That’s Not Funny: The 5 Biggest Comedy Taboos
Remember around 2009, when you were always hearing about how “important” Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show was because “that’s where young people were getting their news”?
Studies and polls abounded, and an avalanche of op-eds speculated on “what it all meant.”
Notice how you haven’t heard that meme as much lately?
That’s probably because another Comedy Central show, Tosh 2.0, gets even higher ratings than The Daily Show.
And the liberal elites don’t dare ponder the implications of that.
You see, comedian Daniel Tosh’s eponymous program “celebrates” Black History Month with features on “crackhead tossing” and February markdowns on Kool-Aid.
And Tosh’s “Web Redemption” segments dare to do something all good little grad students are taught to avoid: judge and shame miscreants and morons.
So anyone attending one of Tosh’s live stand-up gigs has got to know what they’re in for, right?
They have no right to complain about being “offended” by his act.
You might almost say they were asking for it…
By now, you’ve probably endured so many reports about last week’s “Daniel Tosh made a rape joke and a woman got mad then everybody argued about it” story that you’re dying to to just curl up in a hot shower and have a good long cry.
I figured we’d heard the last of it when Louis CK granted Tosh absolution.
Alas, the Pope of Comedy proved fallible in this case.
At Jezebel.com, a not-entirely-hopeless post called “How To Make a Rape Joke” has logged 1500 comments and counting. And that’s just one of the many online discussions about the incident.
Leftists are trying to use the Daniel Tosh Rape Joke Experience as a “teachable moment.” They’ve been attempting for a while now to make the phrase “rape culture” the new “thing,” and are gonna give it one last drunken college frat boy try.
The Left is determined to force us to swallow this whole “rape culture” crap, dammit.
Just like they’ve been trying to get comedians to drop race jokes and handicapped jokes since the 1980s.
This battle — which has all the elements of a thrilling cause: sex, death, violence, race, liberty — has, against all odds, become excruciatingly boring, because it has reached a perpetual stalemate. It’s like lingering death overtime.
Comics continue to offend, offended weenies continue to declare their offended-ness, comics apologize (or don’t), and next week or next month another comedy controversy springs up like a weed.
(See, “Carolla, Adam”)
Here are today’s (other) top comedy taboos, according to me…
(NOTE: Severe LANGUAGE WARNING applies to every video below.)
#1 — Disease and disability
Record-breaking box office revenues from the movie Ted were making Seth MacFarlane the luckiest man on the face of the earth, until a bunch of people who usually struggle to talk roused themselves to express their “offendedness.”
Reportedly, a good-guy character says to the movie’s villain:
From one man to another, I hope you get Lou Gehrig’s disease.
That’s it. But it was enough to rev up the professional victimhood outrage machine.
MacFarlane, 38, who is famous for his boundary-pushing humor, argues the “mere mention of any disease should not be cause for ire.”
“I lost my mother to cancer, yet there is a joke in the film which contains the word cancer,” he said. “I urge analysis of context, lest the ‘outrage industry’ get the better of us.”
Speaking of which, I’m old enough to remember when you couldn’t say the word “cancer” in public, until sitcoms like All in the Family and Maude mainstreamed the word.
(In fact, kiddies, within living memory, if you got cancer, your doctor probably wouldn’t tell you. He’d tell your family, but you’d be left thinking you just had a really bad ulcer.)
Maybe one day the notion that other diseases were unmentionable will seem as absurd to our descendants as that “cancer” thing seems to us.
All these ribbon-pushing professional victimhood associations claim to be devoted to “raising awareness,” but the only thing they’ve ever raised my awareness about is how petulant, touchy, and whiny they can be.
#2 — Race
You know the Leftist rule:
You’re allowed to make race jokes as long as you’re a member of that race.
Yeah, to hell with that…
Note: Both clips on this page are from TV shows that:
- Got canceled because they wouldn’t “leave the race stuff to Chappelle,” even though they had the same ratings as The Daily Show, or
- Didn’t get picked up in the first place.
#3 — Islam
Do I even need to expand on this one?
After all, “there are no jokes in Islam.”
Just ask the South Park guys.
#4 — Tragedies and Atrocities
This is a tricky one.
Some of my Jewish friends make Holocaust jokes. I do, too.
But I doubt I’ll ever find 9/11 funny.
Everyone’s mileage will vary.
They say the seriousness of any horrific event can be measured by how long it takes for jokes about it to be deemed acceptable in civilized company.
Now, I can’t find the clip, but I still remember David Letterman being roundly, furiously booed for making a “dead Abe Lincoln” joke, a century and a half after the president’s assassination. Seriously, his usually lap-dog-like audience turned on him like a rabid pit bull. I never forgot it.
On the other hand: I’m not a Lenny Bruce admirer, but his “poor Vaughn Meader” line right after the JFK assassination was his mini-masterpiece, a model of timing and subtlety.
As for poor Gilbert Gottfried, he got dumped as the Aflac duck after making “insensitive” tweets about the Japanese tsunami.
(He’d forgotten, or never realized, that Aflac “is the largest life insurer in Japan…”)
That was Alflac’s prerogative as a private company, but I’m not alone in wondering what the hell the firm thought they were getting when they hired Gottfried, whose 9/11 joke at the Hugh Hefner roast is legendary among his fellow stand ups.
#1 — Gays
In terms of lucrative, ludicrous complaints (and hair-trigger liberal catering to same), gays are the new blacks.
They don’t have that whole “white guilt about slavery” thing on their side, but homosexuals have even more purchasing power and, more importantly, more power in Hollywood.
Ironically (and predictably) the most vocal “anti-bullying” activists are the biggest bullies themselves.
Call a lame ringtone “gay”? Get in trouble.
Heckle back at two drunk lesbian hecklers? If you’re a Canadian comedian, you’ll get fined $15,000.
Or take Tracy Morgan, who was obliged to go on an official “awareness raising” apology tour after “joking” that if one of his children ever talked to him “in a gay voice,” he’d kill him.
(If you’re pandering leftist cum “transgressive hipster” Louis CK, the key to using the word “faggot” without getting yelled at is to tack a Very Special Lesson on the end of your scene — one which, by the way, is a well-debunked “Intro to Queer Studies” etymological myth.)
Fellow comic Jim Norton compared Morgan’s humiliating repentance road show to a slave auction in “the f***ing 1700 slavery days, where they held that poor bastard captive.”
Norton made that observation on the Opie & Anthony satellite radio show. Near the end of that segment, “Opie” said something that should become every comedian’s default tactic, whenever they’re shamed for breaking a comedy “taboo.”
Acknowledging that comics like Morgan (and Gottfried and Tosh) are obliged to issue groveling statements following each of these absurd “offenses” if they want to retain a faint hope of keeping their jobs, Opie declared:
I’ve told the fans before: if you ever hear me apologize, you know I don’t mean it.
***
More from Kathy Shaidle:
I consider EVERYTHING fair game for humor.
And I do mean EVERYTHING. Today I offend EVERYBODY!
Yes, even a lesbian Muslim Brotherhood mole and her dick-joke of a husband.
Muslim suicide bombers are pretty funny too.
And don’t forget those wacky burqa dudes!
YES! Tosh, and Loius CK, and the rest can say anything they want. If I’m offended, I’ll change the channel or leave the club.
I will laugh at taboo jokes #1-5 whenever I hear them.
Patrice Oneal told it on Fox News.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjIuPSuYSOY
Nowhere in this article (or in the comments that I read) did I see any complaints about the coarsening of our culture. None of the “edgy” comics is as funny to me, at least, as Herman Melville in The Confidence Man. Who among the alienated youth of today could even read that masterpiece of satire, let alone match its wit and incisiveness? I wrote a bit about censorhip here: http://clarespark.com/2012/07/31/censorship-bohemia-and-the-big-sleep/. My main point as a libertarian on these matters is that we lack a critical context to analyze what is happening to our heads. And moreover, it is taboo to even discuss sadistic humor, misogyny, or antisemitism, let alone the big life and death questions. Such material is not considered to be appropriate for the dumbed down audience for adolescent humor.
A man sees a stranger standing in his kitchen with a knife in his hand and a mask over his face.
– “Are you a burglar?”
– “No, I’m a rapist.”
– “Sarah — it’s for YOU.”
I think the “rape” thing depends on who old/sensitive a woman is and her personal experience.
There’s a line about rape in Woody Allen’s old play “Play it Again, Sam.” Allen warns Diane Keaton that there is a rapist out there and she says forlornly, “Not with my luck” or something.
At different times in my life, that line has bothered me or rolled off. I think most “summer stock” productions of the play have cut that line, but I could be wrong.
I’ve been known to make fun of crime victims too, especially when through their own outrageous stupidity, they have made themselves into easy marks.
I contend that gun rights are the only real way to put a stop to rape. I’m tired of all the liberal media posturing on the topic of rape, when they were the ones who have disarmed the public in so many parts of the world. More guns, less rape!
As for myself, the rest of the world constantly takes cheap shots at Orthodox Slavs in general and Serbs in particular. As such, I claim the right to take cheap shots at anything and everything else that has it coming!
The actor George C. Scott is reputed to have said, “If you give every woman a handgun, the crime rate would drop to zero.”
Yes. It was so very droll when Adam Carolla jokes about violently raping screaming women and throwing them down a volcano.
That’s very funny. He must be a very tough guy if he needs to express that kind of sadism. He would not live long if he tried that with some woman I know. tough guy that he thinks he is not withstanding.
I always laugh at guys who say “so and so isn’t such a tough guy” and then immediately, often in the same sentence, proclaim their own toughness and ability to kill anyone who messes with their wife/sister/kids/dogs/car/what have you. Who says self-awareness is dead?
I wish I could delete my comment. something about the subject upsets me quite a bit.
I understand where the anger comes from – believe me I do. But that doesn’t change anyone’s right to joke.
Speaking of Muslim humor — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q51hVC0Lgwg
Now That is hilarious! I have a whole new respect for VW!!!
So, other than that, how did you like the movie?
Forget jokes you can’t say anything that might be considered by some less that perfectly respectful to gays. An Italian soccer player Antonio Cassano (a total meathead idiot like just about all pro soccer players) was fined 15000 euros for being less that completely pro-sodomy having been asked about rumors that a gay journalist was banging some of his teammates:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/07/20/uk-soccer-italy-cassano-idUKBRE86J0YT20120720
Remember, these people are victims!
Humour should consist of Benny Hill reruns as making fun of Muslims in overstatement.
“Intro to Queer Studies” entymological myth.
I didn’t know insects were queer.
The problem with so called humor is it leads to changed values, via desensitization. Amazingly I hear and read about women asking if it really hurts men (or the minimize with a comparison), about men being “raped,” or deliberately injured in their groins. Most will continue to enjoy the exploits of a female lead in a movie/series, who, if she did this in real life should be seriously hurt and/or jailed. Instead, these women (most I’m afraid) are so entirely unaffected they’ll eventually pass on slight values and not firm values. They are affected by comedy. Lines should be in place. Those who think they can get back inside the “wire” (Iraqi/Afghanistan term for on base) to safety are kidding themselves. They are phychologically changed for the worse. Loose values get passed to kids. It lowers their ability to care, and it’s used on spouses when times are tough.
Horrific spelling and missed letters are not values
– but it can be a little mean to readers. Sorry.
Anyone who went to the “R” rated movie “TED” should have known what they were getting into. The movie was marketted as coming from Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame, and there were significant warnings at the theaters that there would be raunchy humor, nudity, and implied drug use.
If you have watched even 1 episode of Family Guy, you know that everything is far game for a joke.
Family Guy comedy has become syndication fodder; in conservative Tampa, Florida (host of this year’s Republican convention), Family Guy is packaged between unwatchable “30 Rock” and ran-off-the-rails “Big Bang Theory.”
Tosh.O is on Comedy Central. Last time I checked my cable bill, I had to pay to receive CC. So I can pay to be offended by frat boy highjinks, or, now here is a novel idea, I don’t have to watch the show.
My mileage to be offended may vary. I am a conservative, church-going, overweight white guy, married to a “hot” wife. I am caricatured in just about every sitcom on TV, as the only current demographic that can be the butt of all jokes and still not offend any protected group.
Humor is a strange thing. Who would ever have believed that The Producers could pass muster?
Then, a few years ago, Prince Harry got in trouble for wearing a “Nazi” Halloween costume. So – he was dressed as a monster. There were people as Dracula, Freddy Kruger, and also real monsters like Jack the Ripper and Doctor Crippen. But somehow a Nazi costume was over the line…
And in a way I get that.
Jokes about ethnic groups. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they offend. A joke which exaggerates a flattering stereotype to comic effect is usually safe. A joke which reminds people of an ongoing problem usually is not.
Why not?
Want to see the darkest, grimmest humor in the world? Go to a combat zone and talk to Soldiers and Marines. Laughing at death and dismemberment is how we deal with it. Taking it too seriously is the road to a breakdown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Grim_humor_on_Tarawa_-_NARA_-_520984.tif&page=1
Right on. Your comment took me back to W.W.II. In Italy, gray skies, mud, rain, death and wounds daily, and guys kidding each other, like: “If you lose your legs, after the war you can get around on a pogo stick.” Or, after heavy shelling, someone from the company c.p. crawls within yelling distance, asking, “Are you guys o.k.?” and someone yelling back, “No, we’re all dead.” And everybody laughing. It’s funny that I can remember things like that and I can’t remember what I had for breakfast.
An old man and a little girl are walking through the woods at night.
Little Girl: “This forest sure is creepy!”
Old Man: “Imagine how I feel! I have to walk out of these woods alone!”
…And that’s probably the sickest joke I know.
My wife is a sort of a connoiseur of stand-up comedy. As a result, I’ve learned some things about comics that I would never have otherwise known, and some of these things are interesting, to say the least.
One of the more fascinating is that a comedian’s reputation with the public and his reputation among fellow comedians may be very different from one another. Some are popular with large audiences, but often those guys *envy* other comedians, who do more “edgy” humor, the stuff they could never get away with. Comedy, or jokes, usually involves the speaker surprising you in some fashion. Saying something unexpected, etc. And one of the ways to say the unexpected, one of the ways to easily surprise your audience, is to “go there” before anyone else has, before it’s been long enough for everyone to “heal.”
This sort of comedy can come in two forms. In the better sense, the joke is in some fashion a surprise, but it also says something about the incident involved, or at least isn’t directly offensive. The other sort is the one where they’re deliberately *trying* to be insulting, degrading, and whatever. Norm MacDonald is a good example of this sort of comedian. He does his act, and says outrageous, insulting, disgusting things about people (the one that stands out in my mind involves a pair of fathers at a gay pride parade comparing photographs of their sons having gay sex with their partners) and then he gets nervous laughter from the audience. The problem for me is that this isn’t humor, it’s (to my mind) a substitute for it.
I’ve never been able to watch more than 10 seconds or so of Tosh.O. I don’t care about pop culture much (the show is built around it, mainly what they find on the web) and so I don’t like it, or its TV-based cousin, The Soup. Gossip columns aren’t better for mocking people and trying to be funny: they’re still about celebrities who are more or less irrelevant, and they’re still ridiculously superficial.
The other comedian who’s been involved in a “controversy” recently is Dane Cook. Cook is (supposedly) heartily disliked by many of his peers, because he supposedly plagarizes much of his act (a no-no with comedians). When he’s doing his own stuff he’s not very funny, and when he’s doing Louis CK’s act (the guy he supposedly steals from; Mr. CK has been pretty vocal about it) he’s merely offensive and obnoxious, following in Louis CK’s brave footsteps. The joke he made about the Aurora shooting was rather stupid (it was built around the premise that the new Batman movie sucks, which opinion is apparently unique to Mr. Cook) and so if the movie had continued someone in the audience would have asked to be shot anyway. He combines 2 sins of comedy at one time: a) he’s offensive, and b) he isn’t funny.
Oh, one other thing that’s occurred to me. People’s view of what is acceptable has changed with time. The comedian Foster Brooks, who I used to see on the Tonight Show (I think) as a kid, could never do his act or get work, now. The whole schtick was that he was an drunk hobo. Nowadays, he’s an alcoholic homeless person, and people shouldn’t make fun of that sort of person…too many would be offended.
Don Rickles: I shouldn’t make fun of black people. President Obama is a personal friend of mine. He was over to the house yesterday, but the mop broke.
That utterly innocuous joke was scrubbed from the telecast he delivered it on.
It’s taboo to joke about Obama.
100%. sad to say, but we are way behind russia where nasty jokes about Putin are all de rigueur. make a joke about raping O’s daughters and watch yourself destroyed.
“In terms of lucrative, ludicrous complaints (and hair-trigger liberal catering to same), gays are the new blacks.”
–
It depends on where you are. I was in England in 1991 on business and happened to have the BBC (radio) on in my hotel room listening to news and current affairs. A spokesman for a national group representing homosexuals announced that he and the people he represented were tired of hearing the terms “homosexual” and “gay” because they were “too bourgeois”; his group wanted to return to the terms “queers” and “faggots”. And that’s no joke!
I was astonished – and amused.
I don’t know if this proposal was widely adopted; I rather doubt it. Maybe a British reader can fill us in?
S. Clay Wilson and R. Crumb Zap Comix-era stories are almost unbelievable tasteless and vulgar and also hilarious.
Indeed they were all those things, certainly not for the faint of heart or stomach.
It’s surprising how comedy demolishes taboos sometimes. I still remember when we first heard a toilet flush on TV: when Archie Bunker flushed after a visit to the bathroom. I still remember when we first heard the word “bitch” on TV: when Maude’s daughter told her off.
And I never imagined anyone could make animal abuse funny but any fan of WKRP In Cincinatti will remember the immortal words “As God is my witness, Johnny, I really thought turkeys could fly!”.
Let’s not forget the gender factor when it comes to comedy taboos, despite the equality of the sexes, women in combat, etc., especially in movies and TV.
The obligatory ‘woman kicks man in the crotch’ scene = hilarious
Man kicks woman in the crotch = prepare the apology tour bus.