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.

[xoxoxoBruce]

As soon as I hear something like , "all men are rapists", or any other generalizations of that tone, I immediately dismiss the speaker as a twit.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

As soon as I hear something like , "all men are rapists", or any other generalizations of that tone, I immediately dismiss the speaker as a twit twat.

*runs for shelter*

[xoxoxoBruce]

That was my first thought but discarded it, as I'm too old and fat to run.

[Sundae]

If a black comedian told the joke I would laugh without reservation.
Their kids, or their family's kids.

If a white comedian/ person told the joke, you wonder why they are worried about black kids jumping on their bed. What, you think all black kids gonna break in your house and jump on your clean white sheets? You saying black kids got no bed of their own to jump on?? (not really the way I speak or even think, but you know)

So again, it's down to perception.
IF there is a social imbalance, it makes things more tricky. It's not innocent humour any more.

Unless you want to go for the balls-out [Frankie Boyle-style] joke with "How do you stop black kids jumping on the bed? Shoot the house-robbing little MFs as soon as they're over your property line."

[DanaC]

Is there a ready equivalent, in terms of tone and type of humour, about a white kid?

Genuine question. My first thought was that the reason it is a bit dodgy is that the focus is on the kid's blackness. Bear in mind there are two or three centuries in our history of cultural focus on the features of black faces and bodies as signifiers of both otherness and inferiority. One of the features that tended to be focused on and exaggerated in cartoons was big lips - another was the afro hair. We are used, as a culture, to viewing black bodies in a particular way and often that way is humorously.

At an individual level, the joke is not founded on any kind of racism and there is nothing inherently negative about it. It isn't hateful - it doesn't rely on any sense of cruelty or superiority. Our brains just go there - and we find it funny. But - it is a place we are culturally primed to go to. We notice the afro hair as a thing to focus on, because we are culturally primed to notice those features in a particular way.

[Lamplighter]

...At an individual level, the joke is not founded on any kind of racism
and there is nothing inherently negative about it....

Ummmm.... I think it depends on your POV.

I'm white, and so I don't have a direct connection with people telling me
my hair is funny or nappy or in some other sense "bad".

But over the years "hair" inside the American Black community has become a very important issue
... a "family value" to a point of being a source of embarrassment.

Hair straighteners, hair lighteners, special hair "do's" may be out of sight of the white community,
but from a very early age children are judged by Blacks on the texture of their hair.
Children, especially girls, with soft curls are often told they have "good" hair.
Others are told their hair is "hard"

As a Black child grows up with such comments, such remarks
can have an effect on how "jokes" about Black hair are perceived.
At each incidence then, that person must decide how to respond
...with laughter, silence, or anger.

.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Simply take race out of the joke.

"How do you stop kids with curly hair from jumping up and down on the bed?"

"Put Velcro on the ceiling."

Not quite as funny, but, there ya go. It's a slippery slope.

Originally Posted by DanaC

Is there a ready equivalent, in terms of tone and type of humour, about a white kid?

Not for the Velcro joke. White kids can't jump.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Not for the Velcro joke. White kids can't jump.

- well played

[xoxoxoBruce]

Here's one.

[Gravdigr]

[DanaC]

Sorry - I should have been clearer. I meant at an individual level the joke teller is not coming from a place of racism or negativity.

[Clodfobble]

Sometimes culture makes a joke un-tellable for awhile, and it's just timing and there's nothing you can do about it. You know my story about my mom and the confederate soldier cemetery? Can't tell that one on stage anymore, I'm guessing for at least three years. That's just how it is. There really is such a thing as "too soon," and that timeframe doesn't get to be determined by the individual, only the group as a whole.

On the subject of borderline racist jokes, here's one from my daughter's joke book for kids:

What do you call a mariachi band in quicksand?

Quatro Sinko.

Is it funnier if you say "four Mexicans" instead? Is it more racist?

[DanaC]

Heheheh. Nice.

[it]

I think the line is crossed when it becomes a matter of policy - a ban.

Otherwise, freedom of speech goes both ways - people can joke about anything, and other people can comment protest or whine about how those jokes are offensive. Who is right? Probably orange, but that doesn't matter. The conversation goes both ways, and freedom of speech means neither get a right to have the last say. The freedom of people to be assholes is going to be intertwined with the freedom of people to call each other assholes.