is a pose.