Free speech, for or against?

[Saphire]

I certainly don't think he should be banned, and I think his show should remain on Netflix...and it probably will.
No doubt he has lost quite a lot of 'fans', and no doubt people who didn't like him in the first place, will like him even less now.

On the other hand, people who do like his 'humour', will applaud him even more for pushing the limits.

Ultimately, the only reason it will bother him will be if his work dries up because of this.

 

[Wojcik]

Example...
Jimmy Carr has been criticised for a joke he made in his most recent Netflix comedy special about travellers.

In a widely shared clip of the stand-up show His Dark Material – which arrived on Netflix on Christmas Day – the comedian tells the audience: “Strap in everyone, you ready?”
He goes on.....

“When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.
No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives."

A group called 'The Travellers Movement' have said... “This is truly disturbing and goes way beyond humour. We need all your support in calling this out.”
The group has also asked Netflix to remove the special from its platform.

A statement has also been issued by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust criticising Carrs 'abhorrent jokes'.

I know what Jimmy Carr is all about and what his act usually entails, especially his stand up. It's all about being over the top and being no-holds barred entertainment. So people who know Jimmy's act, know what to expect. It's also up to Netflix to provide a warning message stating that some of the content on the show may trigger or cause people to be upset. It's about covering your bases and letting people know what to expect from the program before they view it.

As for gypsies, they've been discriminated against for generations. I used to work at The Showcase Cinema during my College years, and every Sunday you would see a lot of gypsies come in and make a stop to use the toilets without paying to watch any films or buying any food or drink.
So the management team and security were always be doubled up on those days to encounter any possible trouble. And I do remember one of the female managers referring to the gypsies as "disgusting and trashy" in her comments about them.

Going back to Jimmy, he's like a shock jock. Someone who says a lot of things to stir the pot and cause an uproar to gain buzz. I see him as the modern day Roy 'Chubby' Brown or Bernard Manning, who were two very controversial comedians judging by today's standards, yet were the favourites of the working classes of Britain, who wanted to pay to see some very unclean, and not very politically correct comedy.
No race, sex, gender or religion was safe from those two, and what's most incredible about it was that all race, gender, sex and religions all attended these shows and expected to be offended, but doing so in a way that even they would laugh.

So just as much as comedy is subjective, i also find being offended to be a subjective issue also. What someone may find offended, someone else might find very funny. I think it depends on the person's perspective.

I believe in freedom of speech, but also of consequence.

 

[PennyDreadful2]

Genuinely talented comedians, do not need to rely on controversy to get laughs.

 

[Saphire]

Genuinely talented comedians, do not need to rely on controversy to get laughs.

They shouldn't, but some genuinely talented comedians do, and they always have.
Dave Allen used to shock millions of people, but he was very good at his job.

 

[Wojcik]

Genuinely talented comedians, do not need to rely on controversy to get laughs.

Yet some of the things that are considered controversial topics today, weren't before. So I think the lines of controversy are always going to shift, regarding to what's acceptable and what's not. I think it does limit an artist or a performer in what they can bring to the table.

 

[UKRaider]

This:

 

[UKRaider]

And this as well!

 

[Saphire]

Prosecuted for actually laughing at a joke?
Now that is funny.

 

[hell2bwith76]

Jimmy Carr said:

“When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.
No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives."

Gypsies are calling this offensive, we have people that aren't Gypsies telling the Gypsies to stop being offended.

So I if we swap the word 'Gypsy' for the word 'English' and imagine Jimmy Carr said this as an example:

“When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of English that were killed by the Nazis.
No one ever talks about that because no one wants to talk about the positives."

I gather English people wouldn't find this offensive and any English people that do find this offensive should be told by other races to stop being offended? Noone going to complain about that? Theres cancel culture and theres expressing sympathy that more of a race weren't killed in a war that killed so many people. Any Gypsy who had family members killed during WWll probably wouldn't be happy that someone is saying that more should have died. WWll is generally something not joked about.

I, personally ,don`t think anyone should joke about "The Holocaust" in any manner. Unless of course they are brainwashed to think it never happened . Joking about race or Culture in general ,in my opinion,isn`t so bad but to joke about such a horrific event in History is wrong in my book.

 

[WickedPerdition]

Charlie Chaplin was a genius, his whimsical humour still makes kids giggle.
I agree about Laurel and Hardy...just not funny to me either.
Modern day unfunnies...Russel Brand can be lumped in with them.

You're having a ******* laugh!
Laurel & Hardy not funny???
Even Blackadder mocked the inane and predictable slapstick of Charlie Chaplin. No wonder he never spoke in his films.
You must have had a sense of humour bypass as well as a sense bypass, my dear woman.

 

[Saphire]

I, personally ,don`t think anyone should joke about "The Holocaust" in any manner. Unless of course they are brainwashed to think it never happened . Joking about race or Culture in general ,in my opinion,isn`t so bad but to joke about such a horrific event in History is wrong in my book.

Maybe this is the answer...

"People should consider boycotting the comedian Jimmy Carr because of his widely criticised comment about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in a Netflix special, the UK health secretary, Sajid Javid, has suggested."

Boycotting is better than banning, people are using their free will to decide what's acceptable and what isn't.

 

[Saphire]

Honestly, I think one Johnny Rotten is enough.

 

[breakwake_]

Thinking about the Gypsies, I think Carr may find out if he's offended any of them. I wonder what people would say if they heard Carr has ended up in hospital after being receiving a beating by a group of Gypsies? Thats pure old fashioned justice. Who would side with Carr and who would side with the Gypsies?

 

[Saphire]

Thinking about the Gypsies, I think Carr may find out if he's offended any of them. I wonder what people would say if they heard Carr has ended up in hospital after being receiving a beating by a group of Gypsies? Thats pure old fashioned justice. Who would side with Carr and who would side with the Gypsies?

It wouldn't surprise me if Carr isn't looking over his shoulder right now, given the publicity and ensuing outrage over his remarks.
Violence isn't the way though....people not turning up to his shows would hurt more in the long run.

 

[SamBally]

Reality.

"The Nazi Germans regarded Sinti and Roma (Zigeuner, as they were referred to in official German documents of the period) as enemies of the Third Reich, and therefore sentenced them to isolation and extermination. Nazi Germany followed pseudoscientific arguments supplied by the Institute for the Study of Racial Hygiene and established strict principles for dealing with the Sinti and Roma, whom it regarded as racially alien, inferior, and “asocial."

"Insufficient food and the severe overcrowding in the so-called Zigeunerlager led to a dramatic deterioration in hygienic and sanitary conditions, which led in turn to frequent epidemics, especially of typhus and starvation diarrhea. These epidemics resulted in a high mortality rate among the prisoners."

"From the end of May 1943 to August 1944, SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Josef Mengele held the post of head physician in the “Gypsy camp.” At the same time, as camp physician, he was on duty at hospitals and outpatient clinics in other parts of the camp. At the behest of the Institute for Anthropological and Biological-Race Research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Dahlem, he undertook anthropological studies of various racial groups, mostly Sinti and Roma."

"Of the approximately 23 thousand Sinti and Roma deported to Auschwitz, some 21 thousand died or were murdered in the gas chambers"



Jimmy Carr.


“When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.

“No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”

The statement prompted laughter and clapping from the audience.



Jimmy Carr cult member.

It’s not as if his comedy isn’t known for pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable

 

[SamBally]

Dr. Josef Mengele's medical facility at Auschwitz was perhaps the most horrifying place the Holocaust produced. Who was this man behind it all and what made him the notorious "Angel of Death"?​

"Ask a person to name the worst crime in living memory and the Holocaust will probably be what they come up with. Ask them to name the worst crime scene of the Holocaust and Auschwitz is the natural answer.

Ask a person who knew that camp what the worst part of it was, and the killing center at Birkenau is the hands-down winner. Ask a survivor of Birkenau to name the most terrifying murderer in the whole complex and they’ll give you the name of Dr. Josef Mengele.

Every doctor in his part of the camp was required to take a turn as the selection officer – dividing incoming shipments between those who were to work and those who were to be immediately gassed – and many found the work depressing. Josef Mengele adored it and he was always willing to take other doctors’ shifts on the arrival ramp.


In the normal course of his work, he managed an infirmary where the sick were executed, assisted other German doctors with their work, supervised inmate medical staff, and conducted his own research among the thousands of inmates he personally selected for the human experiment program he also started and managed.

The experiments he devised were ghoulish beyond belief. Motivated and energized by the seemingly bottomless pool of condemned human beings placed at his disposal, Mengele continued the work he had started at Frankfurt by studying the influence of heredity on various physical traits.

Identical twins are useful for this kind of genetics research because they, of course, have identical genes. Any differences between them, therefore, must be the result of environmental factors. This makes sets of twins perfect for isolating genetic factors by comparing and contrasting their bodies and behavior.

...Mengele assembled hundreds of pairs of twins and sometimes spent hours measuring various parts of their bodies and taking careful notes. He often injected one twin with mysterious substances and monitored the illness that ensued. He applied painful clamps to children’s limbs to induce gangrene, injected dye into their eyes – which were then shipped back to a pathology lab in Germany – and gave them spinal taps.

...When the test subject died, the child’s twin would be immediately killed with an injection of chloroform to the heart and both would be dissected for comparison. On one occasion, Josef Mengele killed 14 pairs of twins this way and spent a sleepless night performing autopsies on his victims."