Comedian refuses to sign behavioural agreement

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the boot said:
I get where your coming from about funny jokes about Asians but he was a rascist person in real life, when I found this out I lost all respect for him. Laughing at his jokes makes him and me feel like im agreeing with him and not laughing at his jokes.
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If it's funny it's funny.

The fact he was racist (if he was or wasn't I have no idea) isn't that relevant for me. He was a product of his time. Some people were a lot of people weren't.
 


Cockney Mackem said:
I don't think offence is *quite* as subjective as some people like to make out, but yes it is somewhat subjective.

IMHO what it comes down to is this. If you're going to do any comedy that's near the knuckle you have less margin for error than if you're doing silly surrealism. It's not a case of better or worse, it's just like the difference between walking around in your back garden and walking on a tightrope over Niagara Falls.

So given that if you make certain kinds of jokes about certain types of people, at least in a public show, you'll be scrutinized, the content and intention of the joke will matter.

The reason Bernard Manning jokes are not OK, even though he was a very skilled comedian, is that a lot of it was just digs at certain groups. That was seen as ok because back then racism was seen as ok. But the *jokes* revolve around such and such supposedly being stupid, inferior, smelling bad, criminals, not belonging here. It's exactly the same thing people were saying to those groups out on the street just before refusing to rent a flat to them or beating them up. They weren't on an equal footing, giving as good as they got. There's no keenly observed poking fun at those groups based on knowing them, living with them, where an Asian or black person laughs and says "Yeah that's exactly like my uncle" or whatever. The idea that objecting to that is entirely subjective doesn't stack up.
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People will always have an opinion and will scrutinise, that’s fine. People can write their blogs and post their tweets and feel all gooey inside. No comedian should ever be expected to apologise for a routine.

They way I see it (white privilege checked and stored) is that if you can laugh about peadophilia you should be able to laugh a racial stereotypes. Unless you think that racism is more important than child abuse.

Me telling a joke about black people, Asian people, Jewish people etc doesn’t make me a racist any more than me telling a joke about Gary Glitter or Jimmy Savile makes me a nonce.
 
Harry Angstrom said:
Just a Mary Whitehouse you agree with, that's all.
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So there's no qualitative difference between viewpoints? If one nutritionist advocates a balanced diet avoiding sugars and bad carbs and the other suggests roadside burgers topped with dog turds three times a day, preferring the former is just a matter of opinion?

Tadger said:
Me telling a joke about black people, Asian people, Jewish people etc doesn’t make me a racist any more than me telling a joke about Gary Glitter or Jimmy Savile makes me a nonce.
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Context is important. Telling one of those jokes doesn't *necessarily* make someone a racist. But it *might*
 
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Cockney Mackem said:
So there's no qualitative difference between viewpoints? If one nutritionist advocates a balanced diet avoiding sugars and bad carbs and the other suggests roadside burgers topped with dog turds three times a day, preferring the former is just a matter of opinion?
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To be fair to you, if a person’s behaviour outside of their act demonstrates that they do hold views in line with some of their jokes, then that should be called out because it clearly isn’t much of a joke.

Cockney Mackem said:
So there's no qualitative difference between viewpoints? If one nutritionist advocates a balanced diet avoiding sugars and bad carbs and the other suggests roadside burgers topped with dog turds three times a day, preferring the former is just a matter of opinion?



Context is important. Telling one of those jokes doesn't *necessarily* make someone a racist. But it *might*
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Couldn’t agree more on the subject of context.

For that reason, I take jokes at face value until the teller demonstrates to me that they might not be joking.
 
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Cockney Mackem said:
So there's no qualitative difference between viewpoints? If one nutritionist advocates a balanced diet avoiding sugars and bad carbs and the other suggests roadside burgers topped with dog turds three times a day, preferring the former is just a matter of opinion?
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Not when it comes suppressing comedians, no there isn't.

Also, if someone prefers shit burgers they will eat shit burgers. I have an fairly varied mainly plant based nutritional diet because I take stuff like that seriously. I care not if others wish to be utter slobs.

I won't bother getting into a discussion around whether racial attitudes are similar to a nutritionists science and fact based opinions but I will agree a racist free society is a desirable one.
 
Black Cat Gypsy said:
How is that offence? People must live sheltered lives if they find that offensive.:lol:
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I was trying to give an example of something that might be considered insulting to atheists.

Now, I've never actually heard a comedian tell a joke about atheists, let alone a joke I found insulting as an atheist myself, so I can't say whether or not I agree with "anti-atheism jokes" being part of the agreement. :lol:
 
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