That joke isn’t funny any more
Apologies in advance, but this is my favourite joke at the moment:
A man goes to the doctor to get his test results. The doctor looks sad, and tells him to sit down. “I’ve got some bad news for you,” the doc says. He pauses. “Actually, it’s two lots of bad news.”
The man steels himself. “Okay,” he says. “What’s the first bit of bad news?”
“You’ve got AIDS,” the doctor tells him.
“Shit,” says the man. He thinks for a moment, letting the news sink in. With a pained expression, he asks: “What was the second bit of bad news?”
“You’ve got Alzheimer’s.”
“Oh well,” the man says, brightly. “At least I don’t have AIDS!”
I don’t think there’s anything remotely funny about Alzheimer’s or AIDS, but the sheer wrongness of it makes me laugh like a drain. If the second disease had been anything other than Alzheimer’s, it wouldn’t have been funny.
I’m sharing the off-colour joke because I’ve written a column that seems to have caused offence. In .net, I was arguing against multimedia on the grounds that just because you can put video on a website doesn’t mean you should. And the example I used was this: if you have a hot new gadget but you get Michael J Fox to hold it while Muhammad Ali films it, you’re probably wasting your time.
Of course both Fox and Ali have Parkinson’s disease, which isn’t funny in the slightest. Which was kind of the point. I was trying to come up with something that was funny in a “I shouldn’t be laughing at this” way.
(I do appreciate that Parkinson’s isn’t funny, incidentally. I was tested for Parkinson’s a few years back – constant shaking that I thought was RSI but the docs thought might be an early symptom of Parkinson’s or some equally hilarious degenerative disease. Waiting for the results of that test wasn’t the best laugh I’ve ever had.)
I’ve apologised, naturally, but it’s got me thinking about humour, offence and where to draw the line. Is it a bad thing to make light of something serious, even if it’s gallows humour? Is it about power, so a Parkinson’s sufferer can make gags about it but someone who doesn’t have the disease can’t? Is finding the “at least I don’t have AIDS!” joke funny evidence of being a bad person, and if so does that make Gerry Sadowitz the worst man on the face of the Earth?
I’m genuinely interested in your answers – humour’s a very subjective thing, and I imagine what’s offensive and what isn’t is even more subjective…
30 Responses to “That joke isn’t funny any more”
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Flick on January 14th, 2008
If it helps, I chortled.
mupwangle on January 14th, 2008
I agree that it isn’t funny, but I still laughed at the joke about the little old man in a home who got caught by his wife with wee old Mary’s hand down his trousers. “What’s she got that I haven’t?”, She asked. “Parkinson’s”
Gary on January 14th, 2008
I do think this Onion gag is much worse.
McGazz on January 14th, 2008
Funnily enough, when I heard that joke it was Parkinson’s rather than AIDS.
Eeeek on January 14th, 2008
What’s 18 inches, stiff, and makes women scream in the night?
Cot death.
Gary on January 14th, 2008
Now, that’s a good example of what I’m asking about. This time last year I’d have hooted like a hooty thing at that; now, as the father of a 3-month-old, I flinched reading it. So I guess context makes a difference too: the joke hasn’t changed, but my reaction to it has.
Andi on January 15th, 2008
I pretty much laughed at all of the above to varying degrees.
Squander Two on January 15th, 2008
http://www.callahanonline.com/calhat9.htm
rutty on January 15th, 2008
I found all those funny too, especially the Onion article ;)
I think you could upset someone, somewhere, by writing almost anything. You have to accept, though, that if you do use offensive humour that it’s OK for people offended by it to think that you’re a bit of a twat.
I’ve mellowed in my old age but I still find jokes funny that perhaps I shouldn’t. Sod it though – you’ve got to laugh at the crap that life throws at you. If people find it offensive then so be it – Daily Mail readers generally find everything offensive anyway.
I do tend to modify my humour to avoid too much offence though. It all depends on the audience.
Ronnie on January 15th, 2008
Three points:
1) Your joke is *very* old.
2) It’s still funny.
3) You / We / People should be allowed to make jokes about anything. Except baldness.
Squander Two on January 15th, 2008
I had a teacher who was Jewish. He was what they call an Unorthodox Jew. He was a Nazi.
— Bernard Manning
Here’s a statistic for you. There are one hundred and twenty thousand black millionaires living in Britain today. One hundred and twenty thousand. Incredible. If we’d known that, we’d have picked our own cotton.
— Roy Chubby Brown
Not a fan of all their material, but I love those two.
The Chubby Brown one’s interesting in that it’s one of those jokes that a lot of people would view as racist even though it is not actually at the expense of black people. It’s a joke about unintended consequences. If anyone’s the butt of that joke, it’s slave-owners.
Tony Kiernan on January 15th, 2008
I saw Sadowitz at ATP in December. It was a very strange and confusing experience. But, I know I would go see him again.
The girl behind me was either booing him or pissing herself laughing, no in between.
Could’ve done without seeing his nob, mind.
Squander Two on January 15th, 2008
He brought an aristocrat with him?
mupwangle on January 15th, 2008
>>He brought an aristocrat with him?
Yes, but unfortunately the aristocrat showed everyone his penis.
Squander Two on January 15th, 2008
Heh heh heh.
Going to see Jimmy Carr soon. Vic got me tickets for Christmas. It strikes me that he is probably more offensive than Bernard Manning, but gets away with it somehow.
“Throwing acid is wrong. In some people’s eyes.”
Lis on January 15th, 2008
Wanna know what happened to me yesterday?
-I was teased for being Chinese (something I did was within a boundary of stereotype)
-I was asked if a cookie is “On your diet” (didn’t know I was on a diet!)
-I was told that someone was overly opinionated on parenting and the person said, “I should tell her maybe her kid has cancer next time!” (to which the person who said this was incredibly upset about possibly offending me)
-Someone grabbed my laptop case to go up stairs because I’m “handicapped.”
I started laughing hysterically at the final one and said, “So I guess I’m a fat, handicapped Chinese girl with cancer! What an uplifting experience work has been today!”
None of these things offend me, because they are all true to some extent. I am Asian, I used to be fat (hence the sarcasm), I had cancer and I am not allowed to go up stairs with heavy objects. It’s the sad fucking truth of my life and I’d rather have people have a laugh about it than pity me.
It’s all about intent. If any of those people said those things because they wanted to cause me embarrassment or a means of ostracizing me from my professional or social network I’d have gone ballistic. And you know me as ballistic, it’s not pretty.
If your intention was to degrade and humiliate either MJS or Ali, then you’re an asshole. If your intention was to make a reasonable analogous point what’s the problem? I think everyone gets offended too easily and that is the root of all evil. That and cancerous fat chinese girls parking in handicapped parking spaces.
mupwangle on January 15th, 2008
>>If your intention was to degrade and humiliate either MJS or Ali,
They could still kick his arse though. ;-)
Gary on January 15th, 2008
or at least give me a good shake.
/sorry
No, the intention wasn’t to denigrate anybody. I just have a sick sense of humour.
Gary on January 15th, 2008
Going to see Jimmy Carr soon.
Funny you should mention him, because I find him utterly offensive. I think it’s the delivery more than the actual content – it just gets my back up. Lis’s comment talks about intent, and for me Carr’s delivery suggests a deliberate intent to denigrate. Whereas Sadowitz comes across (again, to me) as a misanthrope who hates absolutely everybody without distinction or discrimination.
That and cancerous fat chinese girls parking in handicapped parking spaces.
Heh. There should be laws!
Squander Two on January 16th, 2008
I used to dislike Carr, until I heard him in interviews. It changed my perception of him completely, because, surprisingly given his stand-up persona, he comes across as an incredibly nice guy. And that knowledge completely changes the way I interpret his delivery.
Sadowitz is a genius.
Tony Kiernan on January 16th, 2008
>>Whereas Sadowitz comes across (again, to me) as a misanthrope who hates absolutely everybody without distinction or discrimination.
Yeah, but he really hates Chris Morris. Reckons he gets lauded for everything that he gets pilloried for. (Went up to remonstrate with him for telling me to fuck off and ended up having a rather nice chat)
Squander Two on January 17th, 2008
Probably the most offensive comedian on TV at the moment is Simon Amstell. But he smiles cheekily and looks like a cute schoolboy, so no-one seems to mind.
Gary on January 17th, 2008
Ah come on, he’s a cheeky wee scamp :)
Squander Two on January 17th, 2008
On the Christmas special, he said that Jesus deserved to be killed. With a cheeky smile.
Gary on January 18th, 2008
I really don’t think he’s as offensive as Carr, though. Do you?
Squander Two on January 18th, 2008
Not sure. I honestly can’t work out whether hiding your offensiveness behind a cute cheeky demeanour is more or less offensive than matching the delivery to the material. It strikes me that people who are likely to be offended by Carr can tell within the first few seconds and so switch off and avoid the actual offensive moment, whereas Amstell lulls people into a false sense of security and then drops a huge bloody great spanner in the works. I can see more people being caught off-guard and sputtering tea all over their TVs when Amstell’s on than Carr.
tm on January 18th, 2008
>lulls people into a false sense of security and then drops a huge bloody great spanner in the works
But isn’t that how the majority of basic jokes work anyway? You expect one ending and get another – which makes you laugh.
Is doing that on the grander scale of your entire act any different?
Squander Two on January 18th, 2008
In comedy terms, no, of course not. All I was suggesting was that it makes you more likely to receive complaints.
That being said, he said last night that he got complaints for not being rude enough to Kate Nash.
mupwangle on January 18th, 2008
>>I can see more people being caught off-guard and sputtering tea all over their TVs when Amstell’s on than Carr.
I’m not sure. You would have to be a very bad judge of character to think that Amstell isn’t a twat almost immediately due to his tone of voice. Carr goes for the deadpan delivery and Amstell goes for the annoying twat option. I don’t think that Amstell, generally, is more offensive. (In topic) Amstell, however, is extremely rude and gets most of his laughs from by winding up famous people who don’t twat him. Amstell is like a little brother or sister who hasn’t grown out of it once they reach puberty.
>>he said that Jesus deserved to be killed.
It was the year before last.
Simon: [lighting a Menorah] I’m just lighting candles for the baby Jesus.
Phill: [mocking] Your people killed him.
[Laughter]
Phill: I don’t mean your mum and dad, I mean, because that would be terrible and I would think they would have told you by now.
Simon: I have no regrets, he deserved it.
Bill Bailey: Merry Christmas everybody!
.
Squander Two on January 18th, 2008
> It was the year before last.
I know, but they repeated it, so it was last year too.