Tatyana
Illuminator
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2009
- Messages
- 3,701
For my money, one is not entitled to offense if they attend an adult comedy show.
One is always "entitled" to their subjective opinion.
Good post, thanks."how does one know when it is appropriate to joke about otherwise terrible things" was the question. Clues abound - and most of us still get it wrong on occasion. The best answer I can provide is to know your audience and your environment.
I've heard jokes that were raunchy/insensitive/disgusting/etc, and found them quite funny. I've heard relatively tame jokes, and sensed that others hearing the same joke were offended. For example, the day after the Shuttle Challenger disaster, I first heard the N(eed) A(nother) S(even) A(stronauts) joke, and I laughed. In a different setting, I might have found the exact same joke offensive.
For my money, one is not entitled to offense if they attend an adult comedy show.
That one may form such an opinion does not mean one is entitled to it. I would strip it from their skulls (literally) if I could.
One is always "entitled" to their subjective opinion.
Most certainly people are entitled to their opinion, however, it doesn't mean it is a valid opinion.
It also doesn't mean that they can interrupt the performance because they have a different subjective opinion.
Just the other day, I saw an old Sam Kinnison routine on what to do with homeless people: execute them. That's the punchline. Its a joke because its over-the-top, taboo, and offensive.So, what do you think?
WildCat said:So Tosh can't, but she can?
You misunderstand my point. She doesn't want Tosh to dictate to her what was funny and what wasn't, but she felt free to dictate her personal beliefs of what is funny and what isn't to him.Nope. If you think that's true, you're not paying attention to what happened.
Tosh made a joke. He thought it was funny and edgy; someone in the audience didn't. She said so. So far, this is nothing unusual. It is all part of a normal, everyday routine that any stand-up comic is familiar with.
Hecklers and audience comments are a standard part of stand-up comedy. If you want to see someone who knows how to deal with hecklers in the audience, watch George Carlin's videos some time. The man was a master at it.
Tosh, on the other hand, not so much.
He dealt with her by suggesting that she be gang-raped on the spot. That's bad comedy, and it's stupid, and more to the point, the audience isn't likely to find it funny.
Heckling happens. He thinks of himself as a comic who makes edgy jokes. He should and probably is accustomed to being heckled for it. That's just an ordinary day in the life of a stand-up comic.
But what he's getting blasted for isn't the joke; it's the way he handled her reaction to it. His response showed an appalling, almost unbelievable lack of the basic craft of stand-up comedy. A stand-up comic who can't deal with the audience in a way that's funny but also not insulting simply has a poor grasp of his chosen profession. If he is going to respond in such a ham-fisted and clearly inappropriate way, with such an appalling lack of one of the basic skills that any stand-up comedian should have mastered...well, he deserves to take a hit for it. You don't succeed as a comedian by saying that you wish your audience would be assaulted.
I'd say I'm glad you're not running for public office but I don't suppose tyrants-in-waiting are always bound by the electoral process. Instead, I'll say I'm glad that your odds of gaining large amounts of power are small...barring some sort of Road Warrior dystopia.
Long story short, I don't think there's a topic so off-limits you couldn't tell a joke about it, so I'm not exactly surprised that Tosh includes rape jokes in his routine.
Whether he pulls it off well depends on the audience.
I'm not sure that is true.He dealt with her by suggesting that she be gang-raped on the spot.