dyslexia jokes offensive?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 03:13 PM

I could never get the hang of taking jokes seriously. The basis of all this type of joke is an implied stereotype which often has no factual basis - a joke in itself. To react as though the joke is a personal slight not only serves to reinforce the stereotype, it also seems to indicate rather an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

This is a very interesting video, but don't be put off by the somewhat misleading title.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 04:33 PM

I'm sorry? Helen Keller jokes????????????????????????

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 04:39 PM

No, I never heard a Helen Keller joke either - I don't get out enough, obviously.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 05:53 PM

But if one had poor enough taste, one couldn't help but wonder how good she was at pinball.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 06:19 PM

Sorry....Helen Keller was a bloody wonderful woman. She is not a subject for jokes.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 06:23 PM

I'm not going there. Suffice it to say the jokes that lead off this thread would be found in poor taste by pretty much everyone in this thread, and most mammals besides.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 06:32 PM

Indeed she was, but black humour has been around for a very long time, and not everyone understands and/or appreciates it.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 06:59 PM

Circa 1956: Define Perpetual Motion. Answer: Helen Keller in a revolving door.

I suspect Helen would have been amused.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 07:25 PM

that is actually NOT a Helen Keller joke. (and it is not funny). You're missing the point.



simply put, there are jokes that are funny, pathetic, and offensive.

pretty much anyone can be made the butt of a joke, and depending on the nature of the joke, and the joke-teller, anyone can be amused OR offended.

And there are jokes that only a few might find funny, and pretty much everyone else offended.

One of my favorite illustrations of the limits of ethnic humor, and I've used it in Mudcat before is the following:

    - - - - - - - - - - -

A: "Hey let me tell ya this Muleskinner joke, it'll make ye split yer sides."

B: "Naw, my father and my uncle were muleskinners, I don't hold with no such tripe."

A: "Ah, sorry 'bout that podner, I don't want to offind ye none, tell yer whut, I'll make it about carriage drivers, will that make yer feel bedder 'about it?"

B: "Sure, thank ye, frien, so tell me this 'ere 'carriage driver' joke"

A: "Okay, see, there's these carriage drivers, see,"

B: "okay"

A: "And they're sitting around, see,"

B: "yeah"

A: "And they're skinnin' this mule-"

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 26 Sep 09 - 10:06 PM

The revolving door was a 'spastic' joke when I heard it. That would be the 60s though - we were more enlightened by then.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 02:56 PM

So, let me get this straight....a woman who, as a young child, was trapped inside the hell of her closed mind, unable to speak, see or hear...unable to comprehend anything at all....who fought like a wild animal...whose every waking moment was actually 'beyond hell'...became the source for jokes?

Despite the fact that against every single iota of 'odds' she learnt, through her magically gifted teacher, Annie Sullivan, who had fought her own unbelievable battles, to communicate with an entire world, not just a single person, was the subject for jokes?

She was an INSPIRATION! So was Annie! These two women came into each other's lives for a reason. Without Annie having suffered as she did, she'd not have had the determination to drag Helen out of her hell, to never give up...to KNOW that she had been given a spiritual journey that belonged solely to her...

Without Annie, Helen would have spent her entire life in total darkness. Darkness of vision, darkness of hearing, darkness of voice, darkness of soul! Trapped in interminable never-ending darkness until she died.....

And yet, look what the two of them, together, achieved!

"I AM NOT DUNB NOW!" - Helen Keller

And you can see her 'listening' to Annie, feeling her throat, and talking, right here on Youtube in this amazing film.....

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan - Two AMAZING WOMEN and two of my Absolute Heroes!


"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart." - Helen Keller

Helen Keller was no joke, she was the most Inspirational of women, as was her Teacher, Annie. And I think I'm right in saying that there is now a new coin in the US, recognising Helen Keller.

This world has become a joke, when ignorant people regard someone so incredible as a person to poke fun at.

Geez, we have lost the plot...*seriously* lost the plot.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 07:12 PM

No-one's actually laughing at Helen Keller; she is neither the cause nor the point of the jokes, merely a 'prop'. Few great or famous people have escaped the (often dubious) honour of being named in jokes, but the jokes themselves are seldom original, or even good. It's a tradition... (cough) Anyway, I don't think the intent behind them is generally as hateful as it might appear to be at first glance. Often tasteless and unfunny, but not malicious.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 08:04 PM

Ain't no joke


Noruen had seen many of his friends come and go over the last 60 years. He used to communicate with some of them long distance via the virtual smell of hormones and proteins. His local friends were all an arms length away. In this case some of his neighbors had eight or nine arms. Sometimes they would wake him up in the middle of the night as if he had been jolted with electricity.

Today was unlike all the days of his entire life. Today was for grieving and saying goodbye. Everyone was slowly finding it harder and harder to breathe. Enilon Erda swept through town ike a hurricane but as she left the entire town was abuzz with a feeling of resignation and the loss of good close friends. But there was something more. Something deeply sad about losing something greater as though the feeling that they were a part of something greater was going away.

Greiving over some amorphous loss of something he could not see but always felt as though he was a part of, made Noruen feel confused but there was no denying that he too was unable to breathe any longer. Losing each other, losing oneself, losing that part of ourselves that was something greater, that was the kind of grieving that each of the 100 billion Noruen felt personally, as Sally lay dieing of injuries inflicted by a hit and run drunk driver.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 08:17 PM

Noruen knew that many of his sharper friends were already going or gone. He reached out to the distant ones for a last contact. Two way communication was now lost. He sent a farewell to one, received one from another, all of them with the sense that the links were breaking and dissolving, and darkness was now all around, and ahead as well.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 08:35 PM

Scone's Cousin has left the building.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: GUEST,Roger in Sheffield
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 08:45 PM

I think it is unfair that some members comment on Jeddy's atrocious spelling.

Instead of complaining, simply accept as variant spellings those words Jeddy most commonly misspell.'

Either go on beating yourselves up over this problem or simply give everyone a break and accept these variant spellings as such.

All I am suggesting is that you might well put 20 or so of her most commonly misspelt words in the English language on the same footing as those other words that have a widely accepted variant spelling.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 08:59 PM

I think you're in the wrong room, old bean..

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Emma B
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 09:07 PM

remember

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 09:09 PM

So it be.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 09:18 PM

A dyslexic state trooper was stopping cars checking for I.I.D.s

Art (VERY FUNNY TO ME. Told it for years & years.)

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 09:51 PM

addendum to my thread drift ;*/

Radio Lab.org did 11 meditations on the nature of death.
The one about neurons having a life and a death of their own was unusually moving. Robo I think you got it word for word?! Did you hear it too?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 02:36 PM

My last post had a typo.

It ought to say:

A dyslexic state trooper was stopping cars checking for IUDs.

NOT IIDs !!! (if he was checking for those, it would be a symptom of a whole other malady...

A CHALLENGE:

Mudcatters, what might that disease be??!

Art

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 03:34 PM

Yeah, Smokey. Tasteless but certainly not malicious.

After the Challenger disaster it took less than three days for my son to come home from school with an assortment of Christie McCullough jokes. None funny but all designed to what? shock? I don't know.

I was commenting on this a few months back to a friend and I observed that I thought it significant that the Twin Towers disaster had not produced similar jokes. His comment: "You don't know any NY firemen, do you?" Apparently, there are thousands of similar jokes at least within certain circles.

There are people in my office who find outrageous humor hysterical and often I agree with them. There are others who think that Everybody Loves Raymond is brilliant humor. It bores me to tears - repetitive, inane, stereotypical claptrap. In fact, I can imagine a few who would go off on the idea that it ridicules and belittles women.

I am curious, Lizzie. What do you find humorous? What book, movie, TV program, song, joke, whatever do you find humorous?

I laugh out loud at Kendall's stories, certain scenes from Moby Dick, The Producers, Severn's puns, Art Thieme's tall stories, Micca's antics, Jacqui and the other Evil Sisters when they are at their best and I am not the victim. Early Bill Cosby reduced me to tears. Tami's tales of tourists - very black humor, by the way. Morticia's sly wit. Spaw's epic tales of Paw and the Reg Boys. Some of it very broad humor; some of it very clever; some mean spirited; some very gentle.

So, what makes you laugh?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 03:56 PM

What makes me laugh?....Things that don't poke fun at people, or abuse someone who fought so damned hard to get her life back..I guess.

So, are racist jokes OK, then?

Is it OK to poke fun at autistic kids, dyslexic kids, hohohohoho oh?

After all, they're all 'just a bit of fun', huh?

Sorry, there are some things that are funny and some that are not.

The feminists won't let you 'make fun' of women.....not even allowed to call the Girlies any more, as this is apparently 'disrespectful'....but folks are saying that it's OK to laugh at someone who, quite literally, amazed the world with what she achieved?

I dunno, maybe it's me. Maybe I need to lighten up a bit and start cracking jokes about the folk up the road from me, all of whom have learning difficulties...or the folk next door to me, all of whom have severe autism difficulties....I mean..,,maybe I should be laughing out loud about them, telling people on the bus....

Or maybe I should be thinking that there but for the Grace of God go I, and when the young girl next door is screaming her head off, so deeply distressed that no-one can reach her, maybe I should be thinking, "Geez, poor young girl, to be trapped inside so deeply, in a place where no-one can help, no-one can reach you..."

I don't think she deserves to be laughed about. I think she deserves admiration for still being alive. I think she deserves compassion, kindness and sympathy....and as much help as those who nurse her are able to give her....

And I think that Helen Keller was a truly Magnificent woman.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 04:10 PM

But you haven't answered my question. What makes you laugh? When was the last time you just laughed out loud and why?

It's not a trick or a trap.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 06:05 PM

Look a bit deeper Lizzie, or at least try not to criticise what you don't understand. I mean no offence by this, but I fear you're missing the point I was trying to make.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 07:00 PM

I don't think she deserves to be laughed about.

That seems to imply that there are those who do deserve to be laughed about. Who are they, who decides, and on what grounds? (Bearing in mind that I don't think anyone is laughing about her.)

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 10:59 PM

I must say I'm sorry for mentioning I.U.D.s in Mudcats mixed company.

Oh, the humanity.

Art

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 11:32 PM

I think the justification of black humour is probably best illustrated by haemorrhoids.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 08:22 AM

I thought you mentioned D.U.I.s, Art.

Oh the confusion!

I have been thinking a lot about this thread. There was a movie a while back with Gene Wilder. One of the main characters was deaf; the other blind. Together they witness a murder and end up getting hunted by the killers. It never occurred to me that someone could believe that this was ridiculing the blind and deaf but I guess someone could. The critics panned the movie for its adolescent humor but the public ate it up. To my knowledge, no criticiasm came from ridiculing the handicapped.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 08:34 AM

criticism

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: robomatic
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 10:40 AM

Hakman: I actually liked what you wrote and figured that it had to be a personal neuron, so I used what was left of my imagination.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 03:32 PM

... and Scone's Cousin is not quite full consciousness.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 03:40 PM

Enilon Erda?

Is that 'read online' or am I missing something?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 04:28 PM

sinsull, I did not know that Kendal wrote funny stories. I will look for some.

One of the funniest things to me is when completely humorless people insist that they have a sense of humor. It kills me.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 04:39 PM

Donuel,
Kendall published a book of Maine stories years ago called Stories Told In The Kitchen. It came from a TV Series he did on PBS in Maine by the same name. Hysterically funny stuff with a guest humorist every week. They sat at a table with tea and biscuits and let it happen.
You can find the book on ebay. Kendall will autograph it if you ask.

I have been reading a website about humor. It is written by a psychologist investigating what, why, how, ect we laugh or don't.
He has an entire page of Helen Keller Jokes. I will post the link tonight.

He states what Smokey so elegantly posted above. Helen Keller is not the butt of the jokes; the humor lies in the unexpected and the outrageous.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Jeri
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 05:03 PM

I don't know whether it was Heinlein or somebody else, but I remember reading the assertion that (and I'm paraphrasing) all laughter involves something painful at its core. I thought about that at the time and ever since, and have found not exception.

I'm not talking about intellectually appreciated wit or irony or a cute situation that makes you smile. I mean out-loud laughter. It was why I was interested to see what examples Lizzie gave.

I think laughter is how we exorcise negative emotions. You're afraid of something or someone, find a way to laugh at those fears; you're afraid of doing something stupid, find a way to laugh at the possibilities; you're afraid of mortality, make a joke; the pain you perceive someone may be in makes you feel ill, laugh at it. There's a line most decent people try not to publicly cross, and that's to not laugh at other people but at the pain or fear.

I think if we couldn't laugh, we'd all slit our wrists and humanity would die out or we'd turn into snooty types who think they're smarter than everyone else and humanity would die out (and there would be even MORE stupid political copy/paste flame threads before it did).

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 05:16 PM

I miss these guys, they used to have me in stitches...

Eric and Ernie

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 07:54 PM

Laughter is a way of relieving the discomfort of cognitive dissonance, perhaps? A way of assimilating the unacceptable.

I like M & W too, Lizzie, but just out of interest, exactly what do you find makes you laugh in that clip? Where does the humour lie, in your opinion? At which point/s do you laugh?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Sep 09 - 11:18 PM

study Chinese--- and become oriented.

Art

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Gervase
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 02:54 AM

A whole generation of bad writers with short, fat hairy legs has been stigmatised by the cruelty of Eric Morcambe. Shame, I say!

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 03:44 AM

"I like M & W too, Lizzie, but just out of interest, exactly what do you find makes you laugh in that clip? Where does the humour lie, in your opinion? At which point/s do you laugh?"


Eric used to crack me up without him even having to say anything...He was just silly, just so, so silly, in a gentle way.

Humour over the past two decades has become far more cruel, far more crude and bitchy than it's ever been before..

Again, I think we've lost something very precious because of that.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 06:58 PM

I completely agree with you about Eric Morecambe, Lizzie, but just what exactly made you laugh in that video you posted? It's a parody of a well-known scene - what did they change to make it funny? What did they add that wasn't in the original? What makes us laugh at it?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 07:58 AM

Smokey, watch it again and pay more attention to Eric (the policeman) to see what they added.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 12:31 PM

Er, I already know, Manitas....

I was trying to demonstrate something.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: jeddy
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 01:43 PM

sorry they just don't do it for me.
i am more into observational humour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDzoWVouvg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TDzoWVouvg

poking fun at the silly things we all do.

take care all

jade x x x

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 02:31 PM

We 'all' spell words wrongly, misinterpret them or get them muddled up now and again. The degree is variable, but the phenomenon is unavoidable if we are to enjoy the benefits of language. I think to be able to laugh at our shortcomings (ooer, missus) is a gift that we should be very grateful for, and one which should be exercised as often as possible.

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: Smokey.
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 03:13 PM

A classic.

(But not a dyslexia joke, before anyone points it out..)

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: SINSULL
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 03:27 PM

I get your point, Smokey. One basis of humor is the unexpected and ridiculous - we have a guy dancing around with an umbrella in an UN rain. Other passersby also hurry along trying to stay drier. And the befuddled cop gets soaked. Add to that - this is an icon of American movies - Gene Kelly in An American In Paris - being spoofed. BUT the dancing is remarkably good. And the cop jumps into the water trough in resignation. An upside world. A sacred icon gently but beautifully ridiculed. Irreverence. Lots of elements of humor.


Ever see Carol Burnett as Scarlett O'Hara?

Subject: RE: dyslexia jokes offensive?
From: robomatic
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 04:32 PM

There used to be a Canadian group, I think they included Rich Little, who made great fun of the Anglo/ French divide. The ancient routine I can only recall has PM Diefenbaker attempting to deliver an address to the Quebecois in their own language with a dry Francophone translator translating it to English:

Diefenbaker: "Maze Dames et Maze Yeuzz"
Translator: "My ladies and my EYES"