Nobody Can Take a Joke Anymore

[DanaC]

I agree - I certainly don't think particular subject matter should be banned. But - when the root of humour is based on patently wrong, yet massively accepted steretypes (cartoons in the Weimar Republic about grotesque, animalistic, money-grabbing jews, films and cartoons in the late 19th/early 20th Century American South about animalistic, white-woman craving, libidinous blacks, and 1980s British comedy about the stupidity of Irishmem, or the subservience of Indian men) then it needs to be challenged by those who recognise what those jokes are actually doing.

But that's not about banning - it's about applying social pressure for change. It's a chicken and egg situation - society begins to change, so more people become aware - more people become aware so society changes.

Personally, I don't think any topic should ever be considered in and of itself to be beyond the remit of humour. But there is a really big difference between a joke that makes someone think about race/gender/sexual orientation and a joke that simply weighs in with confirmation of commonly held stereotypes. I have heard comedians make rape jokes that made me laugh and made me think and confront my own preconceptions. I have also heard comedians (and just mates) make rape jokes that made me wonder about their attitude to rape victims. The big differences between them were first off who was the butt of the humour and for what reason, and also whether the person making the joke was punching up or punching down.

There are legitimate complaints to be made about the way Twitter and social media, along with campus organisations, respond to jokes that oculd potentially be considered offensiove by someone, for whatever reason. Very occasionally, the outrage is warranted - on the whole it far surpasses anything like a proportionate response. But there are also legitimate complaints to be made about the way some sub-cultures, and this goes for social media and university campuses, create an unpleasant and emotionally damaging space out of somewhere that should be inclusive and then put the onus on the victims of social bullying to see the humour in what is a thinly veiled and dehumanising assault on what and who they are at their core.