Should Comedians Have Free Rein?

[MadVillainy]

Id like some examples of offensive comedians that people think take it too far

As I said in the OP I felt that the jokes about Paul Walker's death and Ryan Dunn's death were a bit too far.

But that could just be me.

It wasn't just that they said it. It was also the time and venue

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Flint... Thank you for proving me right. You got offended. If you didn't care what was posted you wouldn't have responded. It's not about you, per se, it's the position that many proffer that somehow, they never get offended by speech or humor. Obviously to one extent or another, WE ALL DO.

The short version of what Flint said is:
WTF?!

EDIT:
He 'splained it before my post.

 

[Travesty]

Don't know about the Paul Walker joke, but I think the Ryan Dunn joke was fine. Schumer was making fun of Steve O, and mentioned Dunn. Was it a great and tasteful joke? No, but it's fine to me.

 

[Alien Anal]

I think we just have to remember anything can offend anyone for any reason so its best to just get over it and move on otherwise we have to stop everyone from making any kind of comment and THAT would be offensive :P

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I'm more confused than offended, but you can chalk that up as a victory if you'd like.

The more you respond the more my point gets proven. You aren't a robot and neither are the audiences of comedy. We all have visceral, emotional reactions, from the smallest, to the most intense stimuli. I think it's disingenuous to suggest other wise. And... You have the right to be offended. I cannot, and should not have veto power over that.

But... I can make my voice heard if I think what you are offended by (say a picture of sleeping puppies intended as a joke?) is ridiculous as well. And you have a right to respond and I can respond to your response ect., ect. There is not actually a hard and fast rule here of one thing (a comedian's right to offend) having primacy over another (an audience member having a right to take offense) in this thing called life. People have emotional responses. We aren't simply logic machines. Again, if you really didn't care, you wouldn't have taken the time to respond to the most milk toast of critiques. The question at hand is best explored if we are being honest and not putting on airs of "oh, I never get offended". That, frankly is a load of bovine excrement (Hopefully those words aren't offensive ).

 

[Kar]

Jeff Ross, Joan Rivers, Greg Giraldo, Seth Macfarlane (if he counts as a comedian), hell apparently Chris Rock for his Freedom Tower joke. Daniel Tosh, there are plenty.

 

[Rocketman]

Comedians are the least harmful people on the planet. Their whole reason for existing is to make people laugh. That's it. So let's worry about other things, like terrorism, criminals, rapists, etc. Stuff that actually threatens us... not modern day court jesters.

Also, most of the time when a comedian "offends", everyone in the audience is laughing their heads off. It's only when they show the clip on Fox News and they have some whiny blogger on a split-screen do we think there's something "wrong".

 

[Snow Queen]

They have every right to, however I feel there is absolutely a line that a lot of unfunny comedians cross where they just go into being cruel, mean-spirited and rude. They have the right to do that, but it's not the right thing to do. Just being an ******* to people isn't funny.

 

[Rocketman]

Don Rickles is easily the worst and most hurtful of them all, and he's basically universally celebrated.

 

[DJ_KiDDvIcIOUs]

Absolutely, without question

 

[Greens]

I remember Gilbert Gottfried made a joke about the tsunami in Japan right after it happened and he got **** for it. I thought it was pretty funny.

 

[Travesty]

Yeah, and he got fired from Aflac because of it.

 

[Godzilla2000]

They should have free rein only if they're riding horses. Now if you're talking about free reign in a public sense like on family friendly programming and networks no they shouldn't. But if it's a show or T.V. appearance on a network like HBO that people are paying for and know what they're getting into, sure they can be as raunchy and lewd as they want because it's within the realm of free choice to0 watch or not.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Let me put this in more personal terms...

I went to high school in what at the time was a decidedly rural area of the Pocono Mountains in Pennsyvania. To put it mildly, the high school I went to did not have a lot of non Caucasians running around. I was certainly the only Puerto Rican in the whole school. My Sophomore year I had a history teacher that often began every class with a joke and then would ask a student for a joke. Now, there was a girl, the head cheerleader no less, and Alpha "mean girl" of the school, dating the team quarterback, the whole nine yards, whom after the teacher told his joke offered her own. It went like this: "A momma skunk and a momma duck were friends and used to meet in the middle of the road with their offspring. They get runned over by a car before they can tell their Babis what they are. So the baby skunk and the baby duck continue meeting in the middle of the road and decide that they will tell each other what they are. The baby skunk tells the baby duck that since he has webbed feet, white feathers and a bill, that he must be a duck. The baby duck says to the skunk, well... You are black, and white and you stink. You must be Puerto Rican."

Now... I am sure there are those that find that joke HILIARIOUS. But In the context of the where's, when's and likely whys of that particular situation... I am pretty sure the point was offense and not humor. And you can damn well think it's pretty sure there's nothing but mean spirited intentions behind it. However... She had the right to make that joke. And... I had the right to be offended by it. It's possible, hell it's a fact as far as I am concerned, that in the human experience in it's fullest that two diametrically opposing views can be equally right. So sure, you can be offensive, you have that "right" but people also have the "right" whatever the merits to be offended and use their freedom of speech and other non violent forms of expression to let you know they are offended. And as a practical matter, freedom of speech isn't in real world terms also freedom from all consequences of that speech.. A nice example is, tell your friend you think his wife is a stupid ****e. You have the right to say that... But you'd be an idiot to think there won't be SOME kind of consequence.

Of course people will bring up using violence ect. to suppress free speech. I am not going to argue that such responses are in the realm of legitimate responses to offensive speech in a free society, but again, the truth as I see it is that when you intend to offend, it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Despite what some claim, we have emotional responses to EVERYTHING in life, it's more a matter of the degree of intensity.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

dave chappelle is considered by some to be the greatest comedian of all time.

 

[Evelisse]

I thought this was great


Patton Oswalt wrote 53 masterful tweets welcoming Trevor Noah to “comedy in 2015”

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I think another thing to factor in is that a lot of us place comedy into a sacred position when this issue of offensiveness comes up. "It's funny cuz it's true" or "there's truth in comedy" ect. Hogwash. Funny is funny. It's not necessarily "true". A man slipping on a banana peel is funny... But I have never seen it in real life. But it's still theoretically funny. You can make lots of over the top and offensive jokes but... That won't make the contents of the jokes true.

 

[Travesty]

I thought this was great


Patton Oswalt wrote 53 masterful tweets welcoming Trevor Noah to “comedy in 2015”

Yeah, I read this earlier today.

 

[Flint Marko]

The more you respond the more my point gets proven. You aren't a robot and neither are the audiences of comedy. We all have visceral, emotional reactions, from the smallest, to the most intense stimuli. I think it's disingenuous to suggest other wise. And... You have the right to be offended. I cannot, and should not have veto power over that.

But... I can make my voice heard if I think what you are offended by (say a picture of sleeping puppies intended as a joke?) is ridiculous as well. And you have a right to respond and I can respond to your response ect., ect. There is not actually a hard and fast rule here of one thing (a comedian's right to offend) having primacy over another (an audience member having a right to take offense) in this thing called life. People have emotional responses. We aren't simply logic machines. Again, if you really didn't care, you wouldn't have taken the time to respond to the most milk toast of critiques. The question at hand is best explored if we are being honest and not putting on airs of "oh, I never get offended". That, frankly is a load of bovine excrement (Hopefully those words aren't offensive ).

Again, I don't know where I said "nothing offends me" or "being offended is wrong" so I'm still not sure what your greater point is. You keep telling me I'm offended when really I'm just pressing you to clarify what you are trying to say and what the disagreement is.
Comedians don't offend me, that much is all I've really said, and it's true. I listen to stand-up on an almost daily basis, even comedians who attack my religious or political beliefs don't bother me because I understand that, more times than not, its a well-thought out, interesting take on the subject that challenges my own beliefs and makes me think of things in a different perspective.
Anthony Jeselnik has a great bit on standards and practices, and how they made him change a joke about Asian stereotypes so his act would be appropriate for TV. He ends it with saying people who get offended by stand up comedy don't really get stand up comedy (I'm paraphrasing), and thats a sentiment I largely share.

 

[DeadPresident]

It's a sign of the times that people are more concerned with a single individual's rights to say whatever comes to his clever little mind than several individuals' rights not to be subjected to potentially offensive or hurtful comments.

One comedian doing whatever he pleases Vs. Paul Walker's family maybe not wanting their son/brother/cousin/uncle's death mocked. Consideration and censorship aren't the same thing. Asking the average human being or professional comedian to be mindful that their comments have repercussions isn't the same as telling them not to say X, Y or Z. Rather I'd take it as asking them what they're achieving by saying it and if the effect is worth it. But that probably takes a bit more than most people have got.

 

[jonathancrane]

Comedians should not be censored; they should have the option to mine whatever subject they want for comedy. Having said that - and being willing to defend it-I have to follow up that those who exploit the Holocaust for comedy are ***holes. I'll defend their right to joke about the material, but will not have any shred of respect for them.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Exactly. Comediens have the right to do what they want but we as individuals can react however we want, period. Those two positions can co-exist, and within limits comedien's have to live with the reaction to their work, just as within limits people in the audience have to live with the artistic freedom a comedian has to express what ever they want.

 

[Greens]

Having said that - and being willing to defend it-I have to follow up that those who exploit the Holocaust for comedy are ***holes. I'll defend their right to joke about the material, but will not have any shred of respect for them.

I don't agree that the Holocaust is a subject that should be avoided entirely. I'm sure you've seen the Downfall (or Der Untergang) meme on the internet where people dub the scene where Hitler is outraged. Some of those are funny as hell and commonly accepted, but the subject matter is pretty grim.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Yes.

But that won't necessarily make their material funny.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Id like some examples of offensive comedians that people think take it too far

Well, one of the recent incidents going around is this one.

His jokes didn't land for me, but I never found him funny to begin with.



http://www.upworthy.com/a-comedian-went-on-tv-and-viciously-insulted-a-fellow-comedian-heres-her-eloquent-response?c=upw1&u=b957fb2fc3a17c60cf8b93ebf5b4a55d020be747