Should comedians have boundaries?

[shavenferret]

the-pi-guy said:

DarthMetalliCube said:

I understand the core arguments of some of that stuff, and again, not every comedian should be the same. Carlin and Hicks, for instance, are more appealing by poking more fun at the elites/privleged types, etc. But that doesn't mean that NO comedians should ever engage in what you referring to as "punching down". As long as a joke or gag has the potential to be funny, it needs to be allowed to be spoken. Art should never be limited. In fact, a key value of art (at least for my money) in society is to make people uncomfortable and confront certain things.

To me, saying certain people are essentially off-limits in comedy is restricting and I disagree immensely with it. At the end of the day It's just yet another form of moral panic and pearl clutching. I didn't like that kind of mentality when it came more from the right in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, and I don't like it now that it's coming more from the left in the 2010s and 2020s.

Like, what are people specifically worried about with this "problematic" art/entertainment? That someone is going to go off and commit some crime or violence all because of/inspired by some given material? If somebody does, then they obviously have mental issues and were essentially bound to commit that crime eventually anyway. I've yet to see an example of a piece of art of entertainment taking a good person and magically transforming them into a bad one..

I'll add that I do agree comedy often thrives at being a more anti-establishment art that pokes fun at the privilege, power structures, and elites. The Orthodoxy, basically. Though what these things consist of is ITSELF partly subjective and often fluid. Depending on one's own viewpoints, culture, or personal experiences..

To clarify something, I haven't been pushing my own position. Just trying to clarify "punching down", and I won't say I have done a good job on that.

And I feel I should clarify something else, the issue isn't that some people are off limits. 

You can make holocaust jokes, you can make jokes about black people or trans people. You can do those things without punching down. The issue is if you're being condescending. 

Gary Owen had a bit about black churches. 

It makes fun of a part of black culture, without being condescending; and a lot of black people praised it. A lot of his fans are black people. 

You can make Holocaust jokes as long as you aren't spreading Nazi propaganda. 
This is a common one:

A Holocaust survivor died recently. Goes to Heaven and upon meeting God, he decided to tell a Holocaust joke. Then God said "That's not funny", to which the Jew replied "Oh, I guess you had to be there".

What I would say is that I think there's always a boundary. Pretty much everyone has boundaries on what is acceptable. 

If a comedian were making jokes about how they were a predator of children, I guarantee that at least one person who insists that comedians should never have boundaries, would suddenly start taking issue. (I think most people would take issue.)

The reason why this is a discussion at all, isn't because people genuinely think there shouldn't be any boundaries whatsoever for comedians, but because they disagree on where the boundaries should be. And they feel that a lot of the comedy that comes at someone else's expense, should be allowed. Despite the fact that if the shoe were on the other foot, they would no longer be accepting of it. 

Black churches? Well they are different than white churches, by a wide margin. If you ever went to a white church the music is good, it's just kind of plain, in the same way that classical can be both quite plain and yet good at the sane time. Black churches are great though! You see old black women singing and dancing, people be yelling at the top of their lungs what God means to them. THANK YOU JESUS! And you habe that bombastic piano work, lol.  White churches are so boring in comparison.