BS: How long after can one make jokes about

Subject: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:41 AM

The Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm thread, re the terrible taste of a music-hall song about Anne Boleyn's execution, which nobody else but the OP & I seemed to recognise, is still a bit fresh in mind. One thing that has always exercised me is, how long after something terrible in its time is it OK to poke fun at it? — I have always hated comic films about eg The Reign Of Terror {"Don't Lose Your Head" by the CarryOn people}, Christians To Lions, &c. When will the Auschwitz hahaha come along then? {"Springtime for Hitler" is on the verge}. Maybe this might form the topic of a separate thread... In fact I am about to start it ... Anyone care to join in?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: GUEST,999
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:54 AM

If you just got your nuts slammed in a drawer or your tit squished in a door, you might not appreciate jokes for three or four minutes. Things like beheadings a week. Mass murder a month, and extermination of the human race at least a year.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:59 AM

Someone made a joke about Anne Frank on BBC R4 last week.
Her last diary entry was said to be , its my birthday and dad gave me a drum kit.
Complaints were made but BBC did not accept that they were wrong to allow it.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Amergin
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:40 AM

Yeah some people will lose their heads over anything....

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:50 AM

Abe Lincoln's assassination..."Other than that, how did you like the play Mrs. Lincoln?"

Titanic, "Where is all that fucking water coming from?"

Too recent, Mayor of Hiroshima, "What the fuck was that"?

Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:55 AM

'Tragedy plus time equals comedy.' --

Sez who?!

I am shocked to the core about the Anne Frank joke, Keith. I seem to have missed that story. & the Beeb thought it was OK, did they? Well fuck you, Auntie Beeb!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 06:21 AM

Telling jokes is a way of coping. If you're not telling jokes you're not coping. Discuss.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 06:35 AM

I don't see how I am called on to 'cope' with the Reign of Terror or the plight of Anne Frank. But I do feel called on to respect the memory of those who were.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Beer
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 07:37 AM

Shame shame shame on BBC.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 07:41 AM

A friend of mine had to take an official part in the investigations into the "Herald of free Enterprise" capsise.
He came back with carrier bag labeled "this way up".

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smedley
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:00 AM

I think the Anne Frank joke is rather funny.

In general, it's always interesting how soon it takes for jokes about 'tragic' events to enter the culture - I think the internet has speeded up the process. There were jokes online about 9/11 very swiftly after the events happened.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:19 AM

Sick Jokes appear almost immediately after even the most shocking tragedies ( I remember a short pause before Princess Di jokes flooded the market. Some get incorporated into songs ( there was a version of 'The Music man' which incorporated nasty happenings in the recent news , Lesley Whittle, Airey Neave, Mrs Ghandi, Michael Jackson).
   They aren't savoury, but some can make clever puns etc. Most would not be for public consumption on the media......but you try to stop them spreading vlike wildfire on the underground.....even before the Web. No-one ever owned up to making them up, they had always been heard 'from someone else', even the event was very recent.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:40 AM

Humor is definitely a way of coping with a situation that would otherwise be unbearable.

The judge in the Ed Gein case wrote a book shortly after Gein was committed to a mental institution and included a long chapter (by a shrink, as I remember) on humor as a coping device -- and a compendium of "Ed Gein" jokes (all of which were revived each time he came up for a sanity hearing and were revived and modified after Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes were revealed).

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:42 AM

I think it is all a question of timing and context. No one in their right mind would dream of telling dead child 'jokes' to a greiving mother but everyone who dies is someones son or daughter. Anne Boleyn jokes, In my opinion, cannot case offense as no-one here today can have claimed to have known her. Christians and Lions likewise. The Hollocaust and Nazi Germany is dodgy ground because it is more recent but, in context such as the previously mentioned 'the Producers' it, once again becomes acceptable.

Pretty much the same as it is OK for Jackie Mason to tell Jewish jokes but when Jim Davidson does so it is a different story. Likewise Eddie Murphy or Chris rock can get away with jokes releating to black culture but Bernard Manning was, rightly, castigated.

It is all a question of personal sensibilities, taste and tollerance. If humour starts to get disected too much the point is lost.


Cheers

DeG

Don't read bellow if you are a Princess Di fan...
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What did the Paris ambulance crew sing while putting the famous car crash victims into the mortuary bags?

Zippedee Dodi, Zippedee Di...

Told you!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:07 AM

The key word here is TIME. The hallocaust is not funny, nor is the horrid deaths of so many Japanese civilians from the atom bombs. Thats not what we laugh at. It is the twist of phrase that we find humorous.

Where I live the economy and the weather are both serious factors that we must cope with; so we can either move or find the humor. I choose to find the humor. It's cheaper than moving.

If you don't have a sense of humor, well, God bless you. As my friend, Sheldon Wienstien said, "We all have a cross to bear."

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:09 AM

'I think the Anne Frank joke is rather funny.' - Smedley

(Here it is as a reminder 'Her last diary entry was said to be , its my birthday and dad gave me a drum kit.')

Sorry, Smedley - but apart from the question of taste, appropriateness, whatever — I just don't get it. Would you mind explaining the POINT of this pleasantry to one who appears to have had a SOH·ectomy, please?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:20 AM

Well according to some people on Mudcat. It is OK to make jokes about someone who is in hospital dieing of cervical cancer at the time.
I refer to the tasteless thread about Jade Goody, which was resurrected after closure, because someone apparently thought it was funny.
Now that's what I call christian charity !

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:22 AM

The humor, weak and regrettable as it is, is based on the long, enforced silence, silence, silence of the family, lest anyone, hearing even a dropped shoe or a cough, realize there are people there. And then, "a drum kit"?

In case it still has not come through, the implication is that she practiced on the drum, thus giving them away in a big way, and thus it was the last diary entry.

But then (taste aside) you can't analyze or explain a joke. Well, you can, but it's like dissecting a bullfrog to find out what makes the typical bellowing call. You don't learn much, and the frog is dead.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:22 AM

The real diary tells of the constant need for silence to avoid the family's presence being detected.
The BBC producer said she thought it was funny on the programme Feedback where they discussed the joke and the complaints.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 09:24 AM

Auschwitz jokes were making the rounds of the under-10 crowd in the 1950s. PM me if you want to read one. Black humor helps people deal with reality. We just had this very same discussion about three weeks ago - Helen Keller was the subject.

Humor is a personal thing. If you don't get it, there is no explaining it. And often what one person finds funny (or at least sees humor in) another will be offended by.

Just recently my cousin died. She was a very special lady and I still tear up at the loss. BUT the family could not get in touch with me because I had changed my phone number. They were forced to contact my brother's ex - a screwy woman who channels demons and has been chosen to sit with Jesus and 8 others to judge us all at the end of the world - I kid you not.
As a relative tried to carry on a conversation and get my number, her helpful husband suggested that she ask L- (the crazy) what kind of flowers A- (the deceased) wanted at her funeral. A- would have appreciated the humor as did her grieving husband and family.

But it had the potential to offend.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: wysiwyg
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 10:13 AM

SOS-- same old sh*t

The underlying determinant is WHO is telling the "joke" to whom. Joking on one's own history/foibles/tragedies is different from joking on another's.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 10:52 AM

There's no accounting for taste, so what someone else thinks funny sometimes make me gag.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Mark Ross
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 11:01 AM

Humor is a way of coping. When Utah Philips announced his retirement after over 3 decades performing(which he dearly loved), I called him to ask how he was doing. He replied, "I'm doing better than Larry Craig, I'm holding my own."
After he came out of the hospital the last time, I called to ask how he was feeling. He answered, "Suicidal and depressed." "Oh", I replied. "Yeah, I called the crisis line." Utah continued. They outsource everything these days. I found myself talking to a counselor in Pakistan. When I told him that I was feeling suicidal and depressed, he asked,'Can you drive a truck?'".


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 11:05 AM

"If I laugh at any mortal thing, t'is that I may not weep."

...........George Gordon/Lord Byron


Works for me as I've said many times before. If it makes my odd brand of humor off the wall or irreverent.....try to adjust. Ya' know, my Mom died on this very date in 1967 and there were lots of laughs as well as crying at her funeral.   Now I best remember the laughter............Margie had a wicked sense of humor and a loud and joyous laugh and for whatever else there is, its that I think of when I think of her.

Too soon to laugh? Geeziz........too late, yeah. Too soon?   


Spaw



Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 11:27 AM

I remember thinking that 9:11 killed the joke - it was a long time after that people started telling jokes about *anything*.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:06 PM

That's right 'spaw - I recal two recent funerals I attended. One for my best friends Mum where they played Gracie Fields singing 'Wish me luck as they wave me goodbye' and, my perosnal favourite, My uncle Dennis who insisted that the theme from the Great Escape was played:-)

My Mum that always says that at weddings everyone goes in happy and comes out fighting while at funerals everyone goes in crying and comes out laughing! Seems to be a general rule.

As to it's like dissecting a bullfrog to find out what makes the typical bellowing call. You don't learn much, and the frog is dead.

You can learn lots from dissecting frogs. I found out that if you cut a frogs legs off and tell it jump it doesn't. I learned, therefore, that a frog must hear though it's legs...

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:07 PM

It also depends on the joke. The "Mrs. Lincoln" joke makes the imaginary, anonymous interviewer an idiot. The "Anne Frank" joke makes an actual murdered child into an idiot.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:11 PM

Well the deceased chose the music, if anyone else had chosen it, THEN it would have been in bad taste.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: meself
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:19 PM

"Humour is a way of coping" - true - but that axiom is also the default rational for every supposedly-humorous breach of taste, civility, respect, and good manners. Look at how many times it has come up on this thread alone - now recall all the other threads in which has it has appeared, over and over again.

Not every sick joke is a "way of coping" - sometimes, to paraphrase Freud, a sick joke is just a sick joke.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:25 PM

'depends on the joke. The "Mrs. Lincoln" joke makes the imaginary, anonymous interviewer an idiot. The "Anne Frank" joke makes an actual murdered child into an idiot.'

Excellent — indeed, vital — distinction, Lighter.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Jeri
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 12:43 PM

As a hearer, you either enjoy the jokes, ignore them, or get into being offended much of the time.

As a teller, you have to gauge your audience and be prepared for a few offended people if you misjudge. Also be prepared for the reaction to jokes that people simply don't think are funny.

Feel free to laugh at me. I don't do enough laughing at myself anyway. Just let me in on the joke.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 01:16 PM

I dont know how people with no sense of humor cope with everyday life. It must be very hard for you.

The more you cry the less you have to pee.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 01:57 PM

The "Anne Frank" joke makes an actual murdered child into an idiot.'

Sorry, but I don't fully comprehend the reasoning of this 'vital' distinction. Are you saying that nothing bad should ever be said of the dead? I know lot's of dead idiots. Some of them dead because they were idiots! Or are you saying that people should not be called idiots if they are not idiots? I don't know if Anne Frank was or was not, I'm afraid. I never met her but I think she was a pretty intelegent person judging by her writing. However if we were never to call make jokes based on incorrect or misinterpreted subjects then what is left?

Man walks into a bar. Ouch. It was an iron bar.

Sorry - can't say that - it makes men look idiots.

How can you tell when a drim lit is level. The drummer drools out of both sides of his mouth.

Nope - Suggests all drummers are imbaciles.

Did you hear about the politician who thought a three line whip was something inflicted by Sadie Whiplash.

Makes politicians look like...

Ah, maybe we should scratch that last one.

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:06 PM

Well, just you go on ROTFL at idiotic Anne Frank, David el Gnomo; & I hope it keeps fine for you!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:06 PM

Some people don't 'get' the distinction between 'clever' and 'funny'. A joke or remark can be VERY clever and well-constructed, yet be VERY inappropriate....and, as we see, not everyone agrees on which side of the line it is on.

The Anne Frank 'joke' is 'black humor'.... it could be used in VERY limited ways and with certain audiences, but I don't think Jay Leno would use it in his monologue.

I saw a remark about AIDS written on a mens room wall in West Virginia a few years ago that was extremely cleverly done, but it 'felt' like it was used in the meanest possible way. I have never repeated it.

I worked for a family once who were Jewish, and THEY told Jewish jokes and made remarks that *I* would not have told about them....perspective is everything.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:21 PM

The Darwin Awards are a classic example of black humor. These poor people died doing incredibly stupid things and we laugh...or at least I do.
Frankly, if any of my relatives or close friends died doing something incredibly stupid, I would mourn AND laugh.
Humor is eveywhere. Not everyone sees it. And it is not always appropriate.
If someone falls down on the street, I laugh. I can't help it. It is childish and maybe mean certainly not appropriate but there you go...

I can't look at a Hefty Bag without laughing out loud - that joke was on me. And mean, Jacqui. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 02:44 PM

Sinsull, if you fell down in the street [as my Parkinsons-suffering wife was constantly doing in the year or two before she died] & really hurt yourself, and a bystander laughed - what would you think/say/do?

Er, sorry, almost forgot - LoL!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 03:00 PM

I can't abide a humorless sour puss. They are energy sinks.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Amergin
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 03:08 PM

I just love how people here can be so sanctimonious...so self righteous....life must be really grand for you if you have nothing more important to get upset over than some joke.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 03:35 PM

I have M. And I hurt myself badly. And I laughed at the stupidity of my situation. Actually managed to step into a hole in a bridge. And no - I didn't sue.

I also fell about two years ago and sprained my ankle and hurt my knee. As I said - when people fall down I laugh. I fell down and I laughed. Sitting on the snowy ground on my butt was a ridiculous place to be. The doctor and the chiropractor didn't laugh - but they have no sense of humor.

Can you not see the difference between a woman with Parkinson falling (I wouldn't laugh assuming the Parkinson's was obvious) and a perfectly healthy woman dropping for no reason at all?

I didn't laugh when a woman was beheaded by a passing garbage truck even though she fell down. That was pretty horrifying.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:06 PM

maybe slightly off topic, but today I received an email about parent failures. Chock full of images that someone evidently though funny but I would call child abuse, event eh clearly posed ones.

Couple of weeks old infant inside a large sandwich with adult about to take a bite

several picks of babies and children with real guns and rifles. One was an infant with the barrel of shotgun in its mouth.

Babies with dangerous animals, infant with boa constrictor crawling over it, toddler chained to lioness.

About 20 pictures in all. Really disturbing and not funny. Told sender not to send me such images again. I think she took offence. Tough!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:20 PM

'Can you not see the difference between a woman with Parkinson falling (I wouldn't laugh assuming the Parkinson's was obvious) and a perfectly healthy woman dropping for no reason at all?'


No, Sinsull, it wasn't that obvious *until* she fell. How do you know how many of the falls you have ROTFL'd at have had a similar cause? I should be careful if I were you, if you don't want the kick in the bollox from her husband that you would have got from me if you had been there & laughed...

Kendall & Amergin, what a pathetic pair you are.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:41 PM

Maybe it is just me, but I do not tend to laugh when someone falls or has mishaps. My first reaction is fear they may have hurt themselves.

I do laugh when I myself fumble, trip, knock against something. Well usually, unless it was particularly painful. Then I swear or cry which may be laughable to me at a later time.

I remember a teenage girl acting out some bit of pageant, tumbled down about 4 stairs at back of church which led to landing then onto cellar. We all gasped and were silent until she climbed up looked over the rail and demanded with silly smile on her face, "Who put those there?"

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:53 PM

I LOVE good cartoons... I think that clever cartoonists can say a lot about life and show the humorous and absurd side of life...and tell some interesting truths in the process.....but sometimes they are hart to fathom.

This guy thinks so too. Take a look at some he has posted. You will find some silly, some gross.... and some just weird. Some you wouldn't put on your refrigerator.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:56 PM

Miss Tam - I had the same reaction when my father insisted on sending me pictures of dead cats, cats hit by cars with liquor bottles in their paws - pissed me off. He wasn't happy when I told him to knock it off.

MtheGM - first I did not say I stand and laugh at the person who has fallen. I leave quickly and laugh later. Nor did I use ROTFL; second, you and I will never agree on what is funny. I can live with that.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 05:27 PM

David el Gnomo's examples aren't parallel to the Anne Frank joke. Each is about an imaginary person, and if they imply that everybody like that person is likewise an idiot, only another idiot would believe it.

Besides making fun of the real dead child, Anne Frank, the joke also makes fun of her father - also real - and by implication those in hiding with them. To find it truly funny, you also have to believe that the Holocaust was quite funny, or at least "not nearly so bad as they say. I mean, lighten up!" Maybe you only believe it for a moment, but maybe even that moment should be a little too long for one's conscience.

Many critics raved about the "sweetness" of the movie "Life is Beautiful." For all the obvious fantasy, it turned my stomach because it suggested that a hip viewer could find the Holocaust amusing, or at least not nearly so bad as they say. How about a charming comedy about Hiroshima? It couldn't have been as bad as they say. Right?

Finally, also unlike David el Gnomo's, the Anne Frank joke was broadcast to millions with the approval of the BBC. That says, "Piss on you, any Holocaust survivors or their families or any relatives of the murdered who might be listening! You're too hung up on the past to take a joke!"

I'm amazed the BBC wouldn't apologize, and I share MtheGM's sentiments. People who'll defend that kind of public joke just because *they personally think it's funny* might want to reconsider what they're really defending.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 07:20 PM

Actually someone did make a comedy about Hiroshima. It involved a film maker trying to sell a monster movie disaster idea. Can't remember the name but a GOOGLE search will turn it up. No comment on whether I found it funny. It was I believe a Japanese filmmaker.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 07:31 PM

F sor F's sake. It was NOT about Anne Frank. It was about a ludicrous situation where people could make no noise until a drum kit was introduced. If you cannot see the humour in that then fuck off. If you cannot see the humour in being told to fuck off, then I have no interest in you. Fuck off again and try to see some humour in doing so. Or accept that you have no sense of humour and fuck off again...

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:11 PM

Yup, thats me, a pathetic professional humorist. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:57 PM

Pathetic is when someone lacks the wit to have a good sense of humor.