Offensive jokes

[paigetheoracle]

I'm opening this poll to find out if whether everyone who falls into a particular group is offended by jokes about it (gay/ female/ disabled/ coloured etc).

 

I know most people will jump up and say of course they/ we are but the basis of this was watching film of a UK comedian, considered racist, whose show had black people in it, laughing at coloured jokes told by him.

 

I want to find out what percentage of such groups 'laugh with', rather than protest against such remarks and why (comments appreciated).

[Buffy]

I think it was Lenny Bruce who said something like "Jews can tell Jew jokes and Black guys can tell Black jokes: its when you mix them up that you get into trouble..."

 

It's not a bad rule to follow. What minority do you belong to?

 

We'll certainly let you tell "Dumb Brit" jokes, or "an Anglican priest walks into a pub" jokes, but you certainly can't tell Frog jokes because we do have a few members in France.... :shrug:

 

Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them, :eek2:

Buffy

[Moontanman]

Hey did you hear about the blonde who didn't like people who asked for oral sex? Yeah, he was upset they never really wanted to talk about it :shrug:

[Pyrotex]

I do take offense at some jokes -- typically jokes that insult or demean a class of people.

 

Two of my favorite jokes are about people with handicaps. But neither is insulting or demeaning. Some of my favorite jokes involve women, and even blonde women. But rarely are they insulting.

 

On the other hand, there are some classes of people that I don't mind demeaning. Criminals, terrorists, religious fanatics, etcetera.

 

Some sex jokes are funny, and are not gross or demeaning. Some sex jokes I take offense at, usually because they are just too gross, use gross language, or are intentionally insulting about someone.

 

You know why some blonds have square breasts?

Nobody told them to take the Kleenex out of the box first.

[Moontanman]

I think "blond" jokes are as harmless as it gets in that sort of making fun of a group type joke. I can't imagine anyone with half a brain who thinks hair color equates with intelligence. Of course you will always find people who's sense of humor is somewhat limited when it comes to things that might apply to them. I used to work with a black guy who liked jokes about black people, he practically collected them. Kept me in stitches all the time but in a real way it made me feel guilty that I could find such jokes funny, coming from a black man, especially one I respected as a friend and human being, made me feel strange inside. So much so I never allowed another person to tell me jokes demeaning to black people since. I just can't listen to them anymore, they are not funny in any way.

 

 

Ooooo, did you hear about the witch who was a switch, she couldn't decide if she should kneel or stand. :shrug:

 

I bet Pyro knows why it's funny :eek2:

[Buffy]

Yah, but why do the blonds always have to be girls?

 

Sometimes you can just change the gender--like I did above with Mr. Moon's--but sometimes you have to really bend the joke around. To wit:

You know why some blonds have square breasts?

Nobody told them to take the Kleenex out of the box first.

Or the male version: There once was a blond who never had sex because his mommy always told him to use "protection" and his daddy told him never to put a square peg in a round hole...

 

It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean, :hihi:

Buffy

[DougF]

Some jokes are just in bad taste, so I do get offended "sometimes"

 

 

A married couple down on their luck decides to make a few extra bucks by reluctantly having the wife work the corner. After the first day the husband picks her up and asks "how did you do?". She says, "I did pretty well, I made $200.50". He asks, "What ******* gave you 50 cents?" and she replies "all of them".

 

 

If you can't laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?

[Moontanman]

Yah, but why do the blonds always have to be girls?

 

Sometimes you can just change the gender--like I did above with Mr. Moon's--but sometimes you have to really bend the joke around. To wit:

 

Or the male version: There once was a blond who never had sex because his mommy always told him to use "protection" and his daddy told him never to put a square peg in a round hole...

 

It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean, :hihi:

Buffy

 

 

You did that? I went back to change it just for fun and found it was already he, lol I thought I had done it!

[paigetheoracle]

I think it was Lenny Bruce who said something like "Jews can tell Jew jokes and Black guys can tell Black jokes: its when you mix them up that you get into trouble..."

 

It's not a bad rule to follow. What minority do you belong to?

 

We'll certainly let you tell "Dumb Brit" jokes, or "an Anglican priest walks into a pub" jokes, but you certainly can't tell Frog jokes because we do have a few members in France....

 

Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them,

Buffy

 

I get your point but the one I was trying to make is that the offense is how someone takes the joke but of course if they are busy punching you in the mouth.....

[paigetheoracle]

 

If you can't laugh at yourself who can you laugh at?

 

I think we laugh at the joke because it reminds us of our own stupidity and get offended because our pride doesn't want to be reminded of this (brittle image that we want to project -ego)

[DougF]

I think we laugh at the joke because it reminds us of our own stupidity and get offended because our pride doesn't want to be reminded of this (brittle image that we want to project -ego)

 

DR. paigetheoracle I presume,

 

yes: this is true, if you can laugh at yourself it will help make you ..... "better adjusted" ... to handle the self truth that we all have face sooner or later. as we grow in this endeavor it is sometimes hard to have the truth slap us unexpectedly in the face, and we become offended by it (jokes about blond, disabled, color, sexual orentation.... whatever) when I hit 50 I become offended by old fat jokes, but this is what it is, I am old and fat and I'm not offended by that truth now.

 

I am still the same person now just a lot slower, and grayer ;-)

[lemit]

A lot of really boring stuff has been written about the psychology of humor and jokes. I read what was available several years ago and haven't kept up with developments in the field for the aforementioned reason of boredom.

 

If I remember correctly, much depends on a cultural understanding between the joke teller and his or her audience. If the teller and the audience do not share a common expectation of the logical extension of the premise of the joke, then the punchline will lose its irony and therefore lose its audience. To make sense of this, you must remember that all humor is irony and nothing else. (Analyzing humor is about as much fun as analyzing sex.)

 

None of us likes to hear jokes that attack us. If we suggest that we do, it's because we either don't get the joke or don't get that we're the object of it, in the manner of the mirror that always shows us in a favorable light. In other words, anyone who is not offended by any humor of any kind is either self-deceptive or insensate.

 

In the case of oppressed people, the punchline loses its irony because they already know what it is going to be. They know the minds of the oppressors out of necessity, the way prey must know the mind of the predator. Lenny Bruce and those who have followed him have sidestepped that obstacle by simply attacking the oppressor--the more powerful the better. Those jokes are either offensive or pointless to the oppressor, for whom the jokes are not intended anyway.

 

Humor that appeals to oppressors seems offensive to other people: it's akin to kicking someone who's already down--which Homer Simpson would enjoy.

 

Homer Simpson's favorite jokes, or any of the things that make him laugh, would make a fairly good catalogue of offensive humor. It isn't obscene offensive or racial/ethnic offensive; it's the essence of offensive. It's offensive humor boiled down. Check it out some time.

 

But, as David Letterman would say, that's not why you called, so I'll leave you with Dave Barry's joke about the story being spread through the Miami Herald newsroom of breaking news concerning the Polish airplane that crashed in a cemetery. So far they've recovered over a thousand bodies.

[Turtle]

...Humor that appeals to oppressors seems offensive to other people: it's akin to kicking someone who's already down--which Homer Simpson would enjoy.

 

"Doh!" :shrug: well, i don't know about homer, but ben franklin certainly was for kicking someone who's already down. i will have to paraphrase as i no longer have the biography i'm taking this from. for your reference it was Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.

 

anyway, after we won the revolution, franklin was all for punishing britain further and justified it by saying something to the effect of, :when i was a boxing boy it was considered fair play to give a rising blow". "rising blow" means "kick when already down". i can't attest to whether ol' ben enjoyed the rising blow or not.

 

anyway, i have no offensive jokes to share as i find them offensive. :shrug:

[paigetheoracle]

DR. paigetheoracle I presume,

 

yes: this is true, if you can laugh at yourself it will help make you ..... "better adjusted" ... to handle the self truth that we all have face sooner or later. as we grow in this endeavor it is sometimes hard to have the truth slap us unexpectedly in the face, and we become offended by it (jokes about blond, disabled, color, sexual orentation.... whatever) when I hit 50 I become offended by old fat jokes, but this is what it is, I am old and fat and I'm not offended by that truth now.

 

I am still the same person now just a lot slower, and grayer ;-)

 

Well Professor Doug, I dig this too (as the young people say) because I am old and gray too and stop staring at my pot belly because it doesn't exist except as a figment of my, sorry your imagination.

 

People who are defended don't want things to change and so are even more thrown than those who aren't because of this. It's like my dog Jack. When the nervous collie attacks him, he admits he's scared and runs away but comes back minutes later to forgive her, her nervousness. The old labrador however never forgives her (admits she's scared of her), so the war perpetuates between them (Lesson 32 in 'How to do life' by Dr Dolittle, think much)

[paigetheoracle]

 

(Analyzing humor is about as much fun as analyzing sex.)

 

None of us likes to hear jokes that attack us. If we suggest that we do, it's because we either don't get the joke or don't get that we're the object of it, in the manner of the mirror that always shows us in a favorable light. In other words, anyone who is not offended by any humor of any kind is either self-deceptive or insensate.

 

In the case of oppressed people, the punchline loses its irony because they already know what it is going to be. They know the minds of the oppressors out of necessity, the way prey must know the mind of the predator. Lenny Bruce and those who have followed him have sidestepped that obstacle by simply attacking the oppressor--the more powerful the better. Those jokes are either offensive or pointless to the oppressor, for whom the jokes are not intended anyway.

 

Humor that appeals to oppressors seems offensive to other people: it's akin to kicking someone who's already down--which Homer Simpson would enjoy.

 

Homer Simpson's favorite jokes, or any of the things that make him laugh, would make a fairly good catalogue of offensive humor. It isn't obscene offensive or racial/ethnic offensive; it's the essence of offensive. It's offensive humor boiled down. Check it out some time.

 

But, as David Letterman would say, that's not why you called, so I'll leave you with Dave Barry's joke about the story being spread through the Miami Herald newsroom of breaking news concerning the Polish airplane that crashed in a cemetery. So far they've recovered over a thousand bodies.

 

Your quote about analyzing jokes and sex is true - humour is about what you react to, not defend yourself against (Who are you calling black? i.e. identifying me with as a group when I don't want to be).

 

Second point is more or less the same as the first - we only laugh if we let our false image of who we are and what we are, go. Humour makes us dump our prejudices rather than wallow in them (reveals the world as basically a ridiculous place).

 

As for humour and oppression - if you can laugh at oppression, then you are not as likely to take things so seriously that you violently attack those you feel are oppressing you (Like humour it's all in the mind).

 

Liked the plane crash but the thing to remember is that you are laughing at the concept of a Polish cemetery and not the reality (If you're in a plane crash or have friends/ relatives that are, you don't usually find it funny, unless you're going to inherit from the disaster and even then you usually repress the urge to react as society frowns on that kind of insensitive reaction).:shrug:

[DougF]

I locked my keys in my car outside of an abortion clinic the other night. It turns out they get really pissed when you go in and ask them for a coat hanger.

[DougF]

Man walks into his bedroom with a sheep under his arm. His wife is lying in bed reading. Man says, "This is the pig I have sex with when you've got a headache." Wife replies, "I think you'll find that is a sheep." Man replies, "I think you'll find I was talking to the sheep."