The Canberra Times - Mark Juddery column

No joking matter

June 25, 2007

I was going to start today with some pithy one-liner about Naomi Campbell or someone equally ridiculous, or even a highly amusing anecdote about a rabbi, a priest and a guy with one leg. But then it occurred to me how dangerous that could be.

            Just ask Italian comedian Andrea Rivera. "The Pope says he doesn't believe in evolution,” quipped Rivera. “I agree. In fact the church has never evolved.” OK, it loses something in the translation. But if you don’t find it funny, rest assured that the Vatican is even less amused. In their daily newspaper, a Vatican spokesperson branded Rivera’s jokes as “terrorism”.

            So THAT’S what terrorism is! Look, I understand that terrorism upsets a few people, but I really don’t know what everyone’s so worried about. According to the Vatican, “It’s terrorism to stoke blind and irrational rage against someone who always speaks in the name of love, love for life and love for man.” For the record, they’re referring to the Pope – though I’m not sure how making jokes about someone is the same as stoking “blind and irrational rage” against them. Otherwise, New Zealand would have been nuked by now.

            You would assume that we could take a joke better in Australia, until you notice the flak that The Chaser’s War on Everything has apparently received. This show is a) on the ABC, and b) very popular – two dangerous (and most of the time, mutually exclusive) criteria. Perhaps this is why it’s considered so offensive. One of the Chaser boys, the wonderfully insane Chazz Palmintieri, has already been tried for offending football hooligans (and fortunately, he won). Now the boys have apologised for a Hitler parody. This won the ire of the Jewish lobby, even though the Jewish population wasn’t actually the target of their joke. Perhaps the Friends of Nazism doesn’t have enough members, so it’s someone else’s job to take offence.

            Meanwhile, two academics were recently suspended from the Queensland University of Technology over a project, initially called “Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains”. It was developed with the disability group Spectrum, with assistance from disabled people and their parents. Officially, no disabled people have taken offence, but that’s OK, because university staff did so on their behalf.

            This reminds me of a piece of amateur comedy theatre I wrote in February, which briefly mentioned a highly respected gentleman who had died in the previous year. Not wanting to offend, I had asked his widow’s permission. “Most certainly!” she replied. “It’s exactly what he would want – and we in his family would very much enjoy it.” Incidentally, she’s from London, so she really talks like that.

            “What if it upsets other people?” I asked.

            “Oh, that’s their problem!” she said, rolling her eyes. Of course, a few people were willing to share their problem with me after they saw the play, complaining bitterly that mentioning their old friend would upset his widow.

            Sometimes I think that people watch, read and listen to humour merely to find something offensive. Taking offence is so much more useful than actually enjoying a joke. After all, the pleasure of a good joke doesn’t even last as long as the pleasure of a disposable pop song. If you take offence, however, you can sue, use it for political gain, or muzzle someone whose opinions you don’t like. Much more helpful!

            So from now on, I’ll ban any comedy that can be deemed offensive… which, of course, includes almost everything.

            THE GOON SHOW: Seeks to make light of a group of idiots, which is deeply offensive to the intellectually disabled.

            I LOVE LUCY: Portrays its protagonist as a ditzy scatterbrain. A ditzy, FEMALE scatterbrain. Offensively sexist.

            THE ROAD RUNNER SHOW: Offensive to coyotes.

            TWO AND A HALF MEN: Just plain stupid.

            LITTLE BRITAIN: Actually, this one’s OK. It doesn’t demean disabled people, because the only “disabled” guy is just faking. It doesn’t demean teenage delinquent girls, because the main one is just a male adult in a bad wig. It even treats sexual deviants and people with disgusting bladder problems as friendly and good-natured. Thank God there is some inoffensive comedy on TV!