When is a joke too sick?

[Oneeyedvic]

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1 285715,00.html

A comedian has been booed off stage for making a joke about missing Madeleine McCann and shooting victim Rhys Jones.

Dave Longley criticised the fact that photographs have been released of both children in Everton football tops.

Longley told the stunned audience at Liverpool's Baby Blue club that "you think parents would have learned about putting their children in Everton shirts after Maddie and Rhys".

The red-faced comic, who was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, was booed off stage.

Was this wrong because it was two kids who are affected? Or was it just 'over sensitive' Liverpudlians?

[mycats]

I would have been shocked and not at all amused. But - remember when billy Connely made a joke about that hostage guy? people went mental, the same peopl who probably laugh at his jokes about Jesus/God/cathlic priests etc. It was very sad what happened to the hostage but more important than Jesus and God (not that I believe in them lol)

[ruby27]

I think this is a really difficult question to answer, because I am not sure there are any hard and fast rules that are applicable in every situation. (Damn I have had to think rather than go into automatic rant mode).

Is it partly due to the intention of the jokesmith - ie to make someone laugh or to put someone down, most racist jokes are about putting someone down rather than trying to capture the humor of the situation, the relationship between joker and audience, ie jokes by Jewish people to Jewish people, if there is irony present due to the context such as the Tevor McDonald/Bernard Manning?

So if I come down to an opinion, I suppose that what in one context can seem incredibly funny to some people will be tasteless in the extreme to others. I can see the joke about the football shirts, but overall because of the tragedy don't find it a good time to be telling such a joke.

[Romeo]

Quite simply, the guy is an @rsehole. He was lucky to be merely booed off when he really deserved pelted with objects. But at least the incident shows that ordinary people care and have sympathy and respect, unlike self styled would-be comedians.

[ojread2]

Don't know about specific jokes but I do get offended by some one replying to another saying they are 'special' with 'Yeah, special needs' - not funny

The Everton Shirt joke isn't new - I;ve had it as a text and it is sick, badly sick and nasty

[NJOK]

Food for thought from Charlie Brooker in the Guardian last week:

"I hate offended people. They come in two flavours - huffy and whiny - and it's hard to know which is worst. The huffy ones are self-important, narcissistic authoritarians in love with the sound of their own booming disapproval, while the whiny, sparrowlike ones are so annoying and sickly and ill-equipped for life on Earth you just want to smack them round the head until they stop crying and grow up. Combined, they're the very worst people on the planet - 20 times worse than child molesters, and I say that not because it's true (it isn't), but because it'll upset them unnecessarily, and these readers deserve to be upset unnecessarily, morning, noon and night, every sodding day, for the rest of their wheedling lives.

Note I used the word "sodding" there, because even though every single one of you knows precisely what word I meant to use, I'm not allowed to use it in print in case the whiny/huffy Axis of Feeble decides to piddle its pants with dismay at the sight of a commonplace assembly of letters. And they must be appeased at all times.

What these nitpicky, sexless complainists fail to realise is that sweary tastelessness is a celebration of life, as soaring and majestic as a gospel choir in full flow, and no amount of tedious squeamishness can alter that. Potentially offended reader - you are the offence. In fact you're a four-letter word beginning with "c" and ending in "t". Yes. That's right. You're an absolute clot."

[China Doll]

Humour is always going to be subjective.

There's even a trend for people being offended because they think they probably should be rather than they actually are.

Think about it, how many times have you been out with your mates and have been told either a really bad taste joke and/or heard/made a very flippant remark and then laughed?(usually while saying 'I really shouldn't laugh at that')

Doesn't make anyone a bad person because they don't get offended or because they laugh at things they shoudn't. Laughter is the best medicine and actually in my opinion how we overcome tragedy.

It can also be used to highlight. Bill Hicks did it to great effect in this day and age but before him think Pope, Jonson, Austen, Swift, Rochester... I could go on. Humour is a very powerful tool. Raging satire in particular. Nothing quite like making someone laugh and hammering home a point too. Usually has a pretty significant effect on the induhvidual that's laughing.

[Reverandfunk]

Personally i think if something is funny its funny

[mycats]

"the whiny/huffy Axis of Feeble " ha ha now thats funny

[Pippa68]

Marvellous answer, NJOK :o)

[ludwig]

Interesting article from NJOK, partly because of the unintentional irony on the writer's part. I mean the whole is simply a massive excercise in huffy whiny offendidness itself. He's probably a bit of a tw&t.

[brionon]

If he can say what he likes in a joke then the audience can say what they like in a boo !

[B00]

Hey what did I do? :-(

And to answer your question vic, I don't think it was a case of over sensitive Livepudlians, I'd like to think that anyone would get heckled off stage, no matter where they were, should they attempt jokes at the expense of a dead child and a missing one.

[andrea81]

I personally think that a comedian should know if it's a good idea or not, it doesn't take a lot of common sense to know!

On the other hand some comedians can get away with a lot more than others.

I bet he feels like cr@p now though!

[eyebrows]

i think thats i ever so slighlty over the mark..... as observative as it was, i think that (potentially) the death/kidknapping of any child is out of taste....

having said i probly would have laughed and then realised after what he had said...

[carsonking]

NJOK, that about says it all for me.

[Everhelpful]

Never heard of him!! He is probably one of the new breed of Unfunny "Comedians" trendies think they have to laugh at as it's the done thing.!! Give me a Funny,without being too blue Comedian any day,someone like The late Dave Allen for instance.

[Barter]

How can any Human Being make a joke of something like that? I have heard some some pretty tasteless jokes(and I am certainly no prude) in my time,but that is just the sickest of the sick. Bet He wouldn't tell it to the MacCanns or Rhys's parents!!

[chompu]

Ludwig

Took the words right out of my keyboard.
I think Charlie Brooker would fall into the first of his catergories 'self important, narcissistic authoritarians in love with the sound of their own booming disapproval'

[SallyX]

Disgusting I wish the audience had done more than boo him off!!!