BS: How long after can one make jokes about

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 07:32 PM

Wow....I got the 100 and didn't realize it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 07:41 PM

Joe, too bad you didn't get to Helen Schneyers memorial service. Lots of humor, black as night and wicked funny. Just as she would have had it.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lox
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 08:16 PM

"A media outlet shouldn't encourage people to laugh at real victims of monstrous crimes. And it shouldn't suggest to an audience of millions that it's proud of having done so. Nor should we leap to its defense when it does."

Quite right.

Fortunately in this case no victims of a crime are being laughed at, only a fictitious scenario.

So that's that then.


Dave the Gnome,

The version I saw starred Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson and Christopher Ryan of young ones fame.

Christopher Ryan was the star of the show and brought the house down.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 09:06 PM

There was a scene in the movie "The Diary Of Anne Frank" where they exchanged gifts for a holiday - can't remember if it was Christmas or Channukah. I do remember that Anne had collected cigarette butts from a man in the group over the year and re-rolled the leavings into cigarettes for him. Very clever and very kind - I remember him being a pain in the ass. She had equally clever gifts for everyone else. I don't recall this being in the book but it has been years since I read it.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 10:51 PM

Wow, what a lot of additions to this thread overnight — so this is going back a bit.

Lox - I did get what you meant by 'pignant' you know: if you recall, I described it as an 'adventitiously felicitous TYPO' or some such — but it was, alliterativly with 'patronising', one of the triggers for my regrettable use of 'pillock'.

The point to draw attention to is that my title for this thread [I was OP you will rediscover if you check] is interrogative. I am concerned with the questions of how much time may lapse — & additionally, by obvious implication, as to whether there are any topics which can never be appropriate subjects for humour. I, as will have been gathered, would rubricate Anne Frank as one such — a real person who exemplified a defiant survival spirit in the most adverse and intolerable of situations who nevertheless came to a tragic end. But not everyone will agree. And I do remember saying once to my late wife, "Here's a joke I just made up. If I had been born in Warsaw instead of in London then I shouldn't be a theatre critic, I'd be a lampshade", & she was horrified & exclaimed "How can you make a joke of such a thing?!" (she had no Jewish connections). So who is always consistent at that? But Anne Frank nevertheless remains out of bounds so far as I am concerned. But if there were no disagreements there would be no threads on any forums, would there?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 11:43 PM

Lol The Jesus joke made me laugh. Not the Mary one though. Sorry, Spaw. Jesus would not have said 'Mary', for one thing- he would have said 'Mom', thereby bringing in a totally different element. Plus the 'looking down a blouse' reference doesn't resonate with me. A guy thing, you think?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 18 Nov 09 - 11:59 PM

Well geeziz Ebbie, here I was trying to sugar coat it a bit and you gotsta' come along and mess me up.   First, I kinda' like your Mary Mother of God idea......that's really kinky! But I was referring to Mary Magdalene who is oft depicted and reputed to have been at the foot of the cross.

And second, the actual punch line was/is: "I can see Mary's tits from here."

Are you happy now?

LMAO......that's what I get for trying to tone myself down......(:<))


Spaw

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

Michael, I have more pleasant things to do than try to find agreement with someone who's clearly only trying to manipulate people into further argument.

Ebbie, different Mary, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:18 AM

Boy, did I ever take too much time editing, or what!?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: GUEST,999
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 02:21 AM

Jesus' mother, his aunt, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. John stood nearby.

See John 19:25

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 02:42 AM

'Michael, I have more pleasant things to do than try to find agreement with someone who's clearly only trying to manipulate people into further argument.'

Then why shove yr clumsy & inept put-in into the thread in the first place, Jeri? Thoroughly exercised as to where you are coming from.
What the point of any thread except 'further argument'?

Still, enjoy yr 'pleasant things'; aren't you just the lucky one!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smedley
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 03:34 AM

The really interesting point at stake here is the idea, proposed by MtheGM in his 10.51 post, about whether anything is "out of bounds" for humour.

I would say that no, nothing is, but that doesn't mean people don't have the right to challenge jokes that they think cross a boundary. Such boundaries, however, are never fixed and solid. That's what makes humour so intriguing.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Gervase
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 04:11 AM

I can only assume that those who wring their hands in anguish at black humour and bad taste are lucky enough never to have been involved in the sort of unpleasant situations the jokes celebrate.
The times when I've been involved nasty situations involving lots of bits of dead people, mutilated children, slaughtered innocents and the like have been the times when the jokes have come thick and fast. They're a safety valve - without black humour we'd all go mad with the sheer unremitting horror and unfairness of existence. It helps us keep buggering on in the face of enormity.
A po-faced attitude is quite common, though. I was in hospital a month or so back having suffered a heart attack. It was a worrying time for the family, and as they all clustered round the bed where I was covered in wires and gadgets I tried to defuse things with some off-colour remarks. My son's girlfriend was absolutely disgusted, I discovered later. Apparently she wanted to hit me for making jokes about sick people and nurses, a though I had somehow demeaned the holy nature of the hospital. It was quite cathartic telling her to fuck off when I was discharged.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 04:46 AM

We all tell and hear jokes in bad taste, but somehow we expect better from the BBC.
Another joke they allowed was someone impersonating the queen and saying" I'm so old my pussie is haunted."
One they pulled a couple of weeks ago, when biscuits were in the news, was when a presenter called two other contributors, one black and one white, their own custard cream and chocolate hobnob.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: kendall
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:57 AM

That was disgusting! I have great respect for the Queen; she has a tough gig.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 09:28 AM

Anne Frank jokes are quite the fashion in some circles. Search the Web and see. The one about the drum is pretty mild.

So it isn't just one BBC joker - it's a phenomenon, one that unfortunately coincides with the whole "Holocaust didn't happen" thing. Both seem to have gotten underway around 1980.

Nobody will be going to Hell (I hope) just for telling an Anne Frank joke, but it's barbaric to defend their hilarity and boast of appreciating it.

Sick and dying people of course have the right to laugh at their own condition for as long as they can. But when the fat and happy take time to defend, in ingenious ways, Gestapo-style humor at the expense of a dead girl, something's wrong with the picture.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 10:19 AM

Ya' need to change your screen name to "Heavier."

Like I said, if you don't like it, that's okay. I like it, but that's evidently not okay. We're not going to change are we? Feel free to be offended and stop lecturing those who found the joke funny.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smedley
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 11:24 AM

Well said, spaw.

'Gestapo-style humour' indeed - good grief.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:06 PM

"So it isn't just one BBC joker - it's a phenomenon, one that unfortunately coincides with the whole "Holocaust didn't happen" thing. Both seem to have gotten underway around 1980."

No as I posted above, I remember Holocaust jokes in the 50s among school children. Nor is it a phenomenom - black humor has been around forever.

I am with Spaw on this one. Feel free to be offended. Your lectures are falling on deaf ears just as are our explanations of black humor.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:11 PM

I heard the joke, and I wasn't offended, I also wasn't amused. Mainly because I don't know about the story of Anne Frank.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:30 PM

Come closer John so I can smack you this side of your head!




Before anyone complains - that was humor.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smedley
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:31 PM

She was a terrible drummer. Drove the neighbours crazy.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:36 PM

A different Mary? OK, never mind. :)

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 12:36 PM

I told you the rhythm method didn't work

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:04 PM

It was a tuba when I first heard it, but I think it'll be a banjo as soon as I get the opportunity to recycle it.

I entirely agree with the BBC's stance.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:10 PM

Here I thought the 'three Marys' had something to do with Henry VIII. Who knew there was a trend?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:23 PM

No Jeri.....I think Lighter/Heavier will suggest its a phenomenom...........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Bupkes
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:26 PM

In the film The Aristocrats (Penn & Teller?), they show Gilbert Gottfried telling 9/11 jokes two weeks after it happened. They had a Friars Club roast of Hugh Hefner at the time, in New York City, and they almost cancelled, but went on with it because, well, people needed a break from the gloom by then. So Gilbert Gottfried (he's the voice of the Aflac duck in tv commercials, by the way) begins his shtick by saying something like, "I had a little trouble getting hereÉ all the flights from LA had a stopover at the Empire State Building." Nervous, tentative chuckles, and someone in the back yells, "Too soon!", meaning too soon after the World Trade Center to tell jokes, but Gottfried pretends it meant he had delivered the punch line too quickly, so he tells the joke over again slowly. Gets a good laugh this time, so throwing what little restraint to the wind, he tells a long, detailed version of the title joke, "The Aristocrats", an extremely dirty joke shall we say, and people are laughing uncontrollably at his nerve and how they'll have to "clean it up a little for family television", "Ya think?!", and asking someone if missed a part, should he repeat it slowly?; they're laughing so hard they're "rolling on the floor, coughing up blood".

OK, here's a YouTube clip of the Aristocrats joke at the Roast. With Spanish subtitles to help you.
[Definitely over the top, vulgar language, be advised.]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnbHGmd8XNE&feature=related
or another excerpt of GG from the film, a more philosophical exegesis of the joke,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD1dc74QMPM

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:45 PM

From: MtheGM - PM
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:20 PM

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...


That would make me laugh to see you try as SINSULL is female and therefore doesn't possess, in a physical way, the aforementioned part of the anatomy.

I'll admit to having a sick sense of humour - I'm married to Kendall and need it to survive. I can't change the way my sense of humour works and that black humour has helped me through some pretty difficult situations. Luckily, I'm with a group of people who have the same outlook - we got rid of the others.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lox
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 01:52 PM

Oh God ...

... The aristocrats ...

... Now you're stirring up a hornets nest ...



Lighter,


Yes I see your point - that laughing at a joke which doesn't victimize the Franks is synonymous with holocaust denial and a Gestapo mentality.

Of course while I see it, I also think it is utter nonsense.



MtheGM,

I take your last post as sincere, accept your previous apology, and offer my own apology for the acidic tone of my line of argument.


Smedley .... ROFL!

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 02:12 PM

Yeah, Jacqui. I thought to bring that up but decided that anyone who was appalled at a joke but felt free to threaten physical harm on someone for laughing was not worth the effort.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lox
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 02:19 PM

"Here's a joke I just made up. If I had been born in Warsaw instead of in London then I shouldn't be a theatre critic, I'd be a lampshade"


I would stand by your right to make this comment.

Though I wouldn't have described it as a joke, but rather a truthful observation sweetened with humour to make it easier to savour.


By the way, I got off easy with the "palestinian suicide bomber in colditz" image.

It wasn't a good example of what I wanted to say.


A better example might have been Winnie the Pooh in a bondage basement ...

Or Uri Geller bending spoons at an AA meeting ...

you get the picture.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 02:28 PM

Careful, Lox - you don't want to go upsetting those Poohists..

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 03:10 PM

With all due respect, Lighter, it wasn't the jokes that killed Anne Frank--

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 03:14 PM

Oh, and, by the way, Lighter, if you'd bothered to read the article, the Nazis hated humor, and arrested, tried, and executed many people for telling jokes. So tell me now, who is more like the Gestapo, the person who makes the jokes, or the person who ostracizes them?

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Amos
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 03:21 PM

Gestapo-style homor? Wait--the Gestapo were the runs who rounded her up, not the ones who made humorous jokes about her.

I have every respect for what the Franks went through--and millions of others during the war--but to be able to make a joke about something grim is not disrespectful of tragedy, its a vote of confidence in resilience and renewal. There is such a thing as being too precious, ya know.


A

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 04:26 PM

Yes, Lox, both my last post & original apology to which it reverted quite sincere; & thank you for your reciprocal one. Really no point falling out over such matters, indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 05:17 PM

"I can't change the way my sense of humour works and that black humour has helped me through some pretty difficult situations. Luckily, I'm with a group of people who have the same outlook - we got rid of the others." Jacqui C

Dare I say that the Morse's and their neighbors eat well? :)

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:06 PM

Gilbert Godfrey told the first 9-11 joke just 3 weeks after in NYC!
Although people were rolling on the floor in uncontrolled emotional release they were all yelling "TOO SOON!"

I'm with Spaw regarding the discussion of the appropriatness of humor.
I find people who claim to have a sense of humor, don't.
People who explain why something is funny, aren't.
And defining the rules for humor, isn't worth a dried snot with 23 hairs in it.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:20 PM

Donuel,
Everyone has a Sense of Humor. Everyone finds something amusing. As with music and political parties, tastes differ...often rabidly.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Lox
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:25 PM

"People who explain why something is funny, aren't."

With the exception of me!

There is definitely something funny about me ...

... hang on ... let me rephrase that ...

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:25 PM

Umm, of course, present company excluded.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Matt_R
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 06:58 PM

Anne Frank was not "murdered" at Auschwitz. She died of typhus at Bergen-Belsen.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Matt_R
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 07:00 PM

And she wasn't arrested by the Gestapo either.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 07:52 PM

Geez Matt......Thanks for the factual data. But she DID get the drum kit didn't she?

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Matt_R
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 08:36 PM

"Dutch drummer girl" sounds like a nickname for an STD.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 11:01 PM

German banjoist, I think you'll find..

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Ebbie
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 11:09 PM

"On this day in 1944, a German-born Jewish girl and her family, who had been hiding in German-occupied Holland, are found by the Gestapo and transported to various concentration camps. The young girl's diary of her time in hiding was found after her death and published. The Diary of Anne Frank remains one of the most moving testimonies to the invincibility of the human spirit in the face of inhuman cruelty."

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=6540

But I expect you are right= Anne Frank was not murdered at Bergen-Belsen- had she avoided becoming ill, she would have been just fine. We should just lighten up.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: Smokey.
Date: 19 Nov 09 - 11:59 PM

No-one is trying to make light of the Franks' experience, Ebbie.

They were found by the intelligence branch of the SS after a tip-off - not the Gestapo.

Subject: RE: BS: How long after can one make jokes about
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Nov 09 - 12:22 AM

Did she have her drum with her?

Spaw