Well personally I’ve always loved the old Mack Rice song “It’s cheaper to Keep her” and like the humour in it, so does my wife. You can joke about these things, and thankfully it’s not yet illegal, though I’m sure some would wish it so.
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I agree it’s more complicated - context again. But it’s not so complicated (in my view) in the case of a straight person insulting something by calling it ‘gay’.
Personally I try not to do stereotypes but I understand the humour. Although is this being blocked? I don’t think the ‘woke brigade’ is so up in arms about gentle teasing.
It’s the jokes about cultures, genders, etc that use them in a derogatory manner by people generally in a more powerful position that the woke brigade are targeting.
Ach I’m not in favour of banning songs like this, but I can understand why some might want to. I prefer the approach Disney has taken with the Muppets, for example, to add a rider that some of the humour is of its time.
A bit like the Bing Crosby ‘Baby It’s Child Outside’ debate. For decades it was a gentle little ditty with pretty music but then people clicked it’s actually a song about coercing her into your place nod nod wink wink.
With that knowledge, it’s difficult to sing it quite so cheerily. And with so much other good music out there to listen to (well, maybe that isn’t quite the case with the Christmas genre!), does it really matter if we trim this one off the playlist? I mean, who actually wants to sing a song about trying to get a girl who wants to go home into your place?
I’m going to get a blister at this rate! Thanks for the thread so far, I look forward to rejoining it in (my) morning.
Ian
It’s really subjective i think!
I don’t mind at all calling something or someone gay, because to me it’s not a derogatory term at all. My gay friends are great and won’t mind me using the term either, it’s all a matter of how offensive you consider the term to be.
In Dutch we call using terms in such a way “Geuzennamen”, which means that we reappropriate terms with a negative connotation to something we are proud of:
In French the word gueux historically means beggar, which they used to describe the Dutch back in the 16th century. The Dutch reappropriated the word in a similar way as the word Yankee, which was once used by English colonists as a derogatory term to describe the Dutch people in the New-Netherlands colony.
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I think it’s a matter of how offensive you want the term to be. The word itself carries no weight at all.
That’s the difference. My view is that when used by a straight person with the intent of being derogatory, that’s the line crossed.
But on the internet, how do you determine the full intent of the person using the term, in a given context?
Try making a joke ‘referencing’ your own government (as satire), in Britain, on the jokes thread, and see how it is removed.
One cornerstone of British humour, ie. satire, is no longer permissible on a Forum inhabited by intelligent adults because of something that happened some time in the past and completely unrelated, except the joke was categorised as ‘political’ (not satire or a joke), whether it offended anyone or not and did not invite debate.
There are so many thing wrong with this situation, where does one start?
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Good question. Now we come to who should compromise, the writer or the reader?
Should the reader give the writer the benefit of the doubt, or should the writer consider that the reader cannot determine the intent, and change their language accordingly? Ideally both. But a writer has no control over how their words will be interpreted, so it’s on them to consider the impact. (Boris Johnson’s women dressed as letterboxes, for example.)
I wouldn’t want to risk someone thinking I was homophobic, so in public statements I’d seek to avoid using context-sensitive speech.
Yes, it matters a lot. Who decides? If you go down that road where do you stop? If I don’t like something or object to it I can choose not to buy/listen/partake etc.
Have to say I agree with the above sentiment and for me that also applies to comedy and humour.
Am I the only one to see a rapid decline in the quality of humour since the “bans” on a whole plethora of topics due to some deciding they are offensive ? It started out well with overtly racist jokes becoming unacceptable but IMHO has gone too far now with any and all “minority” groups jumping on the sensitivity bandwagon clamouring to ban humour they don’t like. It seems some top comedians agree.
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This I guess is where we disagree. The fact that someone makes a joke, does not mean they actually feel that way. Like my earlier example.
I don’t see why anyone would take offence if such a joke is made. I would take offence if they genuinely thought that way and were serious about it.
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At the same time, you don’t want to make people walk on their toes constantly to avoid potentially offending anyone.
Or both? Perhaps if there is a grey area and a reader suspects that a term was used offensively, they could ask the poster about their intention?
A nice example is this earlier thread where i used the words “showing off” to describe people on the Naim forums posting photos of their equipment. Another poster pointed me towards the negative connotation that this term has in English:
“maybe for the sake of maintaining diversity on this Forum the word ‘ sharing’ would be kinder and more con jussive than ‘ showing off ‘, which to me has a very negative connotation.”
Which i completely understand and wasn’t considering when i wrote the post. So i acknowledged that and all was good:
“showing off” just isn’t really a combination of words that is used in Dutch, so it’s easy to overlook those kinds of connotations. The closest we have is “laten zien” or “tonen aan”, which both just mean “to show to other people”.
Well, I’m not saying it should be banned outright.
But a retailer might choose not to play it, if they feel it could compromise their ability to sell stuff. And people who like or don’t like it might lobby that business to take a stand one way or the other.
I don’t see anything wrong with that.
Not if we do it ourselves, then each can make their own choice. But I would not like others to make that choice for us.
But I probably wouldn’t. I listen to a lot of (delta) blues, probably around half of those songs are in one way or another not really of this time. In my case listening to the song does not necessarily mean I agree with the sentiment, but I can see how others feel stronger about it.
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I agree. (I did say, “Ideally both.”)
But writing something public without consideration for how it will be interpreted is either naïve or willful. Yes the reader should ideally give the benefit of the doubt, but it’s the writer who stand to lose out. A bit of care in writing to ensure what you wanted to communicate is what’s actually read.
I have the impression that a lot of people can tell that other people (and society at large) are nuanced and complex, with many, many layers and many, many tolerances. Thus if someone tells a joke, a story, a tale, it is recognised and acknowledged by said people that this does not absolutely define or reflect the tellers own views, habits and perspectives. It’s just a story.
I also have the impression that a number of people are more limited in this ability, whether by accident or design. They feel that if someone tells a story, it must determine and/or reflect the storyteller’s own views, beliefs and perspectives and if those views do not match the listener’s own, then these are wrong. These ‘wrong’ views should not then be aired, either because the teller is a bad person and/or they seem to fear that they themselves and others of similar limited abilities will be harmed by the very existence of these stories and they should thereby be banned.
The problem of course is that both perspectives can be correct ones. I, and I suspect everyone on the forum, would feel that a ‘joke’ centering around say child rape for example would be unacceptable and should be banned, removed and frankly never be. Indeed a joke about rape of any kind would you think be a poor subject of humour. However, how often do we hear ‘backs to wall’, ‘don’t bend down in the shower’ type jokes outlining what is in essence the topic of male rape, even among our more right on screen personalities?
So, I agree it is a tricky one. However I do think banning or censoring something is not right. If someone insists on recounting a story others find distasteful then anyone who doesn’t like it can and will refuse to listen. If society at large chooses not to listen, then that determines the future direction of the storyteller. If enough people find the story being told is worth listening to, despite the exasperation of others, then it has its place in society and will and should continue (there is no other explanation for the continuing broadcasts of Mrs Brown’s Boys).
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The problem with this is that the listener doesn’t know whether the joker means it or not. Say the joker makes a sexist joke. Anyone who holds sexist views will very likely have those views reinforced and feel that it’s ok to have sexist views. It’s like me telling a racist joke and excusing it by saying ‘I’m not racist’. I’m not racist so why on Earth would I tell a racist joke? I just wouldn’t.
People referenced Jimmy Carr above. He made a joke about how a dwarf is an abortion that made it. How could anyone excuse that? How could anyone give him money by attending one of his performances? Is it ok to make such a joke and then say you don’t mean it? If people cannot be funny without being offensive they need to try a little harder.
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So would I. So now the question is, given (for example) most people accept that Irishman joke are passé, what motive would a person have to tell one on a public forum?
Wow… Lord help me (apologies to anyone thinking I am taking the Lords name in vein or others who don’t believe in my God and are offended that I do).
I thought context-sensitive speech is exactly what’s needed. Pity too many are context- blind when interpreting others language. Has to be a joke in this somewhere.
I can see this getting off topic soon, and posts flagged 
I don’t think that is a fair interpretation of what I wrote.
To be clear, what I meant was that, in public content, I would avoid using language that relies on context such as knowing me. Because the internet has no idea who I am or what I’m like so I can’t be sure how it will be interpreted.
Rather than writing, for example, that something looks like it was assembled by an Indian (and expecting everyone to assume I’m Indian and haha I can laugh at myself), I might say it looks like it was made by toddlers. Both convey the same message, but one risks readers taking offence.