Media personalities ashamed by jokes they have told.

[repoman]

I just watched a clip of Joe Rogan acting (and highly likely honestly feeling) very contrite for a joke about Corey Feldman. It is quite interesting and complex his description of his visceral feelings about it.



I don't think that in context the joke in a small group (buddies in a bar) would be anywhere near beyond the pale, but with how large his podcast audience is and media beyond that it gets tricky.

The other situation this reminds me of is when Steve Coogan was a bit torn up over "spastic" in a comedy bit years before.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/07/30/steve-coogan-ashamed-of-alan-partridge-spastic-line-3904127/

 

[Ford]

This is what sets comics apart. You and your buddies in a bar can joke about things and you get a laugh, but going back and examining that off the cuff comment you made?

That doesn't happen often. And to think about the person you told a joke about...to put yourself in their shoes and think how they'd take the joke? That's another thing entirely, and you've gotta tread carefully.

A guy I know was friends with the recently departed Ralphie May. And he explained how what was apparently a terribly insensitive thing was actually funny in context. Amy Schumer tweeted out a picture of Gabriel Iglesias (another overweight comic) with the caption "RIP Ralphie May." What my friend explained was that Ralphie would have wanted that...for people to make inappropriate jokes about him. But what if you didn't have that permission?

What Rogan is doing here is going deep into what he's said. Self-examination on the level that an artist like a comic (and comics are absolutely artists) has to confront in order to tell jokes on stage. At the risk of waxing poetic, a lot of comedy comes from pain, but Joe is also expressing profound empathy for another person's pain, and is something that maybe your buddies in a bar will never consider. That nerd or fat loser at the other end of the bar who gets shot down by the pretty girl he's trying to hit on and you and your buddies laugh hysterically as he walks away, devastated? You may have never put yourself in his shoes...too wrapped up with yukking it up with your friends to consider what he's going through at that moment.

Rogan drilled down into that. Empathy and sensitivity that peels away the layers that exist underneath the jokes.

 

[Underseer]

The concept should not be hard to understand, at least not for an American.

Humor often comes at someone else's expense.

That humor should always "punch up" and never "punch down" to borrow the lingo of American comedians. The same thing applies whether you're a personal comedian or a private citizen at a bar. If you are white and tell a joke that implies black children are bike thieves, you're not edgy, you're just an asshole. Saying it among friends at a bar doesn't change the fact that you're an asshole and not funny. If you are middle class and make fun of rich people, they aren't going to be harmed by your joke in any way.

Not sure I want to watch this video given that it was recommended by someone sporting a Kekistan flag. I shudder to think what's in there.

Here's a different video on the ethics of controversial subjects in comedy.



Mel Brooks is a Jew who has made a lot of comedy about Nazis, and gotten in trouble with other Jews for it. Mel argues that he is knocking them down a notch and depriving them of what makes them appealing, while helping himself process the horrors of World War 2, while other Jews argued that he trivialized and made light of a terrible tragedy.

I would argue that Mel was successful in what he tried to do, but it's not hard to see that in anyone else's hands, those same jokes might have done exactly what his critics were worried about.

 

[repoman]

That was a pretty good video by Lindsey Ellis. Saw it a while ago, remember most of her points even now.

I think that jokes can be about subverting expectations and be mean if taken literally while actually not being so.

This is a good example:

A little boy and a pedophile are walking in the deep, dark, woods. The little boy says,

"Mister, I'm scared! These woods are really creepy."

The pedophile replies, "How do you think I feel? I have to walk back all by myself."

Watch it Underseer, it is safe.