Are there any topics that you believe are off-limits for jokes?

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Let's put it this way: Southpark recently had a scene where a mentally handicapped child was raped by someone from on the street, and I laughed my ass off at it. I didn't even give it a second thought until the second time I saw the episode. Jokes can be tasteless, but nothing should be off limits if it can be pulled off right.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Topics that are off-limits; not really. However I would consider certain audiences off limits for those jokes. Like, unless I'm the smoothest ************ around, a joke about the KKK being awesome dudes would probably be struck from the set list if I was doing a show at the Apollo Theatre.


Likewise, might wanna cut the Nazi gas bill jokes from your Tel Aviv gig.
 

BathorysGraveland2

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I'll just echo everyone else I guess. Every topic can be explored in comedy, but when and where to do it is contextual. Obviously you wouldn't want to start cracking jokes at the funeral of a murder victim, or something like that (unless they were someone like GG Allin or Seth Putnam who would actually encourage it).

So yeah, time and place I guess, though personally I've never been offended by any joke.
 

Gordon_4_v1legacy

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Baffle said:
I don't think people should make jokes about baldness.
They can joke all they want, but in the end no joke can disguise the fact that this guy:



is bald, and one of the most awesome men on the planet.
 

lechat

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Baffle said:
I don't think people should make jokes about baldness.
not sure if serious...
but i have to agree. for some reason it's perfectly acceptable to make fun of someone for a genetic shortfall completely beyond their control and yet it is unacceptable to insult someone for being fat or ugly.

OT
there are some hilarious domestic abuse/racist/pedo jokes but you want to be damn sure of the delivery and the audience.
I'm a pretty reserved guy who doesn't talk much so when i dead pan deliver one of the most offensive jokes people have ever heard the result is usually hysterics.
 

nightmare_gorilla

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No. period, there should never be anything you're not allowed to joke about. it's a damn joke by it's very nature it's not meant to be taken seriously.

i'm going to quote george carlin on this one. "all that matters is what the exaggeration is, picture porky pig raping elmer fudd."
 

Lieju

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In theory, no.

In practise, rape is something the majority of people would just be better off staying away from because it's a subject you better know how to handle well if you joke about it.
(And the majority of rape jokes tend to be on the victim anyway, and that just makes you an asshole.)

And context matters.
There are jokes I will tell in a company of people who know that I'd not tell on the Internet for example.
People who know me understand the context and for example that I'm expressing frustration with an actual problem I have, instead of making fun of a another group of people.


nightmare_gorilla said:
No. period, there should never be anything you're not allowed to joke about. it's a damn joke by it's very nature it's not meant to be taken seriously.
Even still, what you consider 'humorous' carries all kinds of implications.

If for example your joke's punchline is 'he's gay', then the implication is that you think simply being gay is worthy of ridicule.
Also humor is a strong social bonding mechanism.
"We're all finding these things funny, we're bonding."
"We are collectively feeling superiour against this other group of people."

Etc.

BathorysGraveland2 said:
So yeah, time and place I guess, though personally I've never been offended by any joke.
I have been made angry and uncomfortable by jokes, certainly. And unsafe, even.

Because a joke can very strongly send out the message of 'We as a group do not consider someone like you an equal.'
 

nightmare_gorilla

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Lieju said:
nightmare_gorilla said:
No. period, there should never be anything you're not allowed to joke about. it's a damn joke by it's very nature it's not meant to be taken seriously.
Even still, what you consider 'humorous' carries all kinds of implications.

If for example your joke's punchline is 'he's gay', then the implication is that you think simply being gay is worthy of ridicule.
Also humor is a strong social bonding mechanism.
"We're all finding these things funny, we're bonding."
"We are collectively feeling superiour against this other group of people."

Etc.
Actually no the implication isn't "hey guys he's gay that's funny lets laugh at the queer" as you imply, it's just that the image of porky pig raping elmer fudd is inherently funny not because it's homosexual but just because it's damn cartoony. this is the kind of stuff i really dislike, explaining a joke is just awful. it makes it no longer a joke. and the idea that finding something funny means you are deriding something else is flat out wrong. fine want another funny rape joke that's not gay? this one courtesy of gilbert godfried:

"A hunter is in the woods and he sees a giant bear, decides to shoot it, immediate the bear roars, jumps up knocks him down and rapes him. next day the hunter is really mad about this so he brings a bigger gun, finds the same bear, shoots it. immediately the bear roars, jumps up, knocks him down, and rapes him. now the hunter is REALLY mad so he gets a bazooka. goes to the woods, sees the same bear, shoots it, immediatley the bear roars, jumps up, knocks him down, and says "something tells me you don't come here just to hunt"."

Funny joke, much better when he does it. now does finding this mean i hate hunters or hunting? that i think a man deserves to be raped by a bear? no it just means it's a funny joke it hurts no one. stop trying to tack on hurt to something that only gives joy. i mean your welcome to feel however you want to feel personally about a joke but putting your own assumptions onto people who are just having an innocent laugh is wrong to me. just because something offends you it doesn't give you any authority over that thing in any way.

granted rape is a less funny subject and the majority of times it's funny is when it's happening to a man but that's not to say that a woman being raped CAN'T be funny, just that i can't think of a way it WOULD be funny. I can see how alot of people wouldn't find it funny under any circumstances but i fail to see what someone else's ability to enjoy a joke has to do with me.
 

Lieju

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nightmare_gorilla said:
Lieju said:
nightmare_gorilla said:
No. period, there should never be anything you're not allowed to joke about. it's a damn joke by it's very nature it's not meant to be taken seriously.
Even still, what you consider 'humorous' carries all kinds of implications.

If for example your joke's punchline is 'he's gay', then the implication is that you think simply being gay is worthy of ridicule.
Also humor is a strong social bonding mechanism.
"We're all finding these things funny, we're bonding."
"We are collectively feeling superiour against this other group of people."

Etc.
Actually no the implication isn't "hey guys he's gay that's funny lets laugh at the queer" as you imply, it's just that the image of porky pig raping elmer fudd is inherently funny not because it's homosexual but just because it's damn cartoony. this is the kind of stuff i really dislike, explaining a joke is just awful. it makes it no longer a joke. and the idea that finding something funny means you are deriding something else is flat out wrong. fine want another funny rape joke that's not gay?
I wasn't talking about that particular joke.
(Although I still think them being both male changes the tone. And I don't find that funny. I'm not offended by it either, but unless you make it a bit more than just cartoon characters raping each other can't say I find it humorous.)

And why should we not analyze why we find things funny?
Humor is absolutely used as a tool for oppression, or for marketing, or propaganda.
 

DanteRL

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Yeah, audience, as everyone else said.
Don't think I have any subject that are off-limits. Even subjects that are sensitive, someone made me laugh with a joke about Alzheimer, even though my grandmother had it, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I'm the kind of guy that end up making someone laugh at a funeral, you know, that "laughing helps healing" thing.

But people are different, and we got to respect that. Some will get offended. Besides, joking is different of making a personal attack, like "Haha Holocaust" is one thing "Haha Hitler killed your grandma" is a whole other.
 

Dr. Crawver

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Honestly? No

If done appropriately in the right environment there is no topic that should ever be off limits simply for what it is.

Hell, it's often a very good coping and healing mechanism. I make jokes about the fact that someone I loved very much committed suicide. I feel it might have destroyed me if I couldn't at make it lighter for me to deal with.
 

CaitSeith

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MintSM said:
Any joke that's being told by someone who has no idea how to handle the subject material is pretty much dead on arrival. I don't inherently hate rape jokes or racism jokes directly, I just hate the way that the joke is usually told, i.e. in an overly mean-spirited or offensive-just-to-be-offensive way.

There's a difference to me between the annoying 11-year old who makes 9-11 jokes because he thinks it's edgy and as a result automatically funny between the guy who has enough self awareness to make something like this:

Okay... at least those buildings can defend themselves.
 

Ronald Nand

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In theory a skilled comedian can make a joke about any topic funny, take Monty Python and the Holy Grail there's a scene where a character systematically loses all their limbs and that scene is had me laughing the whole way.

However there are some areas best left alone, like Rape or Holocaust jokes, it would take the world's most skilled comedian to get a rape joke to be funny, we could experiment and try to make jokes in those areas, but those are just more trouble than its worth, even if we get 1 good joke, there'll be a thousand tasteless, vile and offensive jokes we'd have to get through.
 

CaitSeith

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Drathnoxis said:
Dentists. You don't want people thinking your an anti-dentite.
You should watch Little Shop of Horrors with Rick Moranis. I rather my teeth to get rotten than to put a foot inside that dentist's clinic.
 

Varrdy

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I am a firm believer in no topic being off-limits, which is the rule South park generally adheres to. Sometimes the best jokes are the ones that make us go: "OOoooohhhhh!!! [BURNED!]" before laughing.

The caveat is that there is a very fine line between a zinger of a joke and being abusive and/or disrespectful and it's a line that not everyone can walk.
 

CaitSeith

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It's less about the topic and more about the public and the execution.

PS captcha: on the ball Captcha, you left out the "s" at the end.
 

TallanKhan

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I don't think any area is automatically off limit when it comes to jokes. That said it isn't cool to tell jokes that you know will upset someone, but that has to be a call you make when deciding who to tell a joke to, for instance it would be a pretty shitty thing to do to tell a 9/11 joke to a New Yorker.

To clarify, I don't think people should avoid telling jokes just because they might offend someone. If someone decides to take offence at something I say then that's their problem not mine and they will have to make their peace with it. I just don't think it's OK to deliberately be an A*hole about these things, people should use some common sense.