Jimmy Carr

[Prestwich_Blue]

Carr making the joke at one of his shows is not the equivalent of posting an offensive joke on a commemorative thread regarding Munich or Hillsborough, but you already know this.

So you already recognise something might be offensive. So when you said this earlier...

Perhaps someone needs to come up with the definitive list of what topics a comedian is and isn’t allowed to use.

You've already listed one thing that's off limits. Good start.

And you also said this...

I don’t think anything should be off limits in comedy, especially where you’ve bought tickets for a show where you know your limits may be challenged.

And here's the nub of this, which is that you might find something offensive that I don't and vice versa. So 'offence' can be highly subjective and personal.

A City fan making a joke or singing about Munich or Hillsborough directly impacts you as a City fan. It reflects poorly on our fanbase.And you probably remember the horror you experienced when you heard about the events at Hillsborough. They resonated with older fans as we'd all been stood on packed, swaying terraces and understood that it could have been us. You've an affinity with those fans.

A joke about the Holocaust and Romani people has no impact on you. You probably didn't lose any of your family and you've probably got a negative view of Travellers because of all the stuff you read about in the media. Let's be honest, some are not always the best advert for their historic way of life. So you're not offended by it. In fact, it probably reinforces your negative feelings, particularly if you have been affected by something travellers have done.

Whereas my maternal grandmother alone probably lost over 200 members of her extended family between 1941 and 1945. There's a chance that some were burned alive in a barn as that happened where they lived and it's certain other were forced to undress then shot in pits. The family tried for years to re-establish contact with anyone who might have survived but failed. So that subject is very personal to me in a way that you or others who are telling me I shouldn't be offended will never understand.

This was also at the core of the book 'Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race'. There's very little chance of a meaningful discussion being had with people who simply have no personal experience of the subject. But empathy, or trying to understand why it might be offensive to a group of people, would be a good start.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

So you already recognise something might be offensive. So when you said this earlier...

You've already listed one thing that's off limits. Good start.

And you also said this...


And here's the nub of this, which is that you might find something offensive that I don't and vice versa. So 'offence' can be highly subjective and personal.

A City fan making a joke or singing about Munich or Hillsborough directly impacts you as a City fan. It reflects poorly on our fanbase.And you probably remember the horror you experienced when you heard about the events at Hillsborough. They resonated with older fans as we'd all been stood on packed, swaying terraces and understood that it could have been us. You've an affinity with those fans.

A joke about the Holocaust and Romani people has no impact on you. You probably didn't lose any of your family and you've probably got a negative view of Travellers because of all the stuff you read about in the media. Let's be honest, some are not always the best advert for their historic way of life. So you're not offended by it. In fact, it probably reinforces your negative feelings, particularly if you have been affected by something travellers have done.

Whereas my maternal grandmother alone probably lost over 200 members of her extended family between 1941 and 1945. There's a chance that some were burned alive in a barn as that happened where they lived and it's certain other were forced to undress then shot in pits. The family tried for years to re-establish contact with anyone who might have survived but failed. So that subject is very personal to me in a way that you or others who are telling me I shouldn't be offended will never understand.

This was also at the core of the book 'Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race'. There's very little chance of a meaningful discussion being had with people who simply have no personal experience of the subject. But empathy, or trying to understand why it might be offensive to a group of people, would be a good start.

Context. You can howl at the moon if you like.

If Jimmy Carr makes the joke on the concourses at an away game, it’ll get a laugh, however much handwringing you do.

Someone, somewhere will be able to make a joke offensive by sharing their family history.

The joke wasn’t aimed at them. (If it was, then there then they have a right to complain).

I simply can’t fathom someone as intelligent as you wasting so much of your time on a joke.

 

[MarsLlama]

Tell you what Sam. Why don't you go on the thread about the Munich Air Disaster and make a joke about that and how it meant fewer united players. Or find a thread about Hillsborough and do the same about Liverpool fans.

I'm sure there are some who would find it funny and therefore that'd make it OK. But knowing you, and knowing you're a very intelligent guy, I'm pretty sure you won't, because you know it would be in extremely poor taste.

But if you do decide to do it, let us you you're doing it so we don't read it accidentally and get offended.

This is a football forum, not a comedy gig, and SWP's Back is a poster, not a famous comedian known for making offensive jokes. It's not a fair comparison.

 

[SWP's back]

Tell you what Sam. Why don't you go on the thread about the Munich Air Disaster and make a joke about that and how it meant fewer united players. Or find a thread about Hillsborough and do the same about Liverpool fans.

I'm sure there are some who would find it funny and therefore that'd make it OK. But knowing you, and knowing you're a very intelligent guy, I'm pretty sure you won't, because you know it would be in extremely poor taste.

But if you do decide to do it, let us you you're doing it so we don't read it accidentally and get offended.

But this forum has a CoC that users have to sign up to in order to post.

That’s entirely different to turning on a Jimmy Carr show. Anyone pressing play on his Darker Material show is signing up to watch a show that is intended to be both funny and offensive.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

This is a football forum, not a comedy gig

Oh I don't know. I'm laughing at the way some posters are tying themselves in knots trying to defend a joke that goes way beyond bad taste, and they know it.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Oh I don't know. I'm laughing at the way some posters are tying themselves in knots trying to defend a joke that goes way beyond bad taste, and they know it.

I’m not. My conscience is clear. You can be offended for family honour or whatever you want. You can’t make me be offended on your behalf.

 

[MarsLlama]

Oh I don't know. I'm laughing at the way some posters are tying themselves in knots trying to defend a joke that goes way beyond bad taste, and they know it.

Obviously it's beyond bad taste, it's a joke about the worst thing that's ever happened. He says as much himself.

I hardly think "it was a joke, he clearly didn't mean it and people should have known to expect potentially offensive material when they decided to watch the show" is tying themselves in knots. It's pretty cut and dry. Either you think it's acceptable to make jokes like that or you don't.

 

[Coatigan]

Hugely different things. Carr's joke was deliberately provocative in a context where everyone watching had signed up to hear offensive things. Davies was a slip of the mask on a forum where he usually milks his nice-guy persona to the max. And fundamentally I feel safe betting that Carr doesn't actually believe murdering travellers is a good thing whereas Davies pretty clearly did genuinely feel that our owners should fuck off back to the desert.

Jimmy Carr knew that when he said that line, people would laugh, people would cheer. He wouldn't have said it if he wasn't confident it would get a good reaction. That's interesting to me. And as some people have suggested what would happen if a different racial group were substituted in- rightly or wrongly, I can't imagine he would ever do that because it wouldn't get the same reaction.

It's fine if people think it was a shit joke, or offensive, whatever. It's even fine to say that the joke was racist. When I see people on Twitter labelling him "racist Jimmy Carr" I think they're being deliberately obtuse. You'd have to be thick to not understand that he doesn't actually hold these views.

That is a pretty good and fair summary.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

I’m not. My conscience is clear. You can be offended for family honour or whatever you want. You can’t make me be offended on your behalf.

And that's the point. It means nothing to you. You, personally, have no reason to find it offensive. What I'm trying to show is how a joke trivialising mass murder can be offensive and that's what you're not getting.

If Carr told that joke, but about Hillsborough and Liverpool fans, at the Arena in town, he might well get a laugh from a lot of the audience. If he told the same joke at the Kings Dock Arena in Liverpool he'd probably end up in hospital. That's context.

 

[Coatigan]

Oh I don't know. I'm laughing at the way some posters are tying themselves in knots trying to defend a joke that goes way beyond bad taste, and they know it.

I don't think people are 'defending' it, as such. I also don't think it needs defended. Or j'accuse'd either.

I do think you are taking it to an extremity that is steering away from relevant. And putting it in completely incomparable contexts.

This from someone that is not a fan of jimmy carr Or the joke btw.