Humor

[Holden Caulfield]

click this link and go to 3.19...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZQrimtFSOY

Is this funny and ironic, or is it massively offensive,

also can we discuss what humor is funny and what is just plain wrong.

I've got to say i laughed at the joke in the link, i felt dirty afterwards tho

[Killfacer]

As long as they're not just laughing at the deaths of thousands of people. It depends on the circumstances i guess. I have heard that gas bill one before and i did laugh, but it probably would be massively offensive to a lot of people, heres another two i have heard before:

I hate what the nazis did to my father... they passed him up for promotion so many times!

or

My dad died in a concetration camp... He fell from a watch tower.

They're both funny, but the second one is more offensive because it talks about concentration camps. Personally i think that context is everything and that each joke has to be judged invidiually. It's an extremely touchy subject though and most people will have differing opinions on it.

[Holden Caulfield]

My dad died in a concetration camp... He fell from a watch tower.
thats the joke at 3.19 which i told you to look at...
muppet;)

anyhoo i found that watchtower one funny but not the gas bill one, although i probs would have in my formative years...

(p.s. I have a rather sick/ironic sense of humor in real life, I find it funny when talking to other communists to say the most reactionary things in a casual way just to laugh at their reactions, I did it to Bobkindles for 2 days straight)

[JimmyJazz]

heres another two i have heard before:

I hate what the nazis did to my father... they passed him up for promotion so many times!

or

My dad died in a concetration camp... He fell from a watch tower.


And you thought it was bad when I missed the Zinn citation in your op before replying.

[Sasha]

depends on who is doing the jokes and with what intention ; a black man talking about "niggers" can be funny, when a fat bonehead does it its not.

the same goes with jews, gays, women, gingerhaired etc etc
the gasbill joke i already heard when i was a teen from my jewish uncle :lol:, i have been making the watchtower joke as well, but hey, my family did realy die in a KZ.
context is everything.. wich is the premises of the whole documantary where this clip is part from...

[Rascolnikova]

I think the question is: do we want to keep the Holocaust sacred cultural ground?

On the one hand, millions of innocent people dying is obviously worthy of anger and respect. On the other hand, Israel (arguably) is using the sacred history of the holocaust to get away with killing millions of innocent people. In a sense, this continued tension--that over the question of anti-semitism, people still die.

If it were not for this nuance, my approach to rape jokes* would directly apply. Jokes about rape that carry an underlaying ideological message of it's profound wrongness are good; jokes about rape that carry an underlaying ideological message that minimizes the act of rape, the subjectivity and humanity of women, or the importance of bodily autonomy, are bad. I believe this is true no matter who is making the jokes, allthough who the teller is and what their attitudes are can have an impact on ideological content--which is where we get the rule about who can tell discriminatory jokes in the first place. When a Jewish person tells holocaust revisionism jokes, generally no one has to deal with the underlaying worry that that person is going to go about firebombing the homes of other Jewish people, or supports such action.

When it comes to the holocaust, one must approach it from two directions at once. Jokes that minimize the wrongness of genocide are clearly problematic, but jokes that emphasize it in the service of Israel are equally so.

This particular joke, about the watchtower, does neither--it's an old and silly joke, relying on a tired double take, but bearing the exciting twist of having been re-contextualized into forbidden territory, like a schoolyard dare. This being the case, I think it's tastefulness depends very much on the teller and the circumstance. If told by an anti-fascist who very clearly and frequently advocates against discrimination and antisemitism, to a group of people who knows them well, it's a subtle dig against Israel's use of the holocaust as a shield. In any context where genuine antisemitism might be present, it is in extremely questionable taste.


*http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1344167&postcount=16

[Invincible Summer]

I find it funny when talking to other communists to say the most reactionary things in a casual way just to laugh at their reactions, I did it to Bobkindles for 2 days straight)

You're one of the only Trots I've encountered that has a sense of humor then

[Dharma]

All racial jokes are not funny.

[Invincible Summer]

I'm getting tired of all these race-based comedians like Carlos Mencia, Russell Peters, Chris Rock, etc.

The schtick gets old after like... 3 gigs.

[jake williams]

I'm pretty intense about my tolerance for offensive humour. If it's actually funny I don't care how offensive it is, basically. That's the point of humour.

ed: I clicked through a couple other videos in the series, and Boris Johnson is a real asshole.

[Killfacer]

All racial jokes are not funny.

That's just plainly not true. There are loads of funny racist jokes.

[Rascolnikova]

That's just plainly not true. There are loads of funny racist jokes.

And besides being not true, it's not an argument.

Can we have an argument for that please?