Should the Bbc ban comedian Jo Brand for "battery acid" joke?

I am old enough to remember when the late great Kenny Everett did a comedy sketch
on the BBC TV about a caricature US general advocating bombing the Russians.

The sketch was very obviously aimed at the US military. However the Russian government
formally complained that the UK state broadcaster was advocating a war of aggression.
Everybody, including the Russians, knew that it was a comedy sketch; but the point was
made that permitting it would result in a slippery slope normalisation of calls for aggression.

The sketch was accordingly edited out of repeats and further DVDs.
 
EnglishEdward said:
I am old enough to remember when the late great Kenny Everett did a comedy sketch
on the BBC TV about a caricature US general advocating bombing the Russians.

The sketch was very obviously aimed at the US military. However the Russian government
formally complained that the UK state broadcaster was advocating a war of aggression.
Everybody, including the Russians, knew that it was a comedy sketch; but the point was
made that permitting it would result in a slippery slope normalisation of calls for aggression.

The sketch was accordingly edited out of repeats and further DVDs.
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And the bbc is editing out Jo Brand's joke. Everett wasn't jailed or banned.
There was some controversy about his "Lets bomb Russia" and "kick Michael Foot's stick away" jokes at a Tory party event but again he wasn't banned.
 
Manfred Belheim said:
Damn it, I nearly liked that post, then you threw it all away in the last sentence!
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yeah maybe it came off a bit too strong. I'll be completely honest with you.. I have heard some good genocide jokes. and I did laugh. I felt a little pathetic, but it wasn't too bad or anything.
 
yung.carl.jung said:
yeah maybe it came off a bit too strong. I'll be completely honest with you.. I have heard some good genocide jokes. and I did laugh. I felt a little pathetic, but it wasn't too bad or anything.
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For example:

Comic-Of-Dogs-And-Men.jpg


The focus obviously isn't on anything offensive, but on making a joke.
I suspect the "Fat" routine is also part of the joke (ie it is an in-joke) but I may be wrong and then the person who wrote that is just insensitive against fat people too :) I think it is an in-joke, judging by the sexism in the middle part. Well, I give up, maybe this is just sexism/anti-jewism & fat-shaming.
 
yung.carl.jung said:
yeah maybe it came off a bit too strong. I'll be completely honest with you.. I have heard some good genocide jokes. and I did laugh. I felt a little pathetic, but it wasn't too bad or anything.
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Actually I didn't disagree with the general point, just the implication that you think the specific joke in question was "making fun of jews".
 
How should it be handled?
Here in the states a comedian from the hit tv show 'Neighbors' started doing standup comedy at a comedy club, one nite a black guy in the audience started harassing him, the comedian replied with a non pc rant. The Comedian's career was ruined.

I am all for non PC humor, not violent type humor.
 
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AmazonQueen said:
And the bbc is editing out Jo Brand's joke. Everett wasn't jailed or banned.
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The Kenny Everett shows were pre-recorded before broadcasting so to a certain extent, the program producer was culpable.

I think that there is a subtle difference here.

On a live show, the comedian needs to be careful, on a pre-recorded show they can take their chances knowing that their output will be edited.
 
abradley said:
How should it be handled?
Here in the states a comedian from the hit tv show 'Neighbors' started doing standup comedy at a comedy club, one nite a black guy in the audience started harassing him, the comedian replied with a non pc rant. The Comedian's career was ruined.

I am all for non PC humor, not violent type humor.
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you talking about Kramer? yeah, what a shame. the guy clearly had some issues himself, probably some psychological problems, too, and one dumb Heckler led him to make a mistake.

Michael Richards did not destroy his own career. The media ended his career, systematically, consciously. he was, what we call in Germany a "Bauernopfer", a sort of sacrificial lamb that commited an archetypical sin and is then publicly humiliated (as he did with the Heckler, ironically) as a sort of collective punishment.

sometimes I really do think it was easier when we had a sovereign and elaborate torture. at least you knew who to hate.

Manfred Belheim said:
Actually I didn't disagree with the general point, just the implication that you think the specific joke in question was "making fun of jews".
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in that case you read me wrongly, because I was not implying that. I was just making the general statement that "making fun of jews" is kinda pathetic. I don't think any joke about the Nazis (like teaching a dog the Hitlergruss) is also, by extension, a joke about jews. too much mental gymnastics to me. and you know I'm a lazy person :lol:

Kyriakos said:
For example:



The focus obviously isn't on anything offensive, but on making a joke.
I suspect the "Fat" routine is also part of the joke (ie it is an in-joke) but I may be wrong and then the person who wrote that is just insensitive against fat people too :) I think it is an in-joke, judging by the sexism in the middle part. Well, I give up, maybe this is just sexism/anti-jewism & fat-shaming.
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I think this is much more of a meta-joke (you call it in-joke) than it is about genocide. It is precisely trying to make fun of the reality that we, mostly, can only make fun of minorities, women and fat people, or otherwise make lame puns. the joke kind of hits home. it's a good one, not in the sense that it is funny (it wasn't that funny to me), but in that its cathartic. a very oldschool joke indeed, like in a proper comedy, fitting for a greek :lol:
 
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Kramer's career was over before his outburst, he had a chance at TV/movies and bombed. Of the 4 only Elaine had post-Seinfeld success making sitcoms.
 
Berzerker said:
Kramer's career was over before his outburst, he had a chance at TV/movies and bombed. Of the 4 only Elaine had post-Seinfeld success making sitcoms.
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Maybe because he was never actually good.
That said, this was also why he made that career-ending joke. If he was better he would have thought of some other way to speak to the heckler.
 
Good speech is all that's necessary. No censorship. If people tune out her career dies with the bad joke. If they don't, and no attacks happen in her name then it's in bad taste but acceptable.

Then again I'm American and we have a president who calls for violence at rallies and praised a congressman for assaulting a reporter. We're obviously not as refined as the Brits.
 
Kramer lost it before the heckling, a large group of people came in late and made a ruckus getting settled in and ordering drinks and he was ripping into them based on race even before somebody in the group heckled him.
 
Those are two pretty convincing arguments, but Kyr is entirely wrong about Kramer not being good at acting. He was better than good, he was perfect. His acting was superb. It might have been the role that elicited his acting, though, that much I will concede, we will never know.
 
Berzerker said:
Kramer lost it before the heckling, a large group of people came in late and made a ruckus getting settled in and ordering drinks and he was ripping into them based on race even before somebody in the group heckled him.
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Have to agree. He was more often than not the most entertaining character on Seinfeld.
 
Socrates99 said:
Good speech is all that's necessary. No censorship. If people tune out her career dies with the bad joke. If they don't, and no attacks happen in her name then it's in bad taste but acceptable.

Then again I'm American and we have a president who calls for violence at rallies and praised a congressman for assaulting a reporter. We're obviously not as refined as the Brits.
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Good people. There were some good people. On both sides of the pond.
 
yung.carl.jung said:
Those are two pretty convincing arguments, but Kyr is entirely wrong about Kramer not being good at acting. He was better than good, he was perfect. His acting was superb. It might have been the role that elicited his acting, though, that much I will concede, we will never know.
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I haven't seen him on Seinfeld, cause I never could stand Seinfeld. I have seen the Kramer actor in a few sketches in tv shows, where imo he was rather not that good.
I do think, however, that he isn't racist - he just wasn't comfortable enough with responding in some better way. At any rate he wasn't young when that happened, so chances are his career would have been over even without that specific stand-up happening.

 
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