When Does Comedy Go Too Far?

[financeguy]

I definitely would.

 

[corianderstem]

to be totally honest, i actually think she's very, very subversive, and while, in theory, jokes about 9-11 and the Holocaust and rape are not funny, per say, she's not making jokes about what happened on 9-11 and more about how we respond to such events and how we are supposed to speak about such things -- she's tipping over the apple cart of propriety, and fashioning a commentary not on the event but on how we understand and remember the event, what we can say and what we cannot say, etc. i'd point to the excerpts from the Salon article that explicate what she is doing.

Well said. I don't think Sarah Silverman is all that funny, but I don't think that's the point. Andy Kauffmann wasn't "funny" funny, either, but he loved being subversive, doing things that weren't expected, and that often pissed off the audience.

One of the articles I read about him somewhere along the line said that he was interested in the reactions from the audience, even (or maybe even especially) if that reaction was discomfort.

It's not necessarily about saying something shocking just for the shock value.

 

[BonosSaint]

Like most Americans, I grieved over 9/11. I also think the American Airlines joke was funny. I guess it depends how dark you like your humor. I like mine very dark. I can't get over things or begin to understand them unless I can laugh at them. I have a few things that are untouchable to me, but I try to keep them at a bare minimum. I laugh at what pleases me. I laugh at what grieves me. So, yeah, I find some humor in most things, sometimes the tragic, sometimes most importantly the tragic. Laughter is my victory.

 

[melon]

More and more I'm coming to realize that Americans really need to change the first amendment.

...

As for the subject, unfortunately there isn't anything to be done about it under the first amendment. She has a right to say what she wants - as inflammatory as her statements are.

Sure...as long as we can imprison bigoted preachers in this country. I'd get a kick out of sending every homophobic bastard in this country into jail.

But, you see, "free speech" is a two-way street. It was meant to protect unpopular speech. If you want, boycott her, protest in front of her performances...but you do not and should not have the right to silence her.

Besides, how utterly harmless this is anyway. Benjamin Franklin, actually, was one of the first notable American figures to use heavy doses of parody when talking about political subjects. Sarah Silverman and all comedians like her owe a great deal of debt to him.

Melon

 

[Angela Harlem]

I'm guessing you laughed because of where the humour was placed, not because you find anything even remotely smileworthy about the 9/11 event. I've got no idea who this chick is, but what some of you are saying about where humour is placed is precisely why some people like her keep rising up and getting attention. I think it might be too easy to say shock value leads to fame. If no one had their humour guage in that region, then perhaps. But you are laughing, most likely, at the construction of this airline joke, no? The use of language on a topic you dont expect humour to be placed with, to create a reaction. The joke she made, whether people laugh or not, is not about those people dying. It's not about the tragedy, it's about the language and utilisation of it. She's not laughing any more than anyone else, I'd guess. People dont have to laugh, because for some it simply doesn't matter. 9/11 falls into that taboo territory that we just simply leave alone - and that is fine. They're not being overly sensitive. It's just a boundary which you dont cross. People who laugh at her aren't being insensitive. They're acknowledging something else. It's like when Graham Kennedy said back in the day on the video show 'Dont just stand there like an Ethiopian in McDonalds...' He wasn't making any statement on famine or mocking the issue, per se. He took an extreme example to play with language to set up a contrast for a one liner.

 

[Angela Harlem]

^ was to BonosSaint, lol.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

she is not the first... there have been jokes about 9/11 made on numerous popular television shows... some of course more subtle than others. jon stewart makes jokes about serious situations for a living. as do matt stone and trey parker. lewis black has a bunch of jokes based around the events of 9/11 that were released on a cd.

to each his/her own... humor is very important to me. it's what has helped me get through a lot of difficult situations in my life. when you don't have humor, you don't have anything.

offensive comedy isn't for everyone. some people just don't get it, and that's fine. but i contest that all great comedy borders on "crossing the line." it depends on the comedian taking risks. as with any risk, sometimes it doesn't work.


i do not find this quote by silverman to be funny... not because it's too offensive to me... because i just don't think it's funny. maybe if i saw it the context of the movie it would be different... i'm always leary of press articles that take one line and don't tell you anything else about the scene in which it was used. if they were to take one liners from jon stewart and print them, they may appear pretty offensive as well... but when placed in the context of the daily show, they fit right in.

two of the moments that helped me get on after the tragedy of 9/11 were based around comedy... rudy g's appearance on saturday night live (lorn michaels - "can we be funny?" rudy- "why start now?") and of course david letterman's first show back.

so while i don't find what silverman said to be funny... i'm certainly have no problem with her saying it.

now when our congressmen and women decide that they want to take funds away from new york city... or when they want to give more money per capita to a little firehouse in bumfuck, montana instead of the FDNY... and that these things aren't national outrages... THAT pisses me off.

 

[BonosSaint]

Nicely stated, Angela Harlem. The utter inappropriateness. The humor wasn't about the tragedy; it was about the absurdity. And like Headache said too, the need for humor for emotional survival.
I need it anyway.

 

[VertigoGal]

I have a pretty dark sense of humor, but I don't find her all that funny. I think that type of humor is better when it's intelligent, not purposely callous purely for shock value...which is why I don't buy her CDs or watch her show.

 

[diamond]

Sally and I recently walk out on this guy...while watching him live at the Improv.

He was repulsive misogynist. Had to leave mid performance.

db9

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

robert schimmel tried out for the role of george on seinfeld... he walked out of the audition telling larry david that the show would fail because the scripts weren't funny.

shows what a comic genius he is.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Good for you diamond. Well plenty of people find misogyny to be funny, unfortunately. I've heard him on Howard Stern. Weird, but he was also on Extreme Home Makeover Sunday (being a cancer survivor he helped raise $ for the family whose Mom has stage four cancer).

I do completely understand the need for humor for emotional survival, believe me. And I do believe laughter is a form of medicine, that it can have healing powers. I also can see the point of finding humor in the absurdity of absurd statements -I don't want to judge anyone for doing so, but I would rather laugh at something else.

 

[joyfulgirl]

she is not the first... there have been jokes about 9/11 made on numerous popular television shows... some of course more subtle than others. jon stewart makes jokes about serious situations for a living. as do matt stone and trey parker. lewis black has a bunch of jokes based around the events of 9/11 that were released on a cd.

to each his/her own... humor is very important to me. it's what has helped me get through a lot of difficult situations in my life. when you don't have humor, you don't have anything.

offensive comedy isn't for everyone. some people just don't get it, and that's fine. but i contest that all great comedy borders on "crossing the line." it depends on the comedian taking risks. as with any risk, sometimes it doesn't work.


i do not find this quote by silverman to be funny... not because it's too offensive to me... because i just don't think it's funny. maybe if i saw it the context of the movie it would be different... i'm always leary of press articles that take one line and don't tell you anything else about the scene in which it was used. if they were to take one liners from jon stewart and print them, they may appear pretty offensive as well... but when placed in the context of the daily show, they fit right in.
...
so while i don't find what silverman said to be funny... i'm certainly have no problem with her saying it.

I basically agree with this. My humor is pretty irreverant--I laugh at things I'm not "supposed" to laugh at sometimes because when I can step outside the pain of a situation I can see the absurdity of life.

I remember being scared during the Los Alamos fires back in 2000 which were very close to where I live. The air was black for a couple of weeks, the fires were moving closer, friends with asthma were having to leave town because they couldn't breathe; and I had a suitcase with valuables sitting by the front door while having nightmares about firemen pounding on my door telling me I had to evacuate. One of the biggest comic reliefs for me was sitting with my best friend watching the 24/7 news coverage and watching airplanes with tiny little buckets of water dangling from them, going back and forth to supposedly put out this monstrous fire. It truly was like pissing on a forest fire and suddenly all the tension and fear we were feeling erupted into peals of laughter at the absurdity of this image.

I've also laughed when friends have died because there has been something absurd about the situation, something surreal that was so fitting with their personality, something they too would have found humorous. I guess I find it generally more offensive when people get on a moral high ground about humor than I do when a joke is made about something that is supposedly 'off-limits.'

 

[foray]

Wow, who is this woman? I want to see her for myself.

I dunno about 9/11 jokes, so far the only 9/11 comments I have found offensive came from 1 or 2 artists who said that the planes crashing into the towers looked aesthetically beautiful if one were to take morals out of the equation. To me, such remarks represent how intellectualism may lack holism; I believe one has to think with the heart as well.

foray

 

[blueyedpoet]

her abortion jokes remind me of a bumper sticker i once saw: "Abortion tickles."
I, like most americans, do not love the idea of abortion, but understand why it is legal - not that the debate here is about abortion. I say that because, even though I'm not like "hey, go abortions!" i must admit to having laughed.
We get so uptight debating about 9/11, abortions, Africa etc. that we forget our own humanity sometimes. Humans are absurd. The way we live is the very definition of absurdity. Comedians like her point this out, fairly well too.

 

[blueyedpoet]

additionally, sometimes humor like this exposes our own racism, prejudices, etc.
My friend and i once were joking at a party- which was a mistake - about how mexicans should learn from black people; just be lazy and let the government pay for your living. Some people really thought what we were saying was funny; some didn't. Do I actually think black people are lazy? No, i actually think the opposite. However, a lot of the people at this party were oblivious white college kids who i know from conversations actually believe this sort of thing.
Humor has a way of dealing blows to people's ideas and beliefs very softly, and other times very harshly.
Another time when i worked at a retail store in torrance, CA, a fellow overnighter wanted to borrow a knife, i joked "I dunno, give a knife to a black man" and he replied "don't you know? we only carry guns." well, another worker was very offended by this. she didn't understand that we were just mocking society and its stereotypes.

Again, for the record: I am not a "fan" of abortion. I do not believe black people are lazy, nor do i believe their choice of weapon is just a gun

 

[blueyedpoet]

guess my jokes weren't funny....

 

[joyfulgirl]

guess my jokes weren't funny....

It's just...tricky. You really have to know your audience before you makes jokes like that. We've had the discussion in here many times about the expression "that's so gay." I use it with my closest gay friends, and they use it as well. Recently I was with some friends--one gay couple and one straight man--and the straight man was trying on some clothes that the gay couple were going to get rid of. He put on one really tight (and ugly) tank top and I burst out laughing and said, "That is sooo gay" and we all laughed, because as my gay friends understand the expression, it means "bad gay" or "tacky gay." But I would never say something like that when I wasn't sure how it would be taken. I've found that a lot of younger gay men as well as well-meaning friends of gays are more offended by the expression than older ones who've been around and out for a long time. This particular usage in the example I gave is also pretty benign and it certainly can be used in a really offensive way.

 

[Irvine511]

It's just...tricky. You really have to know your audience before you makes jokes like that. We've had the discussion in here many times about the expression "that's so gay." I use it with my closest gay friends, and they use it as well. Recently I was with some friends--one gay couple and one straight man--and the straight man was trying on some clothes that the gay couple were going to get rid of. He put on one really tight (and ugly) tank top and I burst out laughing and said, "That is sooo gay" and we all laughed, because as my gay friends understand the expression, it means "bad gay" or "tacky gay." But I would never say something like that when I wasn't sure how it would be taken. I've found that a lot of younger gay men as well as well-meaning friends of gays are more offended by the expression than older ones who've been around and out for a long time. This particular usage in the example I gave is also pretty benign and it certainly can be used in a really offensive way.

ooh! ooh! a friend of mine has a shirt that is hot pink and has a picture of a little girl with pigtails jumping for joy and above her are the words "That's SO Gay!!!"

it's another reason why i use the word "homo" amongst friends. i think it's a funny word, and even fun to say, and utterly silly. it's analgous between N-i-g-g-e-r and N-i-g-g-a, and yes, both those who say it and audience do matter. and it's kind of fun to deflate the power of that word, because when you're in 5th grade and you'd rather either be in the swimming pool or reading Lloyd Alexander instead of playing soccer or football (like me), the worst thing you can be called is "homo." (yeah, so what if they were right?) so it's funny to recast that word in a different context where once it was used to hurt, now it can be used for laughter.

one summer between my sophomore and junior year of college, i spent a summer teaching under-served, high-potential jr. high school kids. at that age, kids use the word "gay" and "stupid" as totally interchangeable. one example: "i don't know if the guy was gay or retarded or what, but he just wasn't very smart," i heard one student say.

i'd made a really fun group of friends that summer, too -- there were 6 of us, 3 guys and 3 girls. we worked long hours, and once we got comfortable enough, we'd say things like, "shut up you gay retarded homosexual idiot!" or, "ugh, that's so stupid and gay that i think you're a homosexual retard."

it was hilarious, in context. and i found it funny, as did one of the females who is now wondering if i'll give her and her wife my seed (see my thread in Zoo Confessionals).

we were also racially diverse, sort of -- all 3 boys were white as the driven snow, and all 3 girls were of mixed ethnicity (vietnamese and white, indian and creole, and black and white and a touch of native american). so, race inevitably raised it's hilarious head -- comments like, "damn, why's it always gotta be racial" and "are you saying that just because i'm white" (when asked to pass, like, the Elmer's Glue or something). it was also a very racially charged, politicized working environment, so it was a great way to cut the tension after work.

but there would be no way i'd ever use any of those words in front of the teaching staff as a whole.