This is a really divisive subject isn’t it..! 😯

I didn’t realise that it made some folk so hot under the collar, but thinking back I remember all the bile after Frankie Boyle’s fall from grace, or was the hatred directed at him just folk being ‘on trend’?

I’ve just seen on another popular social media site, someone has put their status as ‘it’s a knockout’, to which an associate has felt it necessary to comment ‘very poor taste’

I mean is it necessary..?
Is it even really poor taste..?
Should humour be subjected to rules..?

Who sets the bar for what is deemed tasteful and what isn’t..? Do some folk consider themselves superior enough to act as our moral guardians..?
Should we all be stepping in and admonishing our peers for overstepping some perceived line..?

I don’t get it

It’s not black and white is it (pun intended, see below)?

If someone posted a funny joke but at the same time it used a racial stereotype as its basis, is that ok? Is it ok to laugh but disapprove or must you immediately find it very offensive?

Child abuse is a pretty emotive issue, it’s not really suprising that people are sensitive to it.

Awwww. I thought this thread would have some poor taste humour in it… #dissapointed#

Thing is, humour in poor taste has to be good humour, it has to be funny, or its just a bit sick.. For example, the Jimmy Saville Radio phone-in which fell for “He fixed it for me to milk a cow blindfolded” – excellent. Funny, dark, and even better it played on the willingness of the media to exploit. Much can be said for Chris Morris IMO.

But there has to be something else to it, the Billie Connelly Iraqi decapitated guy thing, was not so funny IMO.

In short, you need to get it right, the cost of failure is high. But somethings/people should be mocked.

If you don’t want to be offended don’t read anything, ever.

Who sets the bar for what is deemed tasteful and what isn’t..? Daily Mail
Do some folk consider themselves superior enough to act as our moral guardians..?Daily Mail
Should we all be stepping in and admonishing our peers for overstepping some perceived line..?Daily Mail

there is a difference between making a joke to make a point and making a joke to get noticed/publicity

Who sets the bar for what is deemed tasteful and what isn’t..?

It usually seems to be those daft people who’ve made it their sole purpose in life to find offense in everything, and then instruct everyone else that they are supposed to find it offensive too.

Ok Mike just summed it up in one line. He wins.

Did you hear the one about the ……

Depoend IMH some subjects just dont have any humour to them
I am struggling to see the funny side to child sexual abuse tbh but [sexual abuse] is probably th eonly bit off limits as long as you are following Mikes rule

And Chris morris is/was class

I am struggling to see the funny side to child sexual abuse tbh but [sexual abuse] is probably th eonly bit off limits as long as you are following Mikes rule

And Chris morris is/was class
Chris Morris skill was in satirising the media rather than the subject of the Child Sexual Abuse, followed up by the Cake drug thing satirising people who react without actually researching/reading up on things. Absolute genius. Throw in Armando Iannucci and you have 2 people who could make a comedy out of anything and get away with it (if you actually watch it rather than just react to the media hype)

Chris Morris skill was in satirising the media rather than the subject of the Child Sexual Abuse

where does Blue Jam fit into your tidy synopsis..? 😉

not having done middle of the night radio 1 I’m off to download Blue Jam – cheers Yunki

My brother was at Oxford when Armando Ianucci did a show, was laying into a politician, everyone was laughing except for said politicians son.

If someone posted a funny joke but at the same time it used a racial stereotype as its basis, is that ok?

And is it still “racist” if a word racial slur is used ironically by a member of that group?” 😀

Poor taste humour has to be used in the right places, used with those who will see the humour in it and see beyond the offence which why it’s often best kept for a small audience. Frankie Boyle is just an idiot who seeks attention by trying to offended as many people has he can then claim his innocence.

Didn’t stop the BBC airing it on HIGNFY… south park on the N****r Guy episode* – or With Appologies to Jessie Jackson.

*I wasn’t going to sensor myself but I got all scared and confused. 😐

Having read this story earlier, the first things I said to my mate were;

– A cardiac arrest induced by an overdose will make you JUMP JUMP!
and
– I hope when they admitted him to hospital they didn’t put his backless gown on the wrong way round…

But I knew my target audience so could gauge how it would be received…

Chris Morris skill was in satirising the media rather than the subject of the Child Sexual Abuse, followed up by the Cake drug thing satirising people who react without actually researching/reading up on things. Absolute genius. Throw in Armando Iannucci and you have 2 people who could make a comedy out of anything and get away with it (if you actually watch it rather than just react to the media hype)

I agree he was not making a joke about sexual abuse but he was making a comment on how the mdia respond to it and eh had a point
I am talking Nonce Sense for example and there is no proof to it but it is scientific fact for example

When I went to see frankie Boyle he made a “joke” about madeline Mc Cann that is unrepeatable here and even there the audience whinced about it – it was not funny at all tbh and made no point unlike Brass eye.
I agree with Drac he shocks for the sake of it and he was not as funny as i hoped tbh and the support was better.
Armando is also a star but they are also both broght and have apoint to what they are doing beyond simply being offensive

Should try working at a fire station for poor taste humour. Sometimes its really dark, but after an rtc or house fire its only thing that can get you through a shift.

I’d say the same thing about Reginald D Hunter. He is a bright guy who often uses comedy to make insights.

If the PFA were so worried about the N****** word, even when being used in context by a black man then maybe they should have hired someone else.

(worth reading his captions on his Facebook photos from the evening by the way 😀 http://fb.me/A5xEfAV8 )

Should try working at a fire station for poor taste humour. Sometimes its really dark, but after an rtc or house fire its only thing that can get you through a shift.

Goes with any service that deals issues such as that, a macabre humour afterwards seems to work well as a coping mechanism. The difference is it’s in house and the target audience you know won’t take offence.

Goes with any service that deals issues such as that, a macabre humour afterwards seems to work well as a coping mechanism. The difference is it’s in house and the target audience you know won’t take offence.

But I think it doesn’t make me as sensitive to some of the so called offensive humour out with.

But I think it doesn’t make me as sensitive to some of the so called offensive humour out with.

Agreed or me but I still know there’s a place and a time for such jokes.

An Irish man, a black man and an English man walk into a bar. What a marvelous example of racial integration that was! (All credit to John Thomson)

Awwww. I thought this thread would have some poor taste humour in it… #dissapointed#

Plus one

Suggs has just released a single about equal rights for disabled people on the workplace. I think it’s Madness gone politically correct. Ah thankew, I’m here all week 😉

Grrr @ Shermer – did that pun on here some time back.

Although I originally nicked it from Armando Ianucci, so fair do’s.

What is the test? There is only one: IS IT FUNNY??

Frankie Boyle is just an idiot who seeks attention by trying to offended as many people has he can then claim his innocence.

do you really think so..?
I can see how you might think that if you’d just taken a dislike to him in an effort to fit in with your work mates or to appear intellectual or whatever, but from reading his books you could get the impression that perhaps he’s a good deal more intelligent than his stage persona might have you believe, and his satire perhaps more biting..

It’s irritating to hear folk say that Morris is some kind of folk hero for Brass Eye and the appreciative beard stroking that accompanies it’s memory, yet Boyle is an imbecile off the back of a couple of jokes that upset a few folk that shop in M+S..

Yes I do Yunki and intelligent he may well be but that doesn’t stop him being an idiot. I’ve not taken a dislike to him to try and fit in with anybody, what a strange thing to say. I’ve taken a dislike to him because I do think he’s doing just what I said being offensive because he likes the attention. I know that’s his style of comedy but it’s the way he then claims he didn’t mean it, I don’t buy that for some of his jokes I do believe he intends to offend and bullies some people with this. He’s TVs troll.

reading his books you could get the impression that perhaps he’s a good deal more intelligent than his stage persona might have you believe, and his satire perhaps more biting..

That may well be the case but it doesn’t excuse him from being a spiteful, hateful little prick who likes to attack the weakest members of society – for a laff!

yet Boyle is an imbecile off the back of a couple of jokes that upset a few folk that shop in M+S..

The Jokes about jordan’s kid was,as Drac says, designed to keep him “edgy” and in the news.
It was not funny and it was not even close to funny
There is no real skill in being offensive it is very easy to do.

His edinburgh defence is often a weak one tbh.

I agree that he’s hateful and spiteful.. but not that he likes to attack the weakest members of society for a laff..

I think he pushed the boundaries of indecent humour far enough that he gave the media enough rope to hang him with, and my how they/we love a lynching..

It was not funny and it was not even close to funny

In certain stuffy M+S quarters maybe..? Standard fare in others

I think the hate and spite he harbours is very noble in the main, with the most childish being reserved for the professionally appalled, the unashamedly beige and cloying, and those pompous enough to try to dictate what is funny and what isn’t..

I’m going to have to read his stuff again and refresh my memory on it though.. I’m not exactly a full-time Boyle apologist.. 😳

Exactly Junkyard, there was those and not just as many as he could get out there and the ones about the singer that won the talent thing. Susan Boyle wasn’t it? He promoted himself off the back of that bullying her with his comments about he looks, size and mental health issues. Which got him his TV show he wanted, where people realised he isn’t that funny just has one or jokes or puns now and then. From which he he tumbled and now lies back where he belongs doing but appearances where he does come up with some good one liners but these tend not to be his offensive jokes.

so he’s a modern Bernard Manning then..?

Not really BM was a racist **** who meant much of what he said whereas frankie says offensive things he does not mean. I will let you make up your mind on which approach is orse but neither is good.

but not that he likes to attack the weakest members of society for a laff..

disabled kid
Susan Boyle
Kery katonia- mental health issues and all that
Yes he was only after the big and the powerful

It was often just bullying tbh

Eys he is really hammering it out the big players there

In certain stuffy M+S quarters maybe..? Standard fare in others

You keep up the charicature as you seem to think it a biting comment ……granted i am pretty offended to be called Middle class just like you would to be considered mainstream and populist 😉

disabled kid
Susan Boyle
Kery katonia- mental health issues and all that

but it was bad taste humour FFS

if he’d only ever made jokes about bankers, even if he had made them perverse, he wouldn’t really have been an indecent comic any more..

I shall still snigger at things that shock me, even if more important folk have told me that what I’m laughing at is not funny..

I’ve not said it’s not funny, I’ve admitted to using such humour myself and do regularly, I guess you skipped that bit.

What he did was bullying, one or two about a person would maybe be ok, he carried on and on. Even when the people he was ‘joking’ about complained asking him to stop he continued. That is bullying.

There’s a time and a place for such humour, it is funny but like any joke it has to be at an appropriate time.

First point, Boyle is just a ****.

Second,

Chris Morris skill was in satirising the media rather than the subject of the Child Sexual Abuse,

This is close to the heart of it.

a) Jokes are often at someone’s expense. When the joke’s at someone else’s expense, there’s often a power or status question involved. Picking on someone weaker than you is just bullying: it’s exploiting their weakness for your entertainment or enrichment. Mocking the afflicted is a tosser’s game.

b) but more than that, humour has the potential to “speak truth to power”. This is the difference between Jasper Carrot (a comedian whose jokes aren’t about anything in particular and are entertaining enough at that moment but not memorable) and Chris Morris, Armando Ianucci, Mark Thomas, whoever.

c) but having said that, jokes also have to be funny. This is why so many earnest comics aren’t popular.

*Removes 2 pence and some fluff plus buttons.*

Frankie Boyles Twitter feed is spectacular for it’s insight and opinion.

Some bits are hilarious, some are downright shameful. You decide your moral compass, not his magnet of attention.

Sweating like a paedo on a schoolbus.

Chuff like a wizards sleeve.

Footballer in question goes down quicker than *popular celebrity female*.

Worked in construction? That’s pre-van chat.

Humour is instant, taste is not. That’s the art of the ‘edgy’ comedian. Make people laugh uncontrollably, but only for the few seconds that it takes for social conditioning to kick in.

I am in no way racist, but I know one joke with the punchline ‘the a-team’ that still makes me laugh 20 years after I first heard it. Nine out of ten people (of all backgrounds) also find it funny because it is unexpected, but blatant.

Social conditioning is a good thing. Humour should be allowed to ease the strain, but never to challenge decency for real.