One of my Twitter friends has been engaged in a on-going battle with Channel 4 and Ofcom over use of the word ‘retard’ on the Celebrity Big Brother series.
Comedy Without Cruelty has become Nicky’s battle cry and I have to say that I agree with her.
Whilst I find most of the irreverent one-liners delivered by Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr extremely amusing (as do my children), a few of them also cause me some concern.
At first, the off the cuff comments make you wince a bit as they are politically very incorrect but, as you know, I’m a great one for free speech. However, the problem is that it becomes corrosive if we allow that state of mind to continue. They are not innocent remarks. They are insidious statements mocking people who are unable to defend themselves and who have the right to be able to walk down the street without having people shout insulting epithets.
Because that is what will happen.
Despite their wish to be anarchic harbingers of cultural change, comedians today are role models to our younger generation and with that comes a huge responsibility. If they lower the standards to make dissing the disabled respectable, then what hope for the future?
Verbally abusing people who have physical and mental disabilities through no fault of their own is just not right. It’s not decent.
In a society whose moral fabric is slowly crumbling before our eyes, despite our descent into some of the most bizarre political correctness scenarios, we rely on our bastions of the comedy world to keep us on the straight and narrow with their satirical observations.
And, in a world where we pay lip service to working with the disabled by providing a ramp or a wheelchair-friendly public convenience here and there, if the heroes of youth culture are allowed to declare open season on the less privileged, those who admire them will follow, setting up all manner of trouble for the future.
I cannot agree MORE!
My twins are just entering their teens. They were Damaged in the womb, and after, before we got them. To look at them, and to see them interact in public on a time or two basis, you would not notice anything different from the next teen, but there is.
One is an Honor Role Student in Regular Classes, but has to work harder than the rest of the others.
The other is in modified classes, but do you have an Engineering Problem…. not for long, with him around!
The next door neighbor has a mid-thirties brother who is Autistic. He lives on his own, works between 20-40 hrs a week, but needs assistance with proper money handling.
I DARE anyone to call my boys RETARD in my presence, and expect to be able to walk in six months. I have seen the look in their eyes too many times, because they know they are different, when all they want to be is just like everyone else!
Is that too much for them to ask?
Polar, Well Done on your twins’ achievements. But I think that’s the thing. Many people achieve great things despite their disability – be it something they are born with or through an accident – and to be continually fighting overt prejudice from numpties could be a real deterrent to their courage and tenacity. Sometimes you wonder about the mental abilities of those who want to taunt the disabled.
Ok, this is funny, though it may sound cruel. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn5jlrxcpkI
Excellent post Joanna, thank you. I'm off to put a link up to it now… BG Xx
I’m glad to be able to help publicise this and hopefully help in the prevention of future incidents
Lisa Lampanelli does a routine in which she uses as many derogatory comments as she possibly can. It is very clear that she is not making fun of any persons, but is making fun of the language and how it is used. I found I could laugh at it in that manner. But I agree with you that making fun of people just isn't funny.
you just don't get it do you? the reason why you laugh at jimmy carr awful jokes is BECAUSE people are aware just how politically incorrect what he says is. the bottom line of this debate always comes down to are you in favor of free speech or not. free speech doesn't just mean some hippy college student speaking out on the evils of our government for interfereing in third world affairs. freedom of speech also protects the klu klux klan right to stand in the street and shout obseneties at passing black people. you can't have it both ways you can't say some speech is protected and others are not because then it just becomes a matter of popular opinion.
comedy is never cruel. it just isn't. when people say the word retard these days they are not using it to mock the mentally disabled it's become another word for idiot or dumb shit. infact more often than not those trying to defend the mentally disabled come off as the bigger dicks. that whole thing with family guy where sarah palin got mad at them for “making fun of down syndrome sufferers” the voice actor from the show who has down sydrome stepped forward and said “how dare you for insinuating my life is miserable and i need to be defended by others.”
jokes made about these types of people are never intended as cruelty but as an oportunity to relax, havn't you ever seen a blonde laugh at a dumb blonde joke?
Hi Joe… I think it's rather that I do get it. I do understand what you say. It's car crash tv where you just want to put your hands over your face and not watch, but you have to… because it appeals to the innate child within. You know it's naughty; he shouldn't be doing it and you certainly shouldn't be encouraging him, but if he can get away with it…? And so you giggle along.
I am totally in favour of free speech. However, I also believe that with that freedom comes responsibility. There are a lot of people who are somewhat socially challenged. They don't understand the difference between a gentle humorous remark and a full blown insult or the occasions when it can be wrong to use the former. And that's where the concept gets out of hand.
I certainly don't believe that members of the KKK have the right to behave as you have mentioned. There are levels of common courtesy and decency that need to be observed in civilised society and, unfortunately, some idiots will abuse the privileges that we all enjoy… or, as they used to say in school 'There's always someone who wants to spoil it for the others'. If people had not stood up vociferously to the KKK in the past, then they would probably be far more popular than they are today because he who shouts loudest often influences others' behaviour.
After the furore over the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand incident, comedians need to understand that it is a question of good taste and certain subjects are off limits.
There just has to be a line in the sand
no there doesn't have to be a line in the sand. thats the whole point. and while i agree with you that in “polite” society cetain things might be rude or crass. but they are legal. there is no law in the books that i'm aware of that protects you from getting your feelings hurt.
whenever it comes to shock humor which i believe is what you are referring to it's a matter of getting over the shock aspect and looking at whats really going on. patton oswalt opened with a series of jokes about midgets for quite some time. the purpose being not to insult midgets or make fun of them, but to drive from the room those who would be offended by such jokes.
if you are in favor of free speech your in favor of free speech for all of us, for the kkk and for rush limbaugh, for osama bin laden and for adolph hitler because free speech is an all inclusive concept. you can't say things you like are protected while things you don't like are “rude” and therefore should be stamped out.
as far as comedy goes, nothing is off limits. absolutely nothing. it's the nature of the beast. to quote george carlin “people say rape isn't funny, i think rape is hilarious, picture porky pig raping elmer fudd.” comedy is about taking things that are up on a pedestal and knocking them down. once you say some things can't be knocked off the pedestal it becomes a matter of opinion as to what is sacred and what is not. so rather than pander to every possible political correctness on the books, comedians choose to pander to none.
It's an interesting point, Joe. Comedy is in the 'eye of the beholder' so to speak. However, with the KKK and with Adolph Hitler, if no one speaks out against them, we know what can happen.
I guess a slightly off topic example is what happened when the leader of the British National Party was allowed to speak on Question Time. A lot of people were outraged that he should have the opportunity but the BBC stuck to their guns about free speech and his performance was so bad that he shot himself in the foot and lost a lot of his support.
But it was the dissenting voices, the swell of public disapproval that got the programme a huge audience and allowed the masses to see what it was all about and make their own decision. It allowed the ordinary man in the street to understand that there were two sides to the BNP's arguments rather than being bombarded with rhetoric in an room full of like-minded supporters.
If you read Nicky's piece, you will see that the thing I am objecting to is the prospective title of a series 'Deal with it Retard'. Now I love Frankie Boyle – his irreverence and refusal to pander to some of the celebrity egos with whom he comes into contact. But it's just a step too far for me. I understand that it is just a word, but to use a medical term as an insult just doesn't sit right. As a blonde, I tend to find that most 'blonde' jokes are delivered almost with affection at their ditziness, not with hate. That term just doesnt have the same connotations.
I'm struggling to actually put my emotional sentiments into a coherent verbal argument because my innate sense of fair play and morality is what is offended.
Perhaps, at the end of the day, it would depend on the content and the material of the programme that would define the thought process behind it. Maybe the only way to truly assess if it's acceptable would be for Frankie to do a set of 'retard'-based observations in front of a an audience of people for whom that label might be a medical description… and see whether they laughed or not?
Or perhaps the whole point of the argument is that their disability should not be a thing of fun in the first place?
Or, perhaps you're right and we shouldn't be sticking up for people that don't want to have to be stuck up for.
This is a really grey area and I thank you for putting forward the other side of the argument.
PS, Sorry if there are any typos in this. I have gone from my laptop to the keyboard from Hell where some of the letters work like a manual typewriter, requiring so much pressure to translate from my finger tips to the page that they just don't make it. T is a particular problem :(