Welcome to the 21st century.

[andrewducker]

I can understand why there's a stereotype of feminists as humourless.

I mean, if you're used to being able to make jokes about horrible things happening to women and then a group of people start telling you that they don't find this funny then your perception of them is going to be that they just don't have a sense of humour.  After all, you don't _seriously_ want bad things to happen to women, you're just having a laugh, right?

My old friend Ed went to this debate in which a controversial comedian debated whether it was ok to make offensive jokes.  Frankie Boyle used his moments on the debating stand to tell a series of increasingly unpleasant jokes - all of which got a massive laugh from the audience, except when they touched on a subject just a little too close to home.  My friend found himself laughing at all sorts of appalling things, until the subject was (coincidentally) turned onto his own situation, at which point he found himself thinking "but that's not funny".

Because it's never funny when it's about you.  It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about. 

Or, at the very least, if you can pretend that nobody you know is like that.

It's much easier when you live in a nice insular environment, where you only really know people like yourself, and you certainly only socialise with people just like you.  Then you can bask in in-group/out-group socialisation to your heart's content.

Not to easy when you're on the internet, and people are likely to pop up at any moment and point out the flaws inherent in something you thought was innocent fun.

The question is - how do you deal with it when someone points it out?  Do you have to let the flaws ruint it for you because they offend someone else?  Do you have to argue that there's nothing wrong with the thing you love?

If you care (and nobody is going to make you) then some very useful hints and tips can be found here.  The flow-chart at the end is particularly good.

Comments

[likeneontubing.livejournal.com]

i am completely conflicted about this in general. on the one hand i LOVE offensive jokes, but on the other if someone began to display signs of seriously believing in one, i would turn into debate mode.

it sounds awful, but i judge the situation around whether the people near me are likely to 'get' that this is a joke, or to think that it displays an attitude which is OK. if the latter, i encourage others not to joke around those people about issues too, unless i have established that this is not the case.

i refer almost entirely to sunderland and making jokes within earshot of those perhaps not as PC as myself in their beliefs, and there is nothing on this world more disturbing than someone joining in on a very offensive joke you/your mates have just told and agreeing. it really is quite frightening, and you feel a bit guilty as if you helped to spread their attitude a wee bit.

[andrewducker]

it sounds awful, but i judge the situation around whether the people near me are likely to 'get' that this is a joke, or to think that it displays an attitude which is OK.

Doesn't sound awful at all. I've made some terribly offensive jokes in my time, and I hope I've judged the audience right most of the time. Occasionally I won't, and nowadays I'd apologise if I actually hurt someone's feelings.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

Of course, the LGBT Society could have won the debate if they'd gotten a better comedian up against Boyle.

After all, THE ARISTOCRATS.

[andrewducker]

I love that movie!

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Because it's never funny when it's about you.

Only if you are humourless, otherwise it is just as funny when it is about you. Hence the tradition of the roast.

[andrewducker]

I've seen a couple of them, and the person being roasted always looked distinctly uncomfortable if the jokes hit too close to the bone. They may well put up with it, but they didn't look happy about it.

[chuma.livejournal.com]

First time I saw that was on some tv channel saying that up next her friends were going to roast Pamela Anderson. I remember thinking you wouldn't get much meat to go around.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

As I've recently commented elsewhere, what really riles me are "ironic" sexist jokes (usually accompanied by smilies) that are just thrown into the middle of a discussion (on feminism or otherwise).

They put a feminist in an impossible situation. The choice is:
a) Ignore it or take it in the spirit in which the person who posted it says it is intended (not necessarily the same as the spirit is is actually, consciously or subconsciously intended)
b) Challenge it

If we (a), then we are giving some tacit approval and have to take a certain amount of offence "on the chin".

If we (b) then we are easy to paint as humourless feminists.

Throwing in an ironic joke achieves the result of sabotaging/hijacking/jibing at feminists, and does this in a way which "plays well to the crowd".

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

From the other post - "liking a story with an arrow doesn't make you a bigot"

Does WRITING a story with an arrow necessarily make you a bigot/racist/sexist/whatever?

[andrewducker]

Depends. Did you deliberately play up to a negative stereotype?

("You" here being impersonal, I'm not accusing _you_ of anything)

[meihua.livejournal.com]

It caaaaaaaaan do, yes. But, expand the definition of racism a bit.

Someone's a big, bad, evil racist if they go about beating up people of colour.

Someone's a medium racist if every black character in their books is poor, from the ghetto, loves watermelon and fried chicken, even when that wouldn't make sense for that character.

Someone can be a bit racist if they are unintentionally incorporating those stereotypes into stories they write.

The key thing is not to go "ARRRRGH! You just called me racist! I don't go around beating up black folks!". It's to go, "Ok, you're saying there are racist implications in my story. I should look at that."

A lot of confusion occurs because people can't handle other people suggesting they are racist. They feel that racists are those folks who used to be KKK members, not nice people like them. However, the word is broad, and covers both camps - just to differing degrees.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Another point about "off-colour" jokes - they give social cover to bigots

[chuma.livejournal.com]

By that same assumption, it can label people who are just making jokes as bigots when they are not.

[yalovetz]

I just accept that by most people's standards I don't have a sense of humour. I'm okay with this.

[broin.livejournal.com]

I've been puzzling over this all day.

"Because it's never funny when it's about you. It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about."

I don't think that's true. In fact, I think it's lazy thinking. And following that logic, if I laugh about something, I don't care about the topic.

Comedy is not the opposite of serious. Jokes about fried chicken, holocausts, wheelchairs, rape, or transvestites don't inure me to the harm of predjudice. I don't follow the logic that they should.

[andrewducker]

I suspect that that depends on the way the joke is told and whether you're surrounded by a negative atmosphere all the time.

If, while you were in Scotland, Irish people were talked down, there were occasional racist anti-Irish attacks, and generally you felt unsafe walking down the street, then I suspect that you'd feel more sensitive when people made Irish jokes in front of you and that maybe you'd feel uncomfortable around them.

It is a generalisation, of course, to say it's _only_ funny when it's about someone else. But on the whole I find that people are a lot more sensitive about jokes about them than they are about jokes about The Other.

[andrewducker]

Oh, and I appreciate you thinking this one over and giving me feedback. Because this is definitely one of those areas where I'm uncertain. Which is probably a good thing :->

[d-c-m.livejournal.com]

You, as usual, rock. :)

[meihua.livejournal.com]

LJ post on feminism gets enormous number of comments. Story at 9. ;)

[marrog.livejournal.com]

God it's always about feminism with you lot, isn't it?

[daisyflip.livejournal.com]

Hello. I can't be bothered to read everything as I have 2 seconds left on LJ before I have to return to doing work, but I am a comedian sometimes, and like most comedians have offended people and had it pointed out. If you don't actually believe in what you're saying, if you haven't thought it through, and someone points it out I suppose you could feel like a tit and retract your hilarious joke about Anne Frank. However, I would also say that generally people who get offended by jokes done in current comedy clubs (and bear in mind racism is tres 1970s) are very dull.

I have more to say but my 2 seconds is up so I'll leave it at that very unintelligent comment. But yeah, fuck all y'all bitches.

[zz]

i tend to assume that if one can't *ever* (as opposed to having a temporary bad day/mood/etc) see the humour in a given topic, that that topic has a sufficient emotional hold that one won't be able to deal with it rationally either.

only partially relatedly, i find people being too (imo, of course) easily offended funny. :>

and i noticed the fedex arrow ages ago and completely forgot about it till i looked at the logo again.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Because it's never funny when it's about you. It's only funny when it's about someone you don't care about.

I dunno about that. Pretty much the only people who tell lesbian jokes are lesbians. It's that whole reclamation thing. I think what's funny and what isn't isn't quite as simple as that. I also think that there are some jokes that will always be funny because they will always be horrific.

Oh! Maybe that's it! Okay, bear with me. Everyone agrees that dead babies are tragic. Genuinely awful. As such, quite a sizable amount of people - certainly almost everyone I know - find dead baby jokes funny, the more horrific and often less coherently punchlined the better. The same can apply to child abuse although I do know people who don't find paedophile jokes funny.

But there are racists out there, and transphobes, and homophobes. And that's why jokes about race and transsexuality (not that I've ever heard a trans joke) and gayness are only allowable and funny in the context of closed environments of The Initiated, cf reclaimation. In a packed hall, a stand-up comic joking about Asians or gays or is going to offend because there's that feeling that there's someone out there in the audience who is gaining a sense of genuine justification for their own bigotry in the telling.

This is just a theory and I'm not sure how well I'm explaining it. What do you think?

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I was feeling my way towards something similar.

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

I agree, though obviously if a gay asian was making stereotypical gay asian jokes then they could quite well be funny. The context of the experience being more heavily defined by the one with the mic than by the audience.

Though I doubt few people who were racist or homophobic would go to to see a gay asian comedian.

In fact more than that, if you had a group of people laughing at one person telling a joke, it's quite possible that laughing at the joke would be completely acceptable, whereas telling that joke (i.e. going from being an audience member to comedian with exactly the same people, merely roles altered) would be completely unacceptable.

I occasionally make homophobic, racist or sexist jokes, but only amongst company that know I'm not homophobic, racist or sexist and deliberately over the top jokes which would be too ridiculous that anyone could consider me serious.

In fact I'd likely only make such jokes when there was a good amount of the (potentially) insulted party present, as however well people know you, making some racist, sexist or homophobic jokes amongst a group of white, male, heterosexuals would have difficulty coming off as non-bigoted no matter the intention or the content.