Independent Media | Campaigning Journalism
The ‘you can’t say anything these days’ crowd demands Jo Brand’s head
Jo Brand recently made a joke about using battery acid to ‘milkshake’ hard-right hate shits. She made the joke on a radio show designed to “test the boundaries of what it’s OK to say and not say”. Given the political landscape, the gag obviously falls into the category of things you probably don’t want to joke about.
What’s surprising is who she actually offended. Because most enraged are the people who usually argue that you should be able to joke about whatever you want. Which is to say whatever they want, obviously, because you can’t have people making fun of them.
Big mouth strikes again
Nigel Farage was giving a speech about how he intends to ‘pick up a rifle’ if Brexit gets halted when he heard the news. The speech went:
People in this country have gone mad with political correctness – you can’t say anything these days! They say that I’m a racist just because I did a big racist poster and also some other things. You know what I say to them?
I say… sorry… hang on a minute… I’m just learning that – oh no you don’t – some leftist fucking garbage woman has made a joke at my expense. Police! Police! Someone call the police!
Parallel
Farage later asked what would happen in a parallel universe in which he was the one to say something awful:
Read on...
I am sick to death of overpaid, left wing, so-called comedians on the BBC who think their view is morally superior. Can you imagine the reaction if I had said the same thing as Jo Brand? pic.twitter.com/hCEFSCqMGI
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) June 13, 2019
If it was anything like this reality, he’d probably get invited on to do Question Time for the millionth time.
Featured image via Flickr – Gage Skidmore
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Where was the fuss when Osborne said May should be cut up and put in a freezer or all the other comments made by the Tories. I’m sure Boris made a few including suicide vests. She cut it off as soon as she said it so can we have some furore about Tory comments and then all agree to moderate our words.
A milk shake doesn’t do any harm but acid attacks are a serious matter that have left people disfigured and sometimes blinded, and there is a double standard.
Clearly you have a remarkably limited sense of humour, or none whatsoever if you think it should be restricted to things that can do no harm. You must be mystified by black comedy. Presumably Doctor Strangelove isn’t a classic of the genre because it’s about nuclear weapons, which, as we all know, are a very serious matter, and have killed many thousands.
What we really don’t want is for humourless people to lay down the laws of humour for those who actually have a sense of it.
If Nigel Farage had made the same “Joke” about Jo Brand the same people laughing at this would be outraged. It reminds me of racist jokes that are only funny if you are a racist.
I suggest you google “acid attacks”. They are an increasing problem both in the UK and elswhere.
You clearly missed the point of Doctor Strangelove, and I doubt if either Stanly Kubrick or Peter Sellers would have considered acid attacks very funny
Acid attack victims have been speaking out against Jo Brand, they don’t find them funny. Perhaps you should tell an acid attack victim to his or her face that they should get a sense of humour.
If someone threw acid in your face would you find it funny?
In fact Stanley Kubrick actually took nuclear weapons seriously, that’s why he made Doctor Strangelove. Jo Brand is not taking acid attacks seriously, and anyone with any intelligence can see the difference.
“In fact Stanley Kubrick actually took nuclear weapons seriously, that’s why he made Doctor Strangelove.”
Obviously. It’s a black comedy, so it takes its subject seriously. That is the nature of the genre. It’s also very funny, but I suspect you didn’t get that bit.
“I doubt if either Stanly Kubrick or Peter Sellers would have considered acid attacks very funny”. I doubt they’d have considered a nuclear attack as “very funny”, but they made a very funny film about one.
“Jo Brand is not taking acid attacks seriously”. But she is. It’s precisely because an acid attack is so serious that the joke is funny. The humour lies in the outrageousness of the suggestion. Clearly you don’t get that. As I said before, most of us won’t stand for humourless people telling people with a sense of humour what is and is not funny. Life would just be too dull.
“If someone threw acid in your face would you find it funny?” If you seriously imagine that people find the remark funny because they think throwing acid in someone’s face is funny then you really don’t understand how this kind of humour works; it’s funny precisely because it’s outrageous, and I for one am not going to allow anyone with the sense of humour of a sock to insist that I’m only allowed to laugh at things they can’t misinterpret as offensive, having completely missed the point.