Offensive = Funny?

6th

Seriously do some people think that being as offensive as possible is funny?

I saw Frank Skinner a good few years ago and he relied 100% on saying things just to shock. Other than that he had a couple of lines about football.

I was tempted to walk out but some other people did.

So are people like Chubby Brown etc actually funny?

enda1

I'd be mixed on this. In and of itself no its not funny, a la Roy chubby fcuk off brown!, but it can be used to good effect such as by Bill Hicks.

Karl Hungus

Depends on how it's done tbh, but on the whole I find people like Bill Bailey, Eddie Izzard and Billy Connolly far, far more funny.

6th

Frank Skinner and McSavage are the worst I've seen for this and have had lots of people walk out of shows.

Vegeta

It does really depend on how it is done

shock tactics for shock sake is pretty easy to spot and boring. Its like completely over the top tabloid language

but if someone is genuinely funny and throws in the odd offensive term i'm not bothered

Hagar

I saw Chubby Brown years ago in Manchester and he was quite funny for the first few minutes but after that the constant repetition of foul language became very tedious.

A comedian that has to rely on a Biggles helmet and a dopey patchwork suit is sad.
Reminds me of that other ratchet Jimmy Cricket.

git_ireland

Have to agree McSavage is absoloute scum. Was the international about Sunday three weeks ago. Paid a tenner in to be disgusted. Aidan Bishop and some aussie guy were good but when McSavage came on it all went downhill.
One joke about going to kids soccer match. Wanting to record it with a camera and a coach told him no. Parents were sketchy about people with cameras at games. So in his sick perverted mind he thought he would rather f**k the kids to make the parents really worry about something.

Wheres the sense in that. Walked right out from the back past him and left. Total asshole. Back to Grafton Stret he should go and stay and never grace a comedy gig or t.v. again. It is like he hasnt got kids in the way he was talking about it.

monkeyfudge

I´ve recently gotten hooked on Sarah Silverman, and some of her stuff can be considered pretty offensive... but´s sort of part of the comedy character of a spoiled Jewish princess that she plays on stage so it works well.

6th

Richard Pryor cursed every 2nd word but managed to be one of the funniest people on the planet .... til he died.

Karl Hungus

6th wrote: »

Richard Pryor cursed every 2nd word but managed to be one of the funniest people on the planet .... til he died.

Indeed. It just depends on the comedian. If you're a retard like McSavage, it's going to be awful.

git_ireland

It al depends on the context in which it is taken. I wouldn be as put off by cursing as lame jokes where they are failing at and have to resort to this sort of crapola.

Doctor DooM

When Tenacious D played here last year, they had support from an American comedian. His jokes were unfunny and higly designed to shock.

I would say they were aimed at a much more unsophisticated audience than he got, as most people didnt laugh, or boo (as I am sure they were supposed to), merely shook their heads.

Did anyone else witness that? It was a real example of how shock value doesn't equal laughs.

Bill Bailey is an excellent example of how you dont need foulness to be incredibly funny.

Gillie

I would think that Jimmy Carr would be viewed as offensive but I think he's ****in hilarious!

I have yet to see someone who trully offended me..

Doctor DooM

Gillie wrote: »

I would think that Jimmy Carr would be viewed as offensive but I think he's ****in hilarious!

I have yet to see someone who trully offended me..

Clever and offensive is fine. Offensive on its own isnt funny.

DeVore

Please please never ever put that fnckwit Chubby Brown in a post with Bill Hicks again...

Hicks was shocking for a purpose, he was only partly a comic and considered himself partly a revolutionary using spoken word to elicit deeper thought from his audience. Even his Goatboy routines were smart and not aimed at any group or downgrading any sector of society for cheap laughs. Oh, ok, apart from Marketeers, who ... lets face it... deserve it.


DeV.

DeVore

SDooM wrote: »

Clever and offensive is fine. Offensive on its own isnt funny.

So:

Offensive = not funny
Clever and Offensive = funny
Clever = funny

Seems like there is a correlation between "clever" and "funny" and "offensive" is a side issue which, alone, is negative.

DeV.

Mahatma coat

yeah, Conolly and a lot of others swear a lot, some people tell truly shockin jokes.

be glad you dont know who Rodney Rude or King Billy Cokebottle are, tey make that chubbo Brown fcuker seem sophisticated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urSHvG_cxc0

Robbo

What's Dice Clay up to these days?

Jfla

Doug Stanhope is offensive as your going to get. I hate when people get offended by comedians, Take it as a joke!!!! Love his stuff. He doesn't rely on this. He has great opinions. Love his sketch on excess in moderation. Doubt he will be here after waht happened at d kilkenny festival 2 years ago.

Zapp Brannigan

Robbo wrote: »

What's Dice Clay up to these days?

I knew he'd pop up in this thread. He is the most disgusting "comic" I've ever seen clips off. Completely distasteful, I can't believe he was ever so big in America.

I think Dev summed it up nicely though.

hotspur

Offensive is not funny per se but shocking kind of is in the right context. I'll give you one of a couple of reasons why it is funny. You see laughter is often just the dissipation of built up energy and being shocked builds up energy in a short rush.

I'll try to explain briefly (I was into the field of humour studies years ago, I did my psyhcology undergraduate thesis on humour). Take a simple gag like this:
John: What do you think of clubs for children?
Paul: I'm in favour of them, but only if kindness doesn't work!
(not a great gag but one I recall used similarly as an example)

Why is that humourous? Well like a million other jokes out there it works by using 2 meanings of the same word, in this case the word 'club'. What happens psychologically / physiologically is that the punchline "but only if kindness doesn't work" immediately doesn't make sense using the 1st meaning of 'club' (now this is preconscious because its meaning is resolved before we are aware of being confused).

But what happens when we come across something that is confusing is that there is a build up of energy. This is an evolutionary adaptation, a kind of fight or flight physiological change, because weird confusing things can be dangerous if they are tigers dressed as bananas.

But our brain quickly realises that it does make sense because the punchline is referring to a different meaning of the term 'club'. So we have a build up of energy that is now useless and we dissipate it through laughing (doesn't have to be an out loud actual laugh, a guffaw, a smirk and little nasal snort will do). It's a fact of our make up that dissipating built up energy is innately pleasurable.

So that is why we laugh and enjoy it at a joke of this particular nature, it's known as incongruity with resolution. But the point to take is the mechanism by which we laugh, find it pleasurable and hence attribute humour to it.

When you shock a friend by going up behind them and grabbing them suddenly, they will swing around shocked, enervated, ready to punch you or run, and then when they see it's you and not a threat they will laugh and release the energy. They may also tell you as they are laughing "that wasn't funny" But shock does make us laugh when the context is patently nonthreatening and the perpetrator cues us that it is meant to be humourous.

There was a big earthquake in San Fransisco in 1906, people were so shocked that for days they went around laughing uncontrollably at anything which set them off in any way.

A comic who shocks you will get an easy laugh. But since being shocked is a function of being surprised, if they just keep going with that kind of low grade material you will not get shocked anymore, will not laugh, and will be bored. That's why an obscenity can be so powerful and funny if used unexpectedly and very sparingly, but loses all currency from overuse by a comic.

Shocking and offensive comedy is bottom of the barrel stuff. But having said that I was a huge fan of Jerry Sadowitz when I was younger. Go figure.

Only post I'll ever write deconstructing humour on this forum I promise. I now agree with Tommy Tiernan on this - analysing comedy is like dissecting a fairy!

DeVore

Great post Hotspur, gets a +1 from me.

Hicks shocked people and made them very uncomfortable. His stuff on children and how they weren't "miracles" would have an audience shifting uncomfortably on their seats. He was making his serious points during those rants and when he switched back to something flippant or lighthearted he'd get that release of energy/nerves that you were talking about and the audience would laugh as much from the sense of relief as from the humour (which was hilarious too imho!)
Tension is a big part of it I think but I dont want to carve this fairy up any more then we have

DeV.

Mellor

Its all relative.
Jokes like rape, suicide, etc, are universally shocking and offensive, are in general not very funny. Jokes that shock or offend for section of people are often funny to the other half, like simple jokes about either of the sexes.
Its often very funny to see a comic that is very aware of the worlds preception of his country, and he can use this well. Some america or aussie comics spring to mind, but it goes without saying that this material wouldn't be funny to an america in the crowd.

As for the other "shocking jokes". Cursing in a joke isn't funny, but this shouldn't be confused with the statement that "jokes with curses aren't funny". Sutle difference.
Somebody on stage just cursing is a retard, end of. Somebofy who is quite funny is free to use curses and they don't take away from the joke (they could even add to it-that is different from the first point)

I curse quite freely, it doesn't bother me. I don't intend to offend. To me its just language, and not bad language. They are used to better describe a situation or emotion, used correctly they are some of the best adjectives and adverbs. Swear words slowly become colloquial phrases. 50 years ago bugger was quite a dirty word. Today alot of people don't even know what it means. Fcuker isn't near as bad today as it was say 20 years ago.
I think I may be getting away from the point, but to sum up, cursing alot doesn't make a joke funny. Using curses as part of creative language is fine, to display emotion, to make a action more powerful, or to lighten the mood after a tense section in a routine.

Galvasean

SDooM wrote: »

When Tenacious D played here last year, they had support from an American comedian. His jokes were unfunny and higly designed to shock.

I would say they were aimed at a much more unsophisticated audience than he got, as most people didnt laugh, or boo (as I am sure they were supposed to), merely shook their heads.

Did anyone else witness that?

Yeah, I was at that gig. I think the idea behind him was he was so bad people would heckle aggressively and get fired up for the gig. Didn't really work. Maybe it works on inbred hicks out in *******

Dave!

Being offensive isn't funny in and of itself, but there's no reason why an offensive joke can't be funny... George Carlin is pretty offensive to, well, everyone, and I find him hilarious.

Bill Hicks too, although I dont dig him as much.

sparky08

Have to agree McSavage is absoloute scum. Was the international about Sunday three weeks ago. Paid a tenner in to be disgusted. Aidan Bishop and some aussie guy were good but when McSavage came on it all went downhill.


In Laughter Lounge a few years ago when McArse first started and after being heckled for being ****e by a hen party in the front row he told them on leaving the stage that he hoped they all got raped! Lovely guy, his missus must be so proud! The reason he gets anyhere is cos of his relation to the Tubridy, (tho how that helps is beyond me!)

grames_bond

sparky08 wrote: »

The reason he gets anyhere is cos of his relation to the Tubridy, (tho how that helps is beyond me!)

being related to tubirdy meant he got on the late late show, once you make it on the late late you will defo sell out vicar street, hence how he has done it and made a name for himself! so you see, its not what you know, its who you know!!

BaZmO*

Gillie wrote: »

I would think that Jimmy Carr would be viewed as offensive but I think he's ****in hilarious!

I have yet to see someone who trully offended me..

Funny you mention Jimmy Carr. I was going to post a new thread about the piece quoted below but after reading this thread I think it's more apt here.
I particularly like Stewart Lee's take on the situation.

How far can we go before knowingly offensive stand-up jokes backfire, asks Stephanie Merritt

Sunday August 20, 2006
The Observer


There's a prominent strain of stand-up comedy which evolved as a counterpoint to a particularly puritanical, lemon-sucking kind of political correctness and which challenges ideas about what it means to be off ensive by being deliberately off ensive. Its most famous practitioners are Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais, and it is premised on a shared assumption between performer and audience that everyone knows that they don't mean it. There's an implicit snobbery to this: the educated, middle-class performer is allowed to make racist, homophobic or misogynist jokes because he (or she) can take for granted that their educated, middle-class audience understands that the comic is actually too intelligent to be a racist hater of gays and women. What the comic is really mocking is the kinds of people who hold those attitudes for real, ie thick working-class people.

The precariousness of this approach was illustrated when Jimmy Carr almost sued Jim Davidson for apparently stealing one of Carr's jokes. As Stewart Lee pointed out, if Jim Davidson is able to use your jokes straight off the page, you might want to take a look at your material.
Here at the Edinburgh Fringe, there has been a minor kerfuffle this week over a couple of comics, Steve Hughes and Reginald D Hunter, doing jokes that were perceived as anti-semitic. Both have issued statements saying their words were taken out of context, though Hughes allegedly described Bush adviser Richard Perle as 'that ****ing Jew'. As well as the anti-Jewish material, I have seen two white male comics doing impersonations of Indians, something that would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago. Simon Brodkin is a former doctor and talented actor whose show presents very funny monologues by four diff erent characters, and he fi lls in the gaps while he changes costumes by offering a spoof history of comedy performance. As he gets ready for the last character he begins nonchalantly blacking up his face while talking about how far comedy has evolved in moving away from stereotypes - the joke being in the contradiction between his words and actions.

So far, so funny, but Brodkin goes on to perform a monologue in the character of an Indian doctor, which made me increasingly uncomfortable. Have we come so far that it's now OK to laugh at a white man in black facepaint putting on an Indian accent? Why did this seem so much more troubling than if he had played a Geordie or a Welsh doctor with the same script? Had there been any Asian people in the audience, it might have been easier to gauge whether this was acceptable, but there weren't. To attack taboos and unsettle the status quo is elemental to good comedy, but simply repeating prejudice is not the same as upending it. Making jokes about Jews or Muslims is not necessarily the same as challenging ideas about religion, however noble your intent. Perhaps all comics considering edgy and controversial material ought to stop and ask themselves, 'How would this sound if Jim Davidson said it?'

hotspur wrote: »

Offensive is not funny per se but shocking kind of is in the right context. I'll give you one of a couple of reasons why it is funny. You see laughter is often just the dissipation of built up energy and being shocked builds up energy in a short rush.

I saw Tommy Tiernan being interviewed a few years ago and he was saying that his definition of comedy/humour was indeed just as you've outlined above, the build up and dissipation of energy/tension. Something I agree with wholeheartedly.

Galvasean

So, the observer wants to bring the caste factor in does it?
Whatever they say...

DeVore

God I desperately want to slap that Observer journo.

and Ricky Gervais? Offensive? I've found more offensive Free Gifts in my cornflakes box. I think Gervais is great, seen his standup stuff and ok, he doesn't soften his language but *offensive*? puhleeeeeaze!

DeV.

tech77

DeVore wrote: »

God I desperately want to slap that Observer journo.

and Ricky Gervais? Offensive? I've found more offensive Free Gifts in my cornflakes box. I think Gervais is great, seen his standup stuff and ok, he doesn't soften his language but *offensive*? puhleeeeeaze!

DeV.

Exactly.
That journo somehow assumes the people he is mocking are the LOWER CLASS by using ironic knowing humour. WTF?

Now that's presumptuous

The only people being mocked are ignorant people ie racists/bigots/
misogynists etc WHETHER THEY ARE UPPER, MIDDLE OR LOWER CLASS.

Says more about that journo's pre-conceptions about the association between ignorance and lower class than anything else TBH.

Gervais is a genius.