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Recent posts, such as this (which isn't that funny, really apart from "Afghanastinians") and this include some very sick jokes.
For some people, they are almost certain to be offensive - and they are also in extremely bad taste. That's not to say we don't laugh at them.
In fact, the more offensive a joke is, the more likely I am to laugh at it. I'm also aware that I use very dark humour sometimes as a coping method in my job, something I know others do too.
(For instance, some traffic cops give marks for style to road accident victims.)
Rod Liddle, the producer of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, writes a column in the Guardianabout the programme. he notes that, after the terrorist attacks on America, there were no jokes.
He notes:
Not one in over a week. Just six hours after the Princess of Wales was killed I recall being told the first of many Diana jokes. The same occurred after the Brighton bombing, the explosion of the Challenger, the arrest of Peter Sutcliffe. Name your disaster, horror or tragedy, no matter how grotesque, and there will be someone making a joke of it somewhere. These black jokes are a form of whistling in the dark, I suppose. This time, none at all. Too dark even for whistling. The story began like a piece of Hollywood fiction and ended up being all too real and all too close.
Of course, that has now changed: we have all heard at least one Bin Laden joke, or had that witty 'Can I come and stay with you?' text message, and some of us have laughed.
Comedy is tragedy plus time, of course - but is anyone aware of any theory, or does anyone have any theories, about the sick joke? How long is 'acceptable' before making gags about the dead?
Why do we laugh at jokes about the darkest topics in the world?
What defines our notions of offensive?
(Oh, and the title of this thread isn't to do with a sick gag about slicing frogs to pieces. It's that quote about analysing jokes being like dissecting frogs - it's possible, but the subject usually dies during the work.) |
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