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In broad terms, I agree with both of you on the subject of bullying.
I just don’t believe that an adult – fully in control of his/her emotions, and with a cognisance of black and/or gallows humour – should be bracketed with a child, when it comes to humour.
The worldviews and life experiences of an adult and a child are completely different……….for very obvious reasons………and to suggest that in the telling-of or laughing-at of a joke, an adult is undergoing the same emotional and thought processes as a child, is frankly ridiculous, imo.
Well said GH
What I don’t understand however is how anybody can become so fundamental or dogmatic in their views. For example, I took no part in the jokes thread because I actually don’t find the original jokes all that funny and part of me did view them as somewhat distasteful but no more than that. However, when some wag wrote on Betfair:
‘The PC Brigade at the BBC have gone too far this time awarding SPOTY to a dwarf’
I spat a mouthful of tea across the kitchen and couldn’t stop giggling.
To put this in context Eleanor Simmons was actually awarded Young SPOTY by the BBC for winning two Gold Medals at the Beijing Para-Olympics. When she won her first gold medal I was absolute delighted for her and her family and the country. In fact I posted in the General Sports Sections at the time that ‘for her winning smile alone she should be awarded SPOTY’. So, I genuinely have nothing but respect for her and her achievements.
But I still laughed at a joke directed at her that many would find offensive. Perhaps I’m a bad person for doing so. But then perhaps I’m also able as an adult to distinguish between a joke and real discrimination.
It’s a good thing that schools/the State are taking a closer interest in this.
.. the biggest bullies in schools are the teachers (all of the PE teachers in our school were bullies), you don’t see the State trying to sort them out do you? The government should get it’s own house in order before it tries to sort out mine, thanks very much.
However, when some wag wrote on Betfair:
‘The PC Brigade at the BBC have gone too far this time awarding SPOTY to a dwarf’
I spat a mouthful of tea across the kitchen and couldn’t stop giggling.
Yep there’s nothing quite so funny as mocking the achievements of a 13 year old girl.
Different jokes for different folks i guess.
Take Clivex’s joke from the Alzheimers thread.
Stephen Hawking is in hospital with broken legs, ribs and arms…
…his girlfriend stood him up!
Over the internet i can just about raise a smile at the cleverness and play on words in the joke, probably because its faceless, private and i have a no idea on Clivex’s character. In public or on tv it wouldn’t raise a whimper from me. His disabilty is being genuinely being mocked.
However if Stephen Hawking or someone in a similar position told the joke i would have rolled around the floor laughing.
These types of jokes are only funny to me in the right circumstances.I recall that Billy Connolly made a joke ‘about’ Stephen Hawking. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but it went along the following lines:
"That Stephen Hawking………….pretentious ba*stard……….makes a few quid selling his books, and starts speaking with an American accent".
I thought it was a particularly well observed gag – where the intended ‘victims’, are those types who chose to modify their accent, in order to fit in. Joss Stone would be a contemporary example of the phenomenon.
I found this gag funny, and did not find it mocking of Stephen Hawkings condition one iota. If someone interpreted it a different way, then I can see how they might find it insulting or in very poor taste.
That’s the essential problem with attempting to define a joke as in good or bad taste. Like music, art, literature, architecture, food even – humour is something personal, and that is what makes it essentially beyond defintion. IMO, at least.
Jim Davidson and Phil Jupitus are both still shite though.
But Roland the comment (as it’s not a joke) isn’t actually about her. It’s about a perception than the BBC is so PC that this is the sort of thing they would do. And, I think as a piece of quick-witted observational humour it was within its context (the Betfair Forum) funny.
And what I’m saying is that a I don’t understand how anyone can hold a fundermental view on humour. Surely as you’ve alluded to it’s all about context and content.
BTW, it’s rude to cherry pick or did you not bother reading the rest of my post.
I have no wish to get into any arguements with you.
Ditto, Kevin.
At the same time, I know from experience that there are two types of people who are offended by bad taste humour,
Bullers, I don’t really fit either category. I’ve come over as the son of Mary Whitehouse in this thread because on Friday, I made the classic mistake of losing my rag. I think we’re above those jokes on TRF – clearly others disagree and who the **** am I to say so.
you are probably less likely to burn in hell than most of us.
I’m the first over the Styx, believe me. Ask an ex-girlfriend. Some of the people laughed at on that thread are already in Hell, which is the point I’m making. I mean that joke about Brittle Bone disease just gets worse and worse the more you look at it.
When we’re all losing our jobs and homes it’s nice to know some are far worse off than us – be it physical, mental or financial.
There’s a lot of truth in this – hence the popularity of East Enders – but shouldn’t we be rising above it? What I do find surprising, Pompete, is that you’ve made an impassioned plea for the past fortnight about defending Gaza and the Palestinian people there and yet you won’t defend someone less fortunate than yourself by the sheer courtesy of not laughing at their misfortune.
I can understand you treating my rather High and Mighty position with scorn but not your reasoning.
What I don’t understand however is how anybody can become so fundamental or dogmatic in their views.
Standards, I suppose. I will always defend the underdog. I do in real life and I have done on here. Check the prices of the horses I back for a clue. (This is probably all to my detriment, I think). I’ll challenge what I see as poor behaviour.
If you consider that fundamental (often, I have difficulty working out whether to go to work in a morning), or dogmatic (usually very easily swayed because life is far too short to waste arguing), then so be it.
Mind you, the incidence of Alzheimers in society is quite high and yet there wasn’t exactly a queue of posters expressing their dismay – which I expected to happen – so I feel a bit like Joseph of Aramethea in "Life of Brian" at the moment.
Max, you are clearly unfamiliar with Hicks’ routine where he advocates using the terminally-ill as stunt people in films.
I heard it, Grass. Thanks for pointing that out. Kind of weakens my position a little – though it won’t surprise you to know that I didn’t laugh much and I generally find him hysterical. Put the Goat Boy sketch on and I’m jelly in seconds.
like you Max, but I personally couldn’t give two shits about the fact that you studied the pyschology of humour as part of your Masters.
Ditto Grass. Andrew made a point a few weeks back about these debates being fed by Wikepedia and half remembered internet facts. I was just trying to say that I’ve read an actual book written by an actual Professor on the subject in order to bolster confidence in my position. Won’t happen again. Most unfunny course in the world though, which was not the reason I elected to take it.
For me, a bully is someone who might….say…..go crazy at his son, simply because he wants to go and see Man Utd rather than his local team.
Nah, I’m having none of that, though my brother ripped the p**s out of me in similar fashion, but I do see the point you’re making about jumping to conclusions.
It was easier to go along with cruelty than to stand up against it
Andrew, you’re going to get thugs in all walks of life, as you point out, and school was horrible. But in many ways, a lot of the bullies didn’t know any better. They used to go home at night, take a battering from their dads and then replicate the experience at school the next day. I realised they deserved pity, after a while.
The people who didn’t deserve pity were the ones who knew better and still joined in the beatings and the humiliations. This is partly my point.
One of the worst bullies at our school ended up being a GP. He was highly intelligent but had no moral backbone and a hard-man fetish. He’s one of only two people I hate in the world because he was aware enough to walk away, or to intervene, yet he was the first in with the moonstomp when the victim was on the floor. Usually someone suspected of being gay, someone who wore glasses, an Asian, someone who wasn’t very attractive. If you were in the CSE remedial group, you were in big trouble from this fella too. I was always rowing with him and got myself hammered one night by him and ten of his "mates" after school. Three of them rang me up in the evening begging me not to grass them up. Hard men, huh!
Anyroad, thank Christ for Bullying Policies and PSHE. Awareness raising if nothing else. We were pretty defenceless thirty years ago because of the "toughening up" policies of teachers.
Anyway, if you’re not a bully and you feel I’ve labelled you as such, I apologise. I was bloody furious and more triggers were pulled than in the final scene of the "The Wild Bunch".
My best friend’s eldest child is a dwarf..whether dwarf jokes amused me prior to that I can’t remember, but they certainly haven’t for the past 29 years….there is such a fine line between black humour and sick humour that unless you’re really good at it best not to go there in the first place..also a fine line between laughing at someone or with them…..
I heard it, Grass. Thanks for pointing that out. Kind of weakens my position a little – though it won’t surprise you to know that I didn’t laugh much and I generally find him hysterical. Put the Goat Boy sketch on and I’m jelly in seconds.
Really? I thought it was one of his all-time great routines. Perhaps not so good as "Waffle Waitress", but hysterically funny all the same (Man….Chuck kicked her head clean off!").
Ditto Grass. Andrew made a point a few weeks back about these debates being fed by Wikepedia and half remembered internet facts. I was just trying to say that I’ve read an actual book written by an actual Professor on the subject in order to bolster confidence in my position. Won’t happen again. Most unfunny course in the world though, which was not the reason I elected to take it.
I’m not trying to disrespect your learning, mate – only the application of it. I’ve hopefully finally made my position clear about humour, and it’s interpretation, in my last post.
Nah, I’m having none of that, though my brother ripped the p**s out of me in similar fashion, but I do see the point you’re making about jumping to conclusions.
Was just yanking your chain on this one, so feel perfectly free to tell me to do one!
Maybe there is a neurological perspective on this.
People may have two conflicting mental processes when they hear a sick joke. The first might be to laugh, perhaps because we’ve learnt to find the misfortune of others funny in harmless circumstances (slapstick, Charlie Chaplin, Mr Bean etc.), perhaps there is a play on words that tickles us or perhaps we used to laugh at such things at school in order to fit in (there may be a thousand other reasons why certain jokes trigger this instinct in people).
The second mental process is to think that perhaps we shouldn’t laugh because on reflection the joke is based around the genuine suffering of others and we aren’t comfortable laughing at it. Maybe we learn this through our parents teaching us (often via a clip round the ear) the boundaries of acceptable behaviour, maybe we have direct experience of eg Alzheimers etc.
Some people seem to believe that the first impulse is more natural and honest than the second. This may be because the neural connection is shorter and therefore the reaction quicker, whereas the second is slightly delayed whilst our brain assesses the joke.
Personally, I think that what makes us human is that we use both processess. I might, for example, become extremely angry upon seeing a celebrating Wolves fan. The impulse to strangle him with his tatty orange scarf may occur in my brain. I would however, restrain myself. The impulse would then fade. Am I being dishonest by not strangling him? I wouldn’t say so. I’m being a rational human in not acting on a temporary impulse.
There may well be jokes that initially I might chuckle at, but on reflection, when my brain has had time to process it, I would stop laughing. The initial reaction isn’t more honest, it isn’t a truer reflection of who we are, it is just a neurological process.
And Dave, whilst I understand the logic of what you are saying, it is an extreme and impractical position. There is nothing wrong with schools trying to spend a few minutes teaching kids how they are expected to behave in school. As a parent, I’m grateful for all the help I can get. I’m not going to wait until the government is a shining beacon of probity before I let the school teach my daughter maths and this is just another subject for them teach. Obviously, if the school was teaching something directly contradictory to what we were teaching our daughter, then we’d discuss it with them. Seems to me that teaching kids to respect one another is as harmless and beneficial as teaching them the basics of physics.
Fair enough Max.
My reasoning on this (as your interested) stems from the view that the vast, vast, vast majority of people in this country are decent, honest, and above all fair. Of course, there are always examples even within our own lives when we or others act to the contrary but in doing so my view would be that we are responding to either base emotions such as fear, anger caution etc or we make decisions in ignorance.
I should make clear what I’m talking about here is our individual interaction with others on a personal level. I simply don’t see sexist, racist or disability discrimination or groups of people being persecuted at large in our society and most certainly not on this forum. Therefore, I don’t believe we need protecting from ourselves.
Re: my first post I was as GH puts it ‘yanking you chain’ – sorry
Interesting points Andrew – may well be something in that.
What I do find surprising, Pompete, is that you’ve made an impassioned plea for the past fortnight about defending Gaza and the Palestinian people there and yet you won’t defend someone less fortunate than yourself by the sheer courtesy of not laughing at their misfortune.
WTF has that got to do with anything?
Two muslim blokes chatting away…one says to the other " my son wants to be a suicide bomber"
"Blimey. They dont half blow up quickly these days!"
I recall that Billy Connolly made a joke ‘about’ Stephen Hawking. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but it went along the following lines:
"That Stephen Hawking………….pretentious ba*stard……….makes a few quid selling his books, and starts speaking with an American accent".
Wasn’t that Ricky Gervais’s joke Grassy?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6ktBQ51iGWw
About 2 mins 30 seconds in.
There may well be jokes that initially I might chuckle at, but on reflection, when my brain has had time to process it, I would stop laughing. The initial reaction isn’t more honest, it isn’t a truer reflection of who we are, it is just a neurological process.
Dont agree
The first instinct is probably the correct one. So what if you laugh at some old bag tripping over with her weekly shopping?
Trying to stop yourself at laughing at certain incidents/jokes is as bad as trying to make yourself laugh at Vic Reeves or someone
so you’d find it funny if an ‘old bag’ fell over with her shopping..at what point would it not actually be funny…if she broke her leg in the process? my first instinct in a situation like that would be of concern and wanting to help…jeeez this thread is getting stupid……
So, just to clarify, Clivex, if you were walking down the street and an elderly woman fell over in front of you, you’d stand there laughing?
I’m interested to in your use of the word ‘correct’? How do you define what is correct when what we are talking about is a biological process? Are some groups of neurons correct and others incorrect?
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