Should comedians have boundaries?

[Mnementh]

I realize I only reacted to posts of others, not stating my position.

I think Comedians should get away with more, because they have an important function in society: they point out the parts that are rotten and that people are to quick to dismiss, because they don't want to see the bad parts of themself. We can utilize this as an early warning systems about things, we should at least consider more deeply.

This can be elevated: if you start dividing comedians into good comedians and bad comedians not based on the quality of the jokes, but based on the targets of their jokes, maybe you don't *want* to see some parts. Especially if others may find the same comedian you think is abhorrent funny, while they think the comedian you think is funny crossed a line. This points more to the fact that you can laugh about the faults of others than about your own.

I also want to point out, that trying to get a comedian removed from a platform (like happened with Chapelle's Sticks&Stones) is a strange hill to die on, if at the same time people die in wars or closer to home people die because of the shitty health care system. Seeing a comedian as the more important topic to invest a lot of energy on (more than just a bit of grumble on social media, which a campaign to remove it from a streaming service is), seems to point to a certain level of privilege and entitlement. Maybe invest that energy into actually saving peoples lives.

Moreover, I am all for effective action. Are there comedians I think are unfunny and cross my personal lines? Sure as hell. But I tend to ignore them - for good reason. The more people publicly criticize a comedian, the more publicity that show and person gets. For the Zoomers here: this is called Streisand-effect, and it showed again and again how it works. I am sure the protest against Chapelle made more people watch the show, and as you get more context from the full show than some tidbits cited on social media, most of them will be less offended, as they see it in it's whole. If a comedian really crosses a line for most people, most people also will move away and the comedian will be delisted from streaming services automatically - because Netflix and the others want to make money, and they don't make it from stuff nobody watches. That's why ignoring what you find offensive is by far the more effective action you can take against comedians that offend you.

That all said: I obviously think comedians shouldn't start shooting their audience or stuff like that. So yes, some boundaries are always there. but we all should consider being offended as an invitation to think about our own positions a bit. Maybe we are right to be offended, but maybe we can see how other people can have different opinions, even if we don't adopt them ourself.