6th December 2009
ARGUMENT OF THE WEEK
Should Stand-Ups Censor Their Own Jokes?
by Janey Godley
Comedy is the new whipping boy of entertainment. You can't open a newspaper without reading about yet another enfant terrible of stand-up offending someone. Stand-ups who don't swear, don't offend and don't make jokes about the war are now being hailed as kings of comedy: a generation of neutered comics that grannies can laugh at along with the young 'uns in the family. It's not a bad thing and I for one love observational comedy, but there is still room for edgier stuff. Frankie Boyle was harangued for making a joke about Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington. He mentioned she had a big nose and the tabloids went for him, yet the same newspapers think nothing of printing a close-up of Amy Winehouse's saggy boobs or Victoria Beckham's recent acne outbreak. Isn't that offensive to them? Because it certainly isn't funny. It's cruel. At least people laughed at Frankie's joke. Cruelty and comedy tend to go hand in hand. That's the way it's always been. When Billy Connolly told the joke about the dead wife's bum being used as a bicycle stand on the Parkinson show in the 1970s, the nation took him to their hearts. A dead woman was used as the "butt" of the joke, yet it was still funny. Offensive comedy isn't new. It's always been that way. But now that comedians tend to speak for a generation which needs to be heard, the media relish bringing them to task. When I started out in comedy in the mid-1990s, plenty of offensive material was used on the comedy circuit. |
It seems only recently that journalists are going along to live gigs, sitting with moral pens poised, waiting to be offended on behalf of the nation. Where were they when Jerry Sadowitz was carving his niche in sold-out theatres? Why is this knee-jerk reaction suddenly so popular? If we could spit venom and hoot about Margaret Thatcher's big beak in the 1980s, why can't we poke fun at an Olympic swimmer in the noughties? Where should the line be drawn? Maybe we can only laugh at people we don't like collectively as a group. In my day, that was called bullying. Dawn French recently said: "It is no more acceptable to make a fat joke than it is to make a gay joke." This from a comedian who's made a career portraying a chocolate-eating, roly-poly, jolly vicar and, in her French & Saunders sketches, a fat old man grabbing his crotch while leering at women. That must surely have offended some fat old men. Comedians say it's their job to challenge society's beliefs, and their right to break down barriers. No it's not. It's their job to be funny and, if they offend along the way, they have to face the consequences. But, seriously, if you are outraged at Jimmy Carr's joke about amputee soldiers who will make a great Special Olympics team, you have to be offended that Tony Blair became the peace envoy for the Middle East. That isn't even a joke. |