Given how much I enjoy comedy it's not really surprising that it was Frankie Boyle's comments about Down Syndrome that coaxed me into this. Whatever follows, I am amazingly impressed by Sharon Smith, the woman who objected to the comments; the class with which she has handled this whole issue - no press interviews, no righteous anger, just a bald statement of the truth in a free-to-view public forum - leaves me hugely awed and humbled. I'd have behaved terribly in her shoes!
However, I don't feel that this issue is as cut-and-dried as a lot of the commentators I've read seem to. Boyle himself (reported by Marc Lee in the Telegraph) says that, "there's no line you can't cross" in comedy, though surely there is at the very least a line of legality, where comedy becomes incitement to hatred? A very thorough investigation of the issue by Brian Logan uses the word irony more times than the Alanis Morisette song, as an explanation for the apparent intolerance perpertrated by many modern comedians. The argument here goes that portraying stereotypes can be framed as laughing at the [eg racists] not the [eg racial stereotype], but what about people who don't see it that way? And wasn't that the excuse which that Fawlty Towers episode used, not to mention ITV sitcom "Love Thy Neighbour"? Do we still see them as ironic today?
An exception is often granted in the case of people mocking a group to which they belong, eg recent film release The Infidel, or Jo Brand making fat jokes. But doesn't this more strongly reinforce stereotypes than a person from outside the group sending them up? After all, if we can watch a fat woman telling us she eats a lot of cake, isn't that more convincing than Jimmy Carr saying it? Parts of Djalili's stand-up involves parodying Islamic extremists; but given that he himself is Baha'i isn't that at great risk of cementing the link in people's minds between anything from the Middle East and terrorists?
Paul MacInnes' article (which mainly focuses on taboo rather than tolerance - which one of us has missed the point?!) provides a set of guidelines for comics to stay within. For all he admits that they, "could prove...to be a little woolly", I'm not convinced that they're even a helpful starting point. Why are we allowed to laugh at dominant groups but not oppressed ones? Does laughing with Michael McIntyre at the white British male obsession with lofts enforce a sense of this group being, "default" and others being "other"? Is it patronising to imply that oppressed groups can't laugh at themselves, or that the mainstream is unable to distinguish between caricature and reality? McInnes also talks about choice, but a person's weight isn't the only grey area here; in this country at least accent is often altered to denote class aspiration, and don't people choose their religion? From the other side, John Holmes didn't choose to be short, so is the running joke about his height on Radio 4's The Now Show inappropriate if he doesn't mind?
If Russell Howard can get away with impressions of a Taiwanese person on his BBC show, and Ross Noble can be lauded for his Stephen Hawking skit by someone else with a similar voice synthesiser, how much of this is about context? When I first pointed friends to the Frankie Boyle news story I coupled it with this film trailer parody, which also features a person with an impairment in a not-altogether flattering manner (he's described as a "retard" at one point), and yet no-one complained at the apparent irony - why not? And why was complaint so slow in coming, when Boyle's standard comedic fare on Mock the Week included paedophilia, kidnap and rape, not always separately?
And finally, what does it say about me that the first time I saw the headline I thought of Susan Boyle...?
"In this country at least accent is often altered to denote class aspiration"
ReplyDelete*guilty look*
"...and don't people choose their religion?"
Really? Wouldn't John 15:16 say otherwise?
I'm going to say that power has a LOT to do with it (and then point you in the direction of my latest blog post on the same subject...)
ReplyDeleteI used to use the "choice" definition myself, but it does fall short in some areas - such as, like you mention "short" jokes, when people don't mind. If they *do* mind, then I think it's pretty obvious that it's not funny. I'm sensitive about my weight, for example, and while I will make jokes about it, I'd feel awful if someone else made the same joke.
Which is where I think the power thing comes in. See, when I make the joke, I'm the one in control of it, when someone else does, they're in control and thus excersising their privilege of not-being-fat over me. Same as a white person making a racist joke is excersising their White Privilege, or a bloke making misogynist jokes is excersising their Male Privilege. (And if you don't know what I mean by those terms, please tell me, and I'll point you in the direction of the appropriate explainations.)
I may come back to this in a mo - but tea is ready...
Hi! Am back :)
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of stereotyping...
Nik: "But doesn't this more strongly reinforce stereotypes than a person from outside the group sending them up? After all, if we can watch a fat woman telling us she eats a lot of cake, isn't that more convincing than Jimmy Carr saying it?"
Me: Well... yes and no, because Carr is part of the dominant group whose opinions are culturally given more weight, and because when Brand is saying it she isn't doing it to denigrate and "other" herself, she's saying "I may be fat, but I'm also funny and powerful".
At the same time, this can sometimes smack a bit to me of "Uncle Tomming", and while I may disagree with their choice to do so, I won't judge someone who, having lived with prejudice, decides to make that choice in order to be accepted.
Yet thirdly, I think most of the time when someone makes fun of themselves, a prejudice they've had to endure or similar, it is enabling, and an exploration of the subject and challenge to preconceptions, because, as someone who's lived the issue in question, they are more sensitive to its nuances.
Point the next:
Nik: "Why are we allowed to laugh at dominant groups but not oppressed ones?"
Alex: For the same reason that Parliament has an opposition government. People in positions of power can stand a little criticism - ultimately it will only affect them if they choose to let it. And if it forces them to re-examine their privilege and do something about it, then so much the better.
Nik: "Is it patronising to imply that ... the mainstream is unable to distinguish between caricature and reality?"
Alex: Yes. However when the caricatures start to outnumber the positive rolemodels for that group, then you start to have a problem.
Nik: "Does laughing with Michael McIntyre at the white British male obsession with lofts enforce a sense of this group being, "default" and others being "other"?"
Alex: If I take your meaning right [when you say "this group" you mean "white British males" not "white British loft-obsessed males"?], then no, I don't think it does. Mind you, society as a whole manages to do that just fine on its own.
Vis the penultimate paragraph... the Russell Howard bit left something of a bad taste in my mouth - I find he's mostly hillarious, but just occasionally says something that makes me want to cry.
Anyway that's probably enough from me for now...
Thanks!
@"Not-being-fat-privelage" and "White privelage" - I think those are subjective and depend on the confidence/self assertion of the parties involved. If I make jokes about the fact that I am from a different country, I also don't mind if white, indigenous British people do, because I don't think they are in a position of greater power/privelage, and I don't think of myself as oppressed. By accepting that we can joke/laugh about ourselves, or laugh when others joke about us, I think is a great way to reinforce confidence amongst an "oppressed" party.
ReplyDelete@Amy, please remember that religion does not always equal Christianity!
Amy, if God chooses who should follow them, does that make evangelism redundant? And does it mean that God chooses who to save and who not to save? (And does anyone know if that's a teaching of Calvinism, or am I getting my denominations muddled again?)
ReplyDeleteSesquepedalia, my problem with your choice definition is that it still allows potentially offensive humour while claiming to prevent it. Is every woman happy with other women telling misogynist jokes, however empowering she herself finds it, for example? And although the power imbalance does allow for male stereotypes to cause less offence does that mean that no-one is offended when a woman laughs that men are unable to ask for directions? Let alone the fact that this discussion so far has been couched in highly gender-binary terms, how does this factor in?
Also, I'm not entirely sure that Parliament is a useful comparison to draw, for a whole multitude of reasons which might just make a future post....
This entry, coupled with a bunch of other stuff, inspired the LJ posting I just finished.
ReplyDelete