Jimmy Carr

Any views on his 'joke'?

My problem with Carr isn't so much the joke, but the fact that he's painfully, annoyingly, unfunny.

Does anything go now? Should he be cancelled?

He may have gone too far this time to be honest, he does like to shock but i think that was in poor taste really. He is a funny man so not sure why he feels the need to make jokes about the holocaust? Is he trying to prove a point about cancel culture?

We do have freedom of speech so he can say what he wants but you do then have to suffer the consequences.

I'm not a Carr fan and didn't watch his show or hear the joke but I did read this and thought the context in which he made the 'joke' was valid and that his 'joke' taken in isolation and judged is probably not the correct way of viewing it. -

So, can a comedian deliberately end their career with an offensive joke? That's almost the starting point for Jimmy Carr in His Dark Material.

He begins with a trigger warning, telling the audience "tonight's show contains jokes about terrible things", explaining that "these are just jokes, not the terrible things".

Carr continues an hour-long routine that riffs on, amongst other controversial topics, paedophiles, ugly women, rape, disability and veganism. All vintage Carr. While his fans adore his near-the-knuckle humour, others would find many of these jokes offensive.

Five minutes before the end of the show, he turns to a subject he says "should be a career ender". Carr then proceeds to tell the joke which has now been widely reported and condemned.

The show has been widely streamed on Netflix since Christmas Day. But it was only when a clip was shared on social media recently that the storm erupted.

Some believe that Carr has crossed a line, as he's picked on a community that is too often marginalised. They argue that those words, as a standalone, feel brutal, discriminatory, unfunny and indefensible.

But is there a difference when the words are taken as part of an hour-long set in which Carr specifically makes clear, from the outset, that he's going to be offensive and then frames the joke within the context of "career enders"?

After telling the joke, Carr explains why he thinks it is valid. He claims it's "funny" and "edgy" because it's about "the worst thing that's ever happened in human history" which we should "never forget".

He also says there is an "educational quality" to raising it, as people know the Nazis murdered Jews, but they don't know, claims Carr, they also killed gypsies and other groups.

Full article here -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60292675

What next? Jokes about the murder of James Bulger? 

I sometimes think modern comedians take themselves far too seriously. Just make us laugh.

I don't mind "dark" humour in context but I find Jimmy Carr irritating and in need of a good slap every time he laughs and for that reason alone

boltonbonce wrote:What next? Jokes about the murder of James Bulger? 

I sometimes think modern comedians take themselves far too seriously. Just make us laugh.

I'm sure there are jokes about the Bulger killing.

I remember the time before social media when I travelled to a nearby college on the underground and when I arrived there I was asked what I thought was a very random question as to what N.A.S.A. stood for (which I didn't know but knew it was the American Space programme).

I was told it stood for Need Another Seven Astronauts - the Challenger shuttle had exploded that day and killed the crew of seven.

It always struck me how quick and witty someone had obviously been to come up with that and how the deaths of seven people seemed somehow inconsequential to it all.

Apparently 'black' humour - laughing at horrible things - gets people who have to deal with horrible things, to get through them.

I wouldn't know as I wouldn't want to do the jobs that they sometimes have to do.

I personally wouldn't joke about the holocaust, the Challenger disaster or anything like such things.

But saying that I watched Frankie Boyles New World Order end of year show (I'm not a fan of Boyle but wondered if his best bits would make me laugh?) and although it wasn't my cup of tea some of his cracks about Princess Andrew were funny - and we are talking about having alleged underage sex.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012xvf/frankie-boyles-new-world-order-2021

If anything I believe you've got the wrong end of the stick Bonce, instead of the comedians taking themselves too seriously I reckon it is society that now takes the comedians 'jokes' too seriously.

Shit things happen in life - a bad or tasteless joke isn't the most important thing to be outraged about, there's a lot worse out there that needs to be put right first.

I've nothing against tasteless jokes, or jokes that make us feel uncomfortable, but sometimes you get a gut instinct that something isn't quite right.
You can often see audience members laughing nervously, looking around to see if anyone else is laughing, and taking their cue from the reaction of others.
At the end of the day the real arbiter is the audience. They'll make the final decision.
I'v always adored Laurel and Hardy. My late aunty hated them with a passion. She left the room if they ever came on the telly.
There's nowt so queer as folk. (can I say folk?)

wanderlust wrote:
Probably, but I bet you can't say



"Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing an imaginary menagerie"

Just tried, and failed. Now I'll have to keep going. I'm going to get funny looks. Nothing new of course.

I'm ok with it but struggle with...

"Pad kid poured curd pulled cod" - primarily because it makes no effing sense


....unlike

"A tutor who tooted the flute
tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor, ‘
Is it harder to toot, or
to tutor two tooters to toot?'”

wanderlust wrote:I'm ok with it but struggle with...

"Pad kid poured curd pulled cod" - primarily because it makes no effing sense


....unlike

"A tutor who tooted the flute
tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor, ‘
Is it harder to toot, or
to tutor two tooters to toot?'”

Wasn't pad kid deemed the most difficult in the world? I had no trouble with that one. How often can you crowbar them into a sentence? 

boltonbonce wrote:
Wasn't pad kid deemed the most difficult in the world? I had no trouble with that one. How often can you crowbar them into a sentence? 

Think I had it in a Thai restaurant once.