Should Comedians Be Held Accountable For The Things That They Say?

[Premmy]

Originally Posted by Geminex

Well, if you tried then they'd be probably too busy making fun of you to make racist jokes for a while, their audience would howl with laughter at the silly socialists trying to restrict freedom speech, and you would have achieved nothing. But addressing the larger issue, trying to make the audience realize that the dick's actually dick and not funny at all, that's not impossible, is it?

They're dicks too,

^
I Keeed I keeed

But seriously, that recquires conversations such as this on a personal level, because as I've said, the issue is'nt the individual saying rude things, but the culture that encourages it. This is hard because the culture itself wants to focus on the individual(which coincidnetally, just so happens to be an expression of the problem :P) and thus, getting individuals to sit down and have these conversations is damn fucking hard, and focusing on convincing one jerk they're acting like a jerk pales in comparison to more pressing matters.*

Pushing the culture in a more positive direction and *making absolutely certain people are'nt being actively oppressed so that they themselves can properly assist in these things,( Protip: We ARE'NT, and that's a HUGGGE problem) IS the bigger issue.

[DFM]

Bullets. Bullets to all their noggins.

[Premmy]

I think Archbio is talkining about whether or not what they, The comedians, are doing is bad in and of itself.

[Geminex]

Yah, that comment was actually Archbio "reiterating" (I put it in quotations, because that wasn't what I was saying) mine and Mirai's points. I think Prems and myself have cleared most of that up now, though if there's any further discussion or objection, I'd be happy to be PMed about that.

[Sithdarth]

Just going to put this out there. Generally speaking comedians shouldn't be held accountable for what they say but how they say it. Without the context of intonation and gestures its almost impossible to actually get the true meaning of anything that was said much less a joke. A joke about racism can easily become a racist joke depending on who says it, where they say it, how they say it, etc. That's not to say that there aren't things that should be avoided outright. I simply wish to point out that judging a joke by its denotation is like saying a song sucks after seeing the sheet music. (Unless its obviously a bad joke.) And of course its up to the individual listen to judge the actual meaning behind the joke and get offended or not. That is as long as they are reacting to what they perceive as the intention and not a knee jerk literal translation.

[Archbio]

Yah, that comment was actually Archbio "reiterating" (I put it in quotations, because that wasn't what I was saying) mine and Mirai's points. I think Prems and myself have cleared most of that up now

Consider me mystified, then, about what you were saying, and how it relates to EckScizor's four sentence argument; which is really the only thing that I've been discussing. I mean I'm pretty sure I've expressed no opinion about your treatise on "how to tackle the problematic of bigotted comedy," but rather on a post which really can only be interpreted (in itself, not the version that's annoted by everybody else and their monkeys) as the poster proposing that comedians "should not be held accountable," and that this as something to do with them "being paid good money."

And I'm pretty sure I haven't called Mirai Gen an hypocrite or said anything approaching, but maybe what I'm typing right now is just word salad, because there really seems to be a bit of a communication issue. However, it's not a communication issue I feel very motivated to resolve. There's just no point to it.

[DFM]

I don't think anyone laughs at Carlos Mencia.

Well maybe at him, I dunno.

[Ecks]

Originally Posted by DFM

I don't think anyone laughs at Carlos Mencia.

Well maybe at him, I dunno.

I laugh at him. Mostly because he's basically trying to be a Mexican Dave Chappelle and failing miserably at it.

I will also take this opportunity to add that I am by no means a great moral authority. I personally find controversial and offensive comedy humorous, and so my opinion of those who practice such jokes is quite colored.

[Seil]

I will also take this opportunity to add that I am by no means a great moral authority. I personally find controversial and offensive comedy humorous, and so my opinion of those who practice such jokes is quite colored.

Same. I guess that comics are exploiting stereotypes, race and life styles for comedic effect, and that there is a double standard where the n-word is different coming from a white and black person, but I'm still going to laugh at Chris Rock's material. I'm going to laugh not because I dislike black people, white people, gay people or straight people. I'm not laughing because I'm ignorant to what's going on in the world, or because I think that someone deserves to be made fun of.

I'm laughing because I think it's funny.

[Azisien]

Originally Posted by Seil

Same. I guess that comics are exploiting stereotypes, race and life styles for comedic effect, and that there is a double standard where the n-word is different coming from a white and black person, but I'm still going to laugh at Chris Rock's material. I'm going to laugh not because I dislike black people, white people, gay people or straight people. I'm not laughing because I'm ignorant to what's going on in the world, or because I think that someone deserves to be made fun of.

I'm laughing because I think it's funny.

I think Louis CK's coverage of nigger is quite funny though. He just manages to pull it off, about as tastefully as you can expect Louis CK material to be.