You don’t have to mean a joke for saying it to make you a complete and utter piece of shit. I absolutely don’t believe that playing a character is an excuse, especially when a lot of people see this sort of shit as justification for their own shitty behaviour in the real world.
I also don’t think you have to intend malice, I frankly don’t care. If you’re laughing at someone for struggling to exist, it just doesn’t matter what you intended, I have no patience for fake excuses. Comedy doesn’t have to choose a class of people to stomp on to exist, and I think it’s an absolute lie when someone claims that it’s okay.
If they’re just throwing slurs, then they really just aren’t good at comedy, it’s pathetic. It’s no different from schoolyard bullying, and it doesn’t have to be said directly to someone for it to be wrong.
Yeah, I’m pissed off by comedians who do this shit, and I won’t apologise for it. They’re ruining their own craft, pretending that being mean is okay if it makes people laugh.
Laughing at a condition rather than the person might be better, but there’s a fine line there. It can certainly be done right, it’s often handled a lot better by people joking about their own experiences rather than someone else’s.
You completely missed the point: laughing at someone because they’re struggling is horrible, and there’s no defense. It’s not funny, it’s just shitty. Laughing with them about their unfortunate circumstance is sharing a human moment with them, and is very much not horrible. They are very different things, and it’s pretty easy to tell them apart: one of them will get a laugh from the person suffering. If the joke makes the sufferer laugh, you’re in no position to judge.
And here’s the thing about Ricky Gervais’ comedy: I’m pretty sure his Make-A-Wish fan would have thought the cancer jokes were hilarious, even if his family don’t appreciate them. It’s not like they’re out of character for him, after all; or do you imagine little George managed to avoid all of that and still end up a fan somehow?
Oh sorry, no I meant to agree with you on that point. I just didn’t stress it as much because it is, as you say, quite different. I just meant that whether or not one believes what they say is irrelevant, there’s no excuse for it.
I honestly can’t pretend to know anything about a dead child’s appreciation for a type of humour, but I don’t think it’s fair to say he’d necessarily be a fan of being the butt of a joke. Perhaps he would be, perhaps he’d realise how awful it is and change his point of view. It’s kind of meaningless to really say anything about it.
I’m coming at this from my own point of view, as a minority who is often the target of this sort of thing, I have no patience for it.
You don’t have to mean a joke for saying it to make you a complete and utter piece of shit. I absolutely don’t believe that playing a character is an excuse, especially when a lot of people see this sort of shit as justification for their own shitty behaviour in the real world.
I also don’t think you have to intend malice, I frankly don’t care. If you’re laughing at someone for struggling to exist, it just doesn’t matter what you intended, I have no patience for fake excuses. Comedy doesn’t have to choose a class of people to stomp on to exist, and I think it’s an absolute lie when someone claims that it’s okay.
If they’re just throwing slurs, then they really just aren’t good at comedy, it’s pathetic. It’s no different from schoolyard bullying, and it doesn’t have to be said directly to someone for it to be wrong.
Yeah, I’m pissed off by comedians who do this shit, and I won’t apologise for it. They’re ruining their own craft, pretending that being mean is okay if it makes people laugh.
Laughing at a condition rather than the person might be better, but there’s a fine line there. It can certainly be done right, it’s often handled a lot better by people joking about their own experiences rather than someone else’s.
You completely missed the point: laughing at someone because they’re struggling is horrible, and there’s no defense. It’s not funny, it’s just shitty. Laughing with them about their unfortunate circumstance is sharing a human moment with them, and is very much not horrible. They are very different things, and it’s pretty easy to tell them apart: one of them will get a laugh from the person suffering. If the joke makes the sufferer laugh, you’re in no position to judge.
And here’s the thing about Ricky Gervais’ comedy: I’m pretty sure his Make-A-Wish fan would have thought the cancer jokes were hilarious, even if his family don’t appreciate them. It’s not like they’re out of character for him, after all; or do you imagine little George managed to avoid all of that and still end up a fan somehow?
Oh sorry, no I meant to agree with you on that point. I just didn’t stress it as much because it is, as you say, quite different. I just meant that whether or not one believes what they say is irrelevant, there’s no excuse for it.
I honestly can’t pretend to know anything about a dead child’s appreciation for a type of humour, but I don’t think it’s fair to say he’d necessarily be a fan of being the butt of a joke. Perhaps he would be, perhaps he’d realise how awful it is and change his point of view. It’s kind of meaningless to really say anything about it.
I’m coming at this from my own point of view, as a minority who is often the target of this sort of thing, I have no patience for it.