Will 2010 be remembered as the year that British comedy punched down?

[Neil]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4584218.stm

See, that joke - from Jimmy Carr, who threatened to sue Jim Davidson for stealing another joke he didn't even write originally, and which predates his career - isn't even original.  Boyle's doing that exact same strain of humour in the last Tramadol Nights - cut-and-pasted offensive gags, but this time with the target changed from Mexicans, or whatever, to Glaswegians. 

These are old, old gags.  I remember I used to read them on issues of Grapevine, a legendary Amiga disk-mag, that circulated sort of pre-internet.  They weren't original then either, but nor were they really available, that I can recall, except in these sort of niche outlets.  Now, irony has breathed new life into them.

'No, no... we're just satirising the attitudes, of people who don't like 'spics.''

You've got to be careful, you've got to be able to back it up, and you've got to be more creative.  Offensive humour is something I love, when it's done well, and creatively.  There will always be a reaction to things like political correctness, and that's fine, and proper, but approach it in a thoughtful, creative manner.

Here's an example, I just googled "Mexican jokes flys", and that Boyle joke is the first one on this page.  Look at the sort of company it keeps.  Look at where it wants to drag society back to:

NWS - http://www.aryannations88.com/zog/mexijokes.htm

How do you get a Mexican woman pregnant?
Jizz in her shoes, and let the flies do the rest!

[DeGrise]

I don't think you can include Lee Nelson in this list. Much as I didn't enjoy the show, the actual character is nobody's fool. It's not mocking a stereotype as much as using that stereotype to take the piss out of people above him in the social strata. So, despite him being a character, he's largely punching up. In my opinion.

As you say, a lot of this is about a lack of warmth and empathy.

I wonder if Frankie Boyle sees himself as the classic comedy outsider, at the bottom of the social pile,; something that would make everyone fair game. It would be particularly interesting if this was an example of differences in perception rather than what happens when a funny man with a cruel streak removes any form of self-censorship.

[Famous Mortimer]

Much as I didn't enjoy the show

Agreed. Its main crime was being absolute shite, I never got the sense it was mocking lower-class culture in any way.

[Pie Pie Eater]

I know it doesn't have too many fans on here but the latest Collings and Herrin podcast (#144) has a large section about 'punching down',  Herring's views seem to tally quite nicely with those on this board.

[Mob Bunkhaus]

Who is it who writes about comedy for Spiked? Someone from round here, wasn't it?

You'll have enough just from going back through your own posts, Neil. And the material speaks for itself. Go get 'em.

No help, but I've just stopped watching British comedy because of this shit. Over the last year I've seen only The Trip (which I'm pretending is American) and one online clip. Last night because of this thread I searched YouTube for Morgana+Gilbert and saw a comedian pretending to be a mentally disabled teenage interviewer with a special needs film crew. So I'll remember it as the year that British comedy boiled itself down to the belm.

Spoiler alert

"What a useless post. Bragging that I'm unqualified to speak about these cunts. (Still pleased I haven't watched any of them, though). Post anyway."

[close]

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

No help, but I've just stopped watching British comedy because of this shit.

Shame, as you've missed some good stuff in that case. Apart from The Trip, there was Getting On, Rev, Roger and Val Have Just Got In, Grandma's House[nb]Run those titles together in one sentence with an exclamation mark at the end. Now start a novel with it.[/nb]. All of them good (well, Grandma's House was alright, but certainly not bad)

[Nelson Swillie]

And The Gumbys?  I'd be interested to know what type of person the Pythons originally based them on. Uneducated working class people on the beach or one bloke in particular?

According to George Perry's book, the Gumbies were inspired by childhood memories of people paddling in the sea during an unspecified team member's childhood holidays.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Can you (or anyone else) nail it down to some specifics?  I don't generally bother with panel shows.

Josie Long and Chris Addison both stooped to chav/ASBO jokes on You Have Been Watching. Unfortunately, I can't remember the gags specifically (basically: kids from council estates have knives and wear tags!), but I do remember being irked by them at the time. They were indicative of a sort of liberal reactionary attitude you find in a lot of modern comedy.

[Nelson Swillie]

If you ask me (I know nobody actually did), comedy's been fucking dead for at least twenty years, with the early 1990s being a particular low point. What with Roy Chubby Brown being hailed as a comedy messiah, and Vic Reeves Big Night Out, the Mary Whitehouse Experience and Bottom competing to see which one can be the most self-indulgent and least funny, it was a grim time for folk like me who grew up worshipping the ground the Monty Python team walked on.

[Neil]

Comedy is incapable of death.  Can't happen.  That's dogma.

[Jemble Fred]

Comedy is incapable of dying.

Millions of years after the human race – and all other life in all universes – has finally been extinguished, two planets will collide in the best example of galactic slapstick ever not beheld by man.

[Tiny Poster]

Josie Long and Chris Addison both stooped to chav/ASBO jokes on You Have Been Watching. Unfortunately, I can't remember the gags specifically (basically: kids from council estates have knives and wear tags!), but I do remember being irked by them at the time. They were indicative of a sort of liberal reactionary attitude you find in a lot of modern comedy.

Yep, this is the sort of thing Robin Ince does too. If anyone is interested in audio proof - PM me.

[Famous Mortimer]

What with Roy Chubby Brown being hailed as a comedy messiah

When? When did this happen?

[Tiny Poster]

Some working class people Nelson knew in 1990 bought a couple of his videos.

[Famous Mortimer]

I bet the last ten mentions of The Mary Whitehouse Experience on here are from TC telling us all how obsessed we are with it.

[Twibbie]

The thing for me is, I wouldn't single out 2010 as a particularly bad year over the last six or seven years. There's been loads of reprehensible shit, but click back enough pages on Comedy Chat and you'll see the exact same points being made about earlier shows with slightly different titles, or just earlier series of current panel shows. But I share the downbeat feelings many seem to have, and I suppose that's because there's just no sign of things turning around. I thought the election would breathe a bit of life into new comedy (you remember, all that "Life under New Labour was so harmonious that no-one feels any need to be angry any more" or however it went), but more than six months on, all of the cheap bullying of the last few years is still the hot ticket. Comedy's knuckles aren't dragging any more, they're entrenched firmly in the ground. A few years ago it felt like the tide needed turning, whereas now it feels like it needs a total revolution in the mindset of British comedy.

[Little Hoover]

It seems a bit early to expect to see the affects of the election on comedy, just because of how much is commissioned well in advance, although saying that, it doesn't look like there's much coming up in 2011, I assume that thing with Brooker, Mitchell, Carr and Laverne is all Channel 4 have to answer to the problem though.

[Blumf]

^{(half thought through idea follows)}

Could it be that, over the past decade, we've seen the death of mainstream alternative comedy that blossomed in the 80s and now have a reversion to the old, apolitical stuff. Stuff that can have a nasty bully mentality that the alt scene would have avoided and displaced in it's time.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

Enforced brevity so one quick un...of course the notion of self determination is important, call it Thatcherite if y'like.

"Chavs" are seen as forging their own Burberic destiny, as free as Hollywood studio execs or investment bankers. Hence they're a legitimate target.

Anyone in the economic underclass (which includes many physically and mentally handicapped) is a legitimate target under the free market. I've not seen a curve but
I'd guess the amount of 'ethnic gags' v 'ethnic wealth' is roughly inversely proportionate over the last three decades.

Can we mention SBC? Can we? Priveleged Oxbridge Zionist mocks first black urban yoof, then 'Muslim' backward
'East European', then dem gayz (is it becoz he iz Austrian?? Didn't see too many objections 'ere abouts. Less still in Hollywood eh.

[Dusty Gozongas]

Or maybe there's a formative period in your life that a certain brand of comedy becomes your only palatable variety. The next brand comes along and you accuse it of something it isn't actually doing?

Grandad syndrome or something.

[Neil]

Can we mention SBC? Can we? Priveleged Oxbridge Zionist mocks first black urban yoof, then 'Muslim' backward

Not that there's any subtext to your objections, or anything.

So it's ok to attack "chavs", but not homophobes?

[rudi]

I never read Bruno as an attack on homosexuals/homosexuality. In fact all three of his major characters are there to display how people react to those you accuse him of mocking, but then you knew that already, didn't you?

Quick! Bung in another barb at something/one to do with Mitchell & Webb before the timer beeps and the light goes out in your room for the night.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

Does the emboldened word undermine the sentence? Weren't y'talkin about punching down? In the context of regional relations (middle east) and within the entertainment industry, isn't it fair to say the 'friends of Israel', should they mock those clearly of 'other persuasions' are inevitably punching down?

[thepuffpastryhangman]

rudi - do you ever actually enter the discussion? The last five posts of yours I've seen haven't involved doing so. Everywhere from the Beefheart death thread to the Jokes thread and now here, you just pop up irrelevantly.

EDIT - you pop up in the Beefheart thread and don't even big him up. FFS.

[rudi]

I know, it's like I haven't read the rule book.

The irony of being lectured by Sister Non-Sequiter herself isn't lost on me.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

Ali G opened the chav bashing floodgates.

[Ignatius_S]

...Can you guys think of other examples of comedy punching down in 2010, or prior to that?  Perhaps examples of comedy that's followed on from Gervais/Little Britain in the noughties?

Lauren from The Catherine Tate Show?

Personally, I would say the punching down typified in stuff such as Gervais was following a post-PC trend. Carr has been mentioned, but he was writing for Gervais quite a few years ago before being an act in his own right, so there are arguably many sets of fingerprints at the crime scene.

Towards the end of Monkey Dust, I found some sketches had quite a unpleasant taste - with one or two mocking fat poor people eating themselves to death, although this target wasn't typical, the show was having a creative malaise and the answer from the team appeared to be a nasty, laughing at others style, which I think characterises this type of thing.

... and must check out Lee Nelson. ...

As have been mentioned by others, Nelson doesn't belong in this category. Although Brodkin does poke fun at chav speech, clothes etc, it's not done maliciously and nor is the character malicious. Nelson is gormless, but surprisingly likeable - and with audience interaction, it's clear he likes talking to other people and finds them interesting, which is hardly something one can say about the likes of Pollard.

[uglybob1986]

"Chavs" are seen as forging their own Burberic destiny, as free as Hollywood studio execs or investment bankers. Hence they're a legitimate target.

Can we mention SBC? Can we? Priveleged Oxbridge Zionist mocks first black urban yooof

I'd hate to see this thread descend into a "won't someone please think of the lower classes!" type scenario. I consider myself working class and the problem I have with this is the implication that chavs are somehow representative of the rest of us, because they most definately are not. I live in an area surrounded by council estates full of chavs and went to a (failing) high school in one of them. As with anyone else who willingly conforms to a negative stereotype they are legitimate targets for parody, just an easy and overused one at the moment. Don't get me wrong, the jokes about estate kids and knives, Harry Hill's single etc are shit, but they're shit because they're lazy and unimaginative, not offensive (at least I don't find them to be, other peoples opinions are always welcome!).

As for Ali G, most people I know or knew at the time thought he was parodying "wiggas" who by definition are of course not black at all, even if they think they are.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I'd hate to see this thread descend into a "won't someone please think of the lower classes!" type scenario. I consider myself working class and the problem I have with this is the implication that chavs are somehow representative of the rest of us, because they most definately are not. I live in an area surrounded by council estates full of chavs and went to a (failing) high school in one of them. As with anyone else who willingly conforms to a negative stereotype they are legitimate targets for parody, just an easy and overused one at the moment. G, most people I know or knew at the time thought he was parodying "wiggas" who by definition are of course not black at all, even if they think they are.

I agree with this. It's actually quite insulting to the vast majority of decent people on council estates to say that being derogatory towards "chavs" is a pop at them. They're the ones who have to put up with anti-social behaviour more than anyone.

[thepuffpastryhangman]

Don't think anyone was saying that^.

Mocking token symbols of affluence is a part of it. Burberry and bling -  'is that the best expression of economic prowess y'got?'
The lack of capital clout has been legitimised as a target, Bugger-all Money has become the butt. Racial stereotyping has fallen away as racial economic parity (still a fantasy) is crawled towards. Instead it's the economically disenfranchised who're targeted, the losers in the fairest of systems. This applies to disability too, it's never the millionaire spaz, it's the one in the anarok clearly lacking the necessary community care, they're in Greggs not Nobu.
This is accepted because it helps perpetuate the myth of equality of opportunity. It's their own fault. Being less of a shark, having less nouse(?), no desire and/or no ability to fully embrace the embetterment ladder renders you an open target.
Reality TV hasn't helped. It encourages the scornfest. The petty, nitpicking apolitical (in our dreams) bitchin bitch-in delights in mocking naked hopeless humanity. Point that finger, shake that stick, aren't normal people shit. But hey, they're not the shittest and hactually they're a pretty big slice of the market, so let's aim a few rungs lower than the reality show kids, let's get those who dream of being one, those who follow the easily (mis