tell me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that the only thing you're really analyzing is whether the humor works or not in such an event. but that's not really the concern here. I'm sure for most people it works exactly the way you describe it. if the point is to try and use these taboo subjects to really get through to people and hammer the point you're trying to make deep into their beings, it might very well work for some, but you're going to cause a split in your audience. and the split is probably going to be on the basis of demographics. and as unpredictable as the outcome will be when you start going there, it seems to me that this is a predictable effect. some will be taken in by it, and some will be taken out of the narrative and back into the real world where these things are real. the question is whether you're willing to have that happen.
Fffft, I'm trying to figure out if any of us actually disagree here, or if this is just a sufficiently complicated/unpleasant topic that you can get lost along the way. I'm not entirely sure we're talking about the same things anymore.
I'm not entirely talking about whether or not the humor works, I guess I'm trying to figure out internally how much the actual intent or focus of the performance or humor actually matters. Like I see the two videos from Louis C.K. and Carlin and, maybe out of some pure comedic naivete I have, see them as actually not being a slight on women, or black people, or, homosexuals, or rape victims, but more being a commentary on language(specifically the idea of a cultural language), where that is what's being criticized, not anybody's personal status or worth. Sure, both of these reached their points in awful ways, and I don't fault someone for taking exception to these specific examples, since they are both equally clumsy to the point where I feel like no worthwhile point is reached, but is there no line when it comes to topics like this? If the topic is reached, it becomes unacceptable? That's the question I'm trying to answer here.
I may be misunderstanding the viewpoints here, or we're effectively talking about different things, but what I have assumed people were asserting here is that certain potential topics in humor do not have the capacity to be funny without automatically being reprehensibly offensive. Period. Even if the topic isn't exactly the butt of the joke, or the area of concern being satirized. Is this the point you folks are making?
Really the only point I have endeavored to make here, and if it seemed I was really going in a separate direction I should probably apologize for being insufficiently clear, is the fact that I don't see any topics as being effectively off-limits. A decent example of what I mean here, I guess, would be the Boltok the Rapist character referenced in Borat. If you don't remember the character, or are unfamiliar with it, part of Borat's backstory in the show and movie is this referenced character named Boltok the Rapist, that Borat identifies very nonchalantly as his father, usually bookended after the long uncomfortable pause that invariably follows that "I am not the only son of Boltok the Rapist." To me, this is generally acceptable humor, as I read this not specifically a joke about rape as much as it is a joke about cultural degeneration, used here contextually as part of the narrative(somewhat cheaply, I'll admit) to make the very clear suggestion that Borat the character comes from a terrible part of the world, illustrated in this case by Borat's Kazakhstan being the sort of morally bankrupt place that would generally accept and condone rape. While a joke is being made about an invariably unpleasant subject, I don't feel that rape is necessarily the focus of the joke, nor the victims being the target of the joke, as much as it is this [probably ][/probably] idea of a third-world cultural cesspool, depicted collectively throughout the Borat narrative. He cheaply uses a shock joke here, but I don't specifically blame him for the insensitivity of using it.
I guess the question is what we're even talking about here. I personally am OK with the way the Boltok the Rapist joke is structured and presented, even though I'm sure this pulled people out of the Borat narrative. It strikes me as sufficiently innocuous and generally unceremonious considering the Borat context of literally everything about his cultural backstory being something we are OBVIOUSLY NOT supposed to rally behind. The point I'm trying to make is that rape, in this comedic context, is not something I should feel insanely disgusted about, and that I shouldn't feel extreme extraordinary self-hatred for finding this rather funny. I will obviously concede the fact that there are people to whom this joke would hit too close to home, is too simple-minded to be funny, but I would be inclined to argue that this joke is generally acceptable because it IS on the side of the rape victims, rather than something meant to actively criticize them. Basically, I found this joke funny, and often find jokes like this funny, and I don't feel profound shame for finding this joke funny. Granted, I'm not really PROUD of the fact that I find this funny, and I do feel some shame that I've felt inclined to reference a Borat joke to make my point, but I don't think this is genuinely unacceptable. This is the point I'm trying to make. We can disagree here, and that's ok, but I don't feel that the line for acceptable humor should be drawn this soon. As far as I'm concerned comedians can go to these awful places, as long as they're not trying to make light of the plight of the victims, which I feel is the case in something like this. It was used here to make fun of something else, which I think is a practical way of using comedy.
Again, I'm at the point in the thread where I'm not even sure if we're talking about the same thing, and this could be more of a question about political correctness ITSELF as the joke. I'm not trying to argue that SLURS are intrinsically funny, or RAPE is intrinsically funny, or GAY/LESBIAN RIGHTS is intrinsically funny, but that these topics CAN be used for an acceptibly comedic end with the right approach and focus of scrutiny, specifically if that scrutiny is NOT on the fundamentals of these topics themselves. Maybe we are on the same page and we all just disagree about what IS ACCEPTABLY FUNNY, which is just going to be the way it is. I'm a pretty cynical guy. I feel that humor sometimes should go these place sometimes to gain the proper perspective of it, that if you try setting these limits for what comedy should or should not be, you create too muddled and unnecessary of a gray area that people need to worry too strongly about tiptoeing around. I don't expect everybody, or even anybody to agree with this, but this is generally how I've felt about the subject, how I've personally used it to cope with the world. I can only apologize for my insensitivity if this is upsetting to anyone, as I LEGITIMATELY have no idea where the otherwise acceptable line is for humor.
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