Support NeoGAF

[Leunam]

You ain't kidding. Bill summed up the whole thing rather well in about a minute previously.

No need for a whole movie.

Actually, I could watch a whole movie about that. It's what I liked about WTF and Comedians in Cars, I like hearing two comedians discuss their craft.

How do you know the current generation isn't enjoying comedy is as?

I am.

Because the impression I get from people who post in these threads saying comedians are out of touch are from people that simply don't follow much standup.

I do agree that outrage is limited to a vocal minority. But comedians are just as edgy as ever.

So I don't get your point.

You don't get my point because I'm not talking about the current generation of audiences being bitter, I'm talking about once notable comedians.

And I'm enjoying stand up comedy still, so again, you're misreading me.

Or maybe I'm the one not understanding you.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

I can agree with you, but I don't think the response by the comedians to the criticism can be called as "sensitivity" - the manner of "offense" taken by the audience members who are "offended" by jokes and comediands who are "upset" by the response from the audience is a different type. I think the "lol why are you offended that people are offended" reaction is kind of juvenile and pigeonholes the issue. The reaction by the comedians isn't being offended. It's being defensive, because they're being attacked (verbally, physically, digitally, whatever manner you choose) by audiences for doing comedy, which according to some definitions is designed to surprise, shock or offend on some level. Being defensive is not the same thing as being offended, I think.

I think my issue is that I'm not really convinced that there's enough introspection being done to understand why a joke is not landing. Like if it's just one whiner who's ruining the event for everyone else, then throw them out. If the narrative is taking hold that your material is offensive and not funny, perhaps it's time to re-examine the material? And if you're successful in spite of some vocal complaints, then maybe just ignore the detractors.

Again, I don't want to seem unwilling to accept that there might be some progressive bullies out there. But it's also hard for me to ignore that some of this does just seem like petty whining from people that are finding themselves less beloved than they once were as the world changes around them.

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

Irrelevant might be more appropriate.

Gottfried irrelevant to a documentary about comedians seeing how far they can go? What's next a documentary about WWII where the D-Day is irrelevant?

 

[notworksafe]

While nobody deserves to get punched, I don't know if the Pescatelli thing is really indicative of outrage culture or just the kind of drunken shenanigans one might expect from such a setting when things go awry. Again, I'm not defending him getting attacked, but just not sure I'd chalk this up as outrage culture or just the work of a drunken idiot.

From my end, I see hecklers and "outragers" (or whatever you want to call them) as coming from the same place. Both want to make a show about them. "I was offended at the joke", "I think that was mean", "I don't agree with X subject". Joe Rogan has brought it up a few times on his podcast where he's had people just start yelling "No" or "Next subject" when he starts a joke about religion or race. It just reads to me like people who want to control the show and make it the way they want it to be.

The rest are things that I understand can be unfortunate. Especially if the comedian needed the money, I'm not really in favor of intentionally trying to be petty and hurt someone's bottom line. But I do wonder if all of these are indications of the angry mob bullying venues or just a change in perception that caused venues to reconsider the desirability of the event. I'm just meandering here and not really making a point, and I realize I there's no way to verify it either way, but I'd be interested to know just how upset the venue was about having to cancel the Ralphie May show, for instance.

Yeah, we'll never get to see the venue's side of the story but my guess is $0 isn't what they were hoping to make from that night. Or whatever they were able to get from a local guy covering that night.

 

[Slayven]

Was wondering when someone would do something like this.

No one is taking away the ability to say fuck shit, it just now you might get called out on it

 

[entremet]

Both the best and the worst type of comedians are the ones who shock you. The truly great ones build off that shock and create a bigger better laugh out of all of it by the end, the bad ones just leave you shocked and angry as the joke in of itself was nothing more than to get a rise out of you instead of making you think or anything like that.

The cream really does rise to the top in comedy. It's a performance art.

Go to an Open Mic Night and you'll probably see the type you're talking about.

 

[Hexa]

It's kind of sad that this needed to be made.

It's sad, but something like this definitely does need to be made. Hopefully they do a good job of it.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

From my end, I see hecklers and "outragers" (or whatever you want to call them) as coming from the same place. Both want to make a show about them. "I was offended at the joke", "I think that was mean", "I don't agree with X subject". Joe Rogan has brought it up a few times on his podcast where he's had people just start yelling "No" or "Next subject" when he starts a joke about religion or race. It just reads to me like people who want to control the show and make it the way they want it to be.

Sure. I just think the one thing I would distinguish is that there's a difference between being fueled by righteous indignation and having had a bit too much to drink in terms of what we're concerned about here. There may be some overlap, but I don't necessarily think "random drunken idiot" is the same as the new/growing concern about political correctness.

 

[entremet]

Was wondering when someone would do something like this.

No one is taking away the ability to say fuck shit, it just now you might get called out on it

Who are these comedians and jokes you're talking about?

People always bring this up these threads, but we never get concrete examples. It's a strawman.

Not attacking you personally, but I really want to know what jokes people are talking about.

 

[nynt9]

I think my issue is that I'm not really convinced that there's enough introspection being done to understand why a joke is not landing. Like if it's just one whiner who's ruining the event for everyone else, then throw them out. If the narrative is taking hold that your material is offensive and not funny, perhaps it's time to re-examine the material? And if you're successful in spite of some vocal complaints, then maybe just ignore the detractors.

Again, I don't want to seem unwilling to accept that there might be some progressive bullies out there. But it's also hard for me to ignore that some of this does just seem like petty whining from people that are finding themselves less beloved than they once were as the world changes around them.

Yeah, I can agree with this. However the dynamics change a little bit when comparing "person in audience" versus "person with a twitter" - people can really easily snowball stuff on twitter and all nuance and context can get lost and people can get mobbed. Sure, oftentimes there's some fault on part of the comedian, but when you bring the internet mob into it the scope suddenly changes.

 

[ElFly]

The amount of times a comedian gets shit for saying something legitimately shitty is dwarfed by the times they say something actually entertaining to the majority of people and still get lambasted by a small minority of people. I'm assuming you consider it a rebalance because you don't see just how often people get mad over the dumbest shit imaginable. You can't really use this logic, because what could be funny to the vast majority of a group of people could offend like 10% and still cause a shitstorm. At what point do you draw the line between "He said a horrible thing." and "A small minority of people are going to get offended at anything they don't agree with and will claim the person saying it is a terrible person."?

The only two times I remember a comedian getting shit for actually saying something terrible were Michael Richards and Daniel Tosh.

Maybe you should choose your numbers better, cause 10% of a vast number of people is still a huge number of people; for example, homosexual people long contended that 10% of the population was gay. If you make a joke offending gays, guess what percentage of people may feel offended at it?

I guess that I will pretend you said 0.1% and deal with that better argument. Thing is some minorities that have been extremely prosecuted recently are in that range of existence. It probably is around the prevalence of trans people (quick google tells me that I am probably overexaggerating), but if you insult trans people nowadays, a ton of supporting people will rise against you.

OFC as someone posted, sometimes (and probably a ton of times) this outrage also hurts trans people, so it cuts both ways. It is a new phenomenon, but I don't think it is entirely bad, or even mostly bad.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

Maybe you should choose your numbers better, cause 10% of a vast number of people is still a huge number of people; for example, homosexual people long contended that 10% of the population was gay. If you make a joke offending gays, guess what percentage of people may feel offended at it?

I was talking about 10% of any given group of people relating to the joke. Not 10% of the population altogether.

Bill Burr talks about this all of the time. How he will have a bunch of women in the audience, most of them laughing at his jokes, then one singular woman will stand up and say that what he's saying is offensive. So now he has to derail his entire show and placate one singular person because she can't handle a joke that the vast majority of people there didn't find offensive in the first place.

 

[deli2000]

It might just be a UK thing, but I've been performing & helping organize stand-up in my uni for almost a year now and I've yet to experience a single instance of outrage in all the places that I've performed at. Maybe I'm just blind to an obvious problem, but it seems to me that this whole thing is just a bunch of isolated incidents being played up to foster some sort of victim complex in the industry and allow starting comics to hide away from criticism. Personally I think it's much more harmful to comedy to foster a sentiment that your joke didn't land because everyone is offended all the time instead of your joke just being shit or not landing that night. This is just my perspective though, i would love to hear other comics on here share their experiences with this sort of thing.

 

[Kinyou]

Gilbert Gottfried is a real treasure

 

[DICKS AHOY]

What's the controversy/ies with Gilbert meant to be? All I can remember is him losing an advertising gig years ago over a joke, or something to that extent.

 

[MUnited83]

That line-up.....ahahahahahahaah

Also, here's a good video that covers the same subject but from the opposite perspective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufz4W0puLPA

Honestly, this vídeo pretty much says all there is to say about this subject.

It might just be a UK thing, but I've been performing & helping organize stand-up in my uni for almost a year now and I've yet to experience a single instance of outrage in all the places that I've performed at. Maybe I'm just blind to an obvious problem, but it seems to me that this whole thing is just a bunch of isolated incidents being played up to foster some sort of victim complex in the industry and allow starting comics to hide away from criticism. Personally I think it's much more harmful to comedy to foster a sentiment that your joke didn't land because everyone is offended all the time instead of your joke just being shit or not landing that night. This is just my perspective though, i would love to hear other comics on here share their experiences with this sort of thing.

That what is pretty common in most cases: outrage culture doesn't exist, but outrage at outrage culture definitely does. You can see this with every idiot that complains about outrage culture. I've lost count on how many times there was something like one person being offended at something on twitter turned into "massive internet outrage", or a single incident of somebody heckling because they didn't like a joke to " society is too PC and its going to shit ". All those complainers just love to get on a circlejerk and wank themselves over and over saying " Outrage culture has gone too far! PC and those damn SWJs are ruining everything ! They are taking away muh freedom of speech, they are censoring us!"

 

[LosDaddie]

You don't need to watch an entire documentary about this, in less than 60 seconds this entire topic is summed up, succinctly and completely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psjHo5JkHLc

EDIT: I'll watch regardless.

This is great stuff

 

[Petrae]

What's the controversy/ies with Gilbert meant to be? All I can remember is him losing an advertising gig years ago over a joke, or something to that extent.

He made a joke on social media after the Japan earthquake and Aflac terminated him from his recurring role as the Aflac duck on its commercials.

It's one of the more prominent cases of social media getting people fired/terminated. I wrote a paper on it for a college class a few years ago.

 

[Pendas]

This thread...

"Stop complaining!"
"Stop complaining about my complaining!"
"Stop complaining about my complaining and then I'll stop complaining!"

NeoGAF

 

[Protein]

but sometimes being offensive and taboo is what makes the joke funny. i can guarantee you that even some of the jokes that you find innocuous are offensive to someone. for example, a fart joke can be offensive to people with flatulence problems.

like everything else in life, it's not black and white. we discuss and capitulate.

People with flatulence problems don't regularly face violence, humiliation, or possess the highest suicidal rate of any minority group. See transgender community.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

This is why I barely go to the gaming side now. If you disagree your so called pro-Gamergate.

Um.... disagree with what, though? Gamergate is extremely specific.

 

[TickleMeElbow]

He made a joke on social media after the Japan earthquake and Aflac terminated him from his recurring role as the Aflac duck on its commercials.

It's one of the more prominent cases of social media getting people fired/terminated. I wrote a paper on it for a college class a few years ago.

I thought it was because Aflac is big in Japan.

 

[entremet]

He made a joke on social media after the Japan earthquake and Aflac terminated him from his recurring role as the Aflac duck on its commercials.

It's one of the more prominent cases of social media getting people fired/terminated. I wrote a paper on it for a college class a few years ago.

What's hilarious is that he made that joke on Twitter no less!

Kinda hung himself there.

 

[TwEE-N-Toast]

What's the controversy/ies with Gilbert meant to be? All I can remember is him losing an advertising gig years ago over a joke, or something to that extent.

A bit old but his 9/11 joke really pissed folks off. I think he got in trouble for that as well.

"I have to leave early tonight, I have a flight to California. I can't get a direct flight — they said I have to stop at the Empire State Building first."

 

[notworksafe]

Um.... disagree with what, though? Gamergate is extremely specific.

Well in this instance, making a movie about comedians being attacked/censored is pro-Gamergate....somehow

Not-so-stealth pro-Gamergate whining.

 

[Petrae]

I thought it was because Aflac is big in Japan.

Aflac does have a Japanese arm, and it was cited in the company's decision to cut Gottfried loose:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/03/14/georgia.aflac.duck/

What's hilarious is that he made that joke on Twitter no less!

Kinda hung himself there.

Yup. Can't get an audience much bigger than Twitter-- and the jokes backfired in a major way.

 

[disappeared]

Gottfried quoting Carlin.

I really wish that man was still around sometimes.

 

[ElFly]

I was talking about 10% of any given group of people relating to the joke. Not 10% of the population altogether.

I mean, unless you choose your given group to be something like "straight people" (or any class of people which somehow excludes gays by definition), it will probably contain 10% of homosexuals.

Bill Burr talks about this all of the time. How he will have a bunch of women in the audience, most of them laughing at his jokes, then one singular woman will stand up and say that what he's saying is offensive. So now he has to derail his entire show and placate one singular person because she can't handle a joke that the vast majority of people there didn't find offensive in the first place.

*shrug* git gud at being a comedian then; hecklers are annoying as are people who will interrupt your routine, I can sympathize with this, but if it is happening constantly, maybe there's another problem.

After all a comedian is only funny if people consider him funny. Comedians do not have a god given right to be considered funny, and if people are discovering that they have a right to stand up for their dignity, more power to the people.

I mean, if you are seriously arguing that offended people should just sit down, shut up and let people laugh at them, that's really dumb.

 

[entremet]

I mean, unless you choose your given group to be something like "straight people" (or any class of people which somehow excludes gays by definition), it will probably contain 10% of homosexuals.



*shrug* git gud at being a comedian then; hecklers are annoying as are people who will interrupt your routine, I can sympathize with this, but if it is happening constantly, maybe there's another problem.

After all a comedian is only funny if people consider him funny. Comedians do not have a god given right to be considered funny, and if people are discovering that they have a right to stand up for their dignity, more power to the people.

I mean, if you are seriously arguing that offended people should just sit down and let people laugh at them, that's really dumb.

Lol at telling Bill Burr to Git Gud at comedy.

Don't attend Bill Burr shows.

 

[perfectchaos007]

I mean, unless you choose your given group to be something like "straight people" (or any class of people which somehow excludes gays by definition), it will probably contain 10% of homosexuals.



*shrug* git gud at being a comedian then; hecklers are annoying as are people who will interrupt your routine, I can sympathize with this, but if it is happening constantly, maybe there's another problem.

After all a comedian is only funny if people consider him funny. Comedians do not have a god given right to be considered funny, and if people are discovering that they have a right to stand up for their dignity, more power to the people.

I mean, if you are seriously arguing that offended people should just sit down, shut up and let people laugh at them, that's really dumb.

They could always politely walk out of the show instead of interrupting it for 99.9% of the audience that paid to listen to a comedian and not to the cries of some outraged offended individual

 

[TickleMeElbow]

Aflac does have a Japanese arm, and it was cited in the company's decision to cut Gottfried loose:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/BUSINESS/03/14/georgia.aflac.duck/



Yup. Can't get an audience much bigger than Twitter-- and the jokes backfired in a major way.

Oh my bad I thought you meant social media backlash got him fired.

 

[ipukespiders]

Bill Burr on the subject

Shut the fuck up Maher, and let Burr talk. Jesus Christ.

 

[kamspy]

There's an ocean between Michael Richards handling of hecklers and what these comics are dealing with. Daniel Tosh is a perfect example.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

I mean, unless you choose your given group to be something like "straight people" (or any class of people which somehow excludes gays by definition), it will probably contain 10% of homosexuals.



*shrug* git gud at being a comedian then; hecklers are annoying as are people who will interrupt your routine, I can sympathize with this, but if it is happening constantly, maybe there's another problem.

After all a comedian is only funny if people consider him funny. Comedians do not have a god given right to be considered funny, and if people are discovering that they have a right to stand up for their dignity, more power to the people.

I mean, if you are seriously arguing that offended people should just sit down, shut up and let people laugh at them, that's really dumb.

He is good. He's touring and playing arenas and large theaters right now. You can't get much better than that as a stand up. Having one person get mad at something he says every few shows doesn't mean there is an issue with his act.

This is the problem with people on your side of the argument. You immediately assume that being offended can't be irrational, and that any one who is offended is logically and emotionally right in doing so. Even if the majority of other people in that group who the joke is about find it funny and find the offended person to be irrational in their emotions as well.

It's also really odd that if something offends you, that you would want to stay at the show and continue watching it. The reasonable thing to do if you don't like what some one is saying is to leave the show. Usually, it's because these people have been laughing at jokes that would clearly offend another group of people, but find those jokes to be perfectly fine and only get offended when they take something seriously because it relates to them.

 

[ExVicis]

I mean, if you are seriously arguing that offended people should just sit down, shut up and let people laugh at them, that's really dumb.

If they're ruining the show for everyone else then yes, they should let everyone else laugh instead of stopping the show for themselves.

 

[Rentahamster]

I think #CancelColbert is an example of people getting it wrong

Are you absolutely sure they were wrong?* Is it OK to use yellowface in the pursuit of a well-intentioned joke? Sometimes? Never? What about blackface?

The main criticism of #cancelcolbert was that the offended parties "didn't get the joke". From what I can tell by the trailer, these comedians seem to be making a similar argument that lots of people nowadays "didn't get the joke", thus creating a chilling effect, stifling creativity, and harming the artform.

*this doesn't mean that I think they were right, either.

 

[deli2000]

He is good. He's touring and playing arenas right now. You can't get much better than that as a stand up. Having one person get mad at something he says every few shows doesn't mean there is an issue with his act.

If the comedians selling out arenas are being targeted by this then who cares? It's not going to damage their career long term if one or two people get outraged about a thing. Do people think it's affecting young comedians? Because that shows an ignorance of the modern amateur stand up scene imo.

 

[Rentahamster]

Shut the fuck up Maher, and let Burr talk. Jesus Christ.

I've noticed that Bill Maher really loves hearing how smart his own voice sounds to himself.

 

[notworksafe]

If they're ruining the show for everyone else then yes, they should let everyone else laugh instead of stopping the show for themselves.

Yep. If you aren't enjoying yourself leave quietly and don't disturb the others in the club. Also next time do some research on the comedian before you attend their shows.

 

[Zen_Arcade]

If the comedians selling out arenas are being targeted by this then who cares? It's not going to damage their career long term if one or two people get outraged about a thing. Do people think it's affecting young comedians? Because that shows an ignorance of the modern amateur stand up scene imo.

The comedians care? Why wouldn't you care about someone standing up and interrupting something you worked hard on so that they can tell you about how much they don't like it? It's a live performance.

Plus, if this is happening to the biggest comedians in the scene, what makes you think that it's not effecting the young comedians as well?

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Are you absolutely sure they were wrong?* Is it OK to use yellowface in the pursuit of a well-intentioned joke? Sometimes? Never? What about blackface?

The main criticism of #cancelcolbert was that the offended parties "didn't get the joke". From what I can tell by the trailer, these comedians seem to be making a similar argument that lots of people nowadays "didn't get the joke", thus creating a chilling effect, stifling creativity, and harming the artform.

*this doesn't mean that I think they were right, either.

That's a fair point. Honestly, as a fan of Colbert I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I'm also willing to to give more benefit of the doubt for well-intentioned jokes. That doesn't mean that I think that entirely frees them from criticism, but just where I'm personally coming from. But again, the main takeaway from me here was that regardless of whether he was right or wrong, I think Colbert showed humility in his response. Regardless of the number of people on his side, I wouldn't have really been a fan of him taking a stance along the lines of "I'm not going to apologize because some slack jawed idiots don't understand how comedy works!"

Edit: To expound on this more, I think an important takeaway is always to be aware that you're kind of playing with fire by pushing the boundary. I think sometimes people really are caught off guard. Maybe the reaction is fair, maybe it's unfair. But I think the best thing you can do is to try and reflect on it as much as possible before reacting. Sometimes I think it can just be nothing other than good or bad luck that determines how the reaction is going to play out.

 

[Kinyou]

People with flatulence problems don't regularly face violence, humiliation, or possess the highest suicidal rate of any minority group. See transgender community.

I think then the question becomes where we should draw the line, or basically, when is a person so disadvantaged that we shouldn't joke about them anymore? I imagine that line is going to be different for a lot of people.

 

[ElFly]

They could always politely walk out of the show instead of interrupting it for 99.9% of the audience that paid to listen to a comedian and not to the cries of some outraged offended individual

If the comedian is not being polite to them, how come they have an obligation to be polite at the comedian?

Respect goes both ways.

If they're ruining the show for everyone else then yes, they should let everyone else laugh instead of stopping the show for themselves.

This is a ridiculous standard.

Minorities would never be able to stand up and say "hey this offends me" and should be "polite" and be laughed at.

 

[Kid Kamikaze10]

To me, stuff like "Can We Take A Joke" doesn't show how sensitive people have become, but how defensive stand-up comedians are these days. Unable to adapt to a world with mass communication.

 

[HStallion]

Are you absolutely sure they were wrong?* Is it OK to use yellowface in the pursuit of a well-intentioned joke? Sometimes? Never? What about blackface?

The main criticism of #cancelcolbert was that the offended parties "didn't get the joke". From what I can tell by the trailer, these comedians seem to be making a similar argument that lots of people nowadays "didn't get the joke", thus creating a chilling effect, stifling creativity, and harming the artform.

*this doesn't mean that I think they were right, either.

I don't know. Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia had several episodes specifically about Black Face and I think they pulled it off pretty damn well.

 

[deli2000]

The comedians care? Why wouldn't you care about someone standing up and interrupting something you worked hard on so that they can tell you about how much they don't like it? It's a live performance.

That's heckling. Something that's existed since the dawn of comedy and has nothing to do with outrage culture. I agree that's a problem.

Plus, if this is happening to the biggest comedians in the scene, what makes you think that it's not effecting the young comedians as well?

Because neither me or any the comedians I know have experienced this enough times for this to categorized as anything near systematic. And I perform in uni venues all the time, apparently the epidemic for this sort of stuff.

 

[Kid Kamikaze10]

I think #CancelColbert is an example of people getting it wrong, but Colbert's reaction was actually a good case study in how to react to it. He could have easily have undid a lot of good will he earned over the years by being caught off guard at this criticism and becoming overly defensive. But he kept his cool, calmed the angry fans who were lashing out at #CancelColbert, and it all blew over.

#CancelColbert is also a great example of how "it's just a joke" can be defended to the point of endangering or ruining someone's life. Despite Stephen's attempts to cool things over.

That, how Colbert handled it, and the general lack of consequences he and other comedians faced are why I side with the people more. The people can get stuff wrong. Misintepretation and all that.

I also think it's up the comedian to figure out a way to keep hustling despite the environment. Maybe this movie is their way of doing that. Not a particularly fun way.

 

[AstroLad]

Yeah, ok.... These guys crying about outrage culture when their entire catalogues are about them whining and crying about shit.

Yeah seriously. Especially Carolla. Doesn't help that dude is Trump-level stupid when it comes to social or political issues, which for some reason he likes to discuss all the time (when not reminding us he played football in high school, so he's totally manly).

 

[Zen_Arcade]

That's heckling. That' existed since the dawn of comedy and has nothing to do with outrage culture. I agree that's a problem.



Because neither me or any the comedians I know have experienced this enough times for this to categorized as anything near systematic. And I perform in uni venues all the time, apparently the epidemic for this sort of stuff.

Heckling absolutely has something to do with outrage. Just because people have been doing it long before the internet doesn't mean it doesn't come from the same place.

Considering many comedians complain about this, from ones who play arenas to ones who play Universities and shitty night clubs, I fail to see how your anecdotal experience means much compared to that. I don't think all of those people are just making this up.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

Re: Heckling. I honestly err on the side of being against heckling, but do think that comedians -- particularly successful ones -- have to be prepared to some extent to deal with it. I don't necessarily mean the person who storms the stage and punches you or the person who absolutely will not take a hint and sit down and shut up so the rest of the audience can enjoy the show. But if this is career, I think you have to be able to deal with a couple of people not liking your joke without it completely ruining the rhythm of your set.