What Makes Racist/Phobic/Non PC Humor Funny? - Why lol?

If you ever played sports or grew up in a poor neighborhood, you would have experienced the humor of stereotyping a culture and insulting those you love.

There's nothing funnier than saying a (mostly) true thing that is singularly mean and also soulcrushing to another human.
 
Racist and non-PC jokes aren't inherently funny, otherwise The Iconoclast would be hilarious. Well, he is but for all the wrong reasons.
 
Kyria the Great dijo:
At the end of the day, it is because we as a species like to push things beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, and comedy allows us to do that in a safe and entertaining manner.
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As opposed to... the Glazorkians from the rings of Saturn?

Who is "We as a species"? I don't think other species have comedy.

It's funny when it's funny. It's not funny because it's offensive, it's funny and offensive. Sometimes the offensiveness can play into the joke (Picture of Mohammed crying about islamic terrorism for example). When you're worried about offending someone, your primary concern is no longer making a funny joke, so the comedy tends to make compromises with the PC police. Unoffensive comedy can be funny, of course, but if your first concern is not being offensive then it's unlikely you'll be funny.

There's a reason people say a funny person "Has a quick wit" and it's not because comedians spend 20 minutes agonizing over whether someone might get offended by what they say.
 
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die." - Mel Brooks. Seriously, humor is how we cope with life, and sometimes that's the best way to deal with the taboo -- mock it. It's also the best way to ease the tension -- too much tip-toeing around sometimes.


Sometimes I feel like, "Oh my god, I can't believe I'm laughing at this", and that makes it even funnier.
(Obviously offensive comedy has to be actually FUNNY. Not, just, "derp derp derp, niggers, derp derp derp fags". If you can't be funny, then just shut up.)
 
Última edición:
Poor people like banter and the middle class follows trends but still respects the idea of having a "polite society".


Always comes down to the middle class ruining everything.
 
Because somewhere in there, is a kernel of truth. Doubly so if it’s a group you belong to, because we all need to laugh at ourselves.
 
Because everything can be funny. Bigotry isn't intristically funny. Sassiness isn't intristically funny. It comes down to the skill of the comedian and the personal preference of the audience to decide if something's funny. If you think saying racist things without any rhyme or reason is unfunny, you're probably right, but there's always one person who'll laugh at it.
 
Part of the reason the "gas the jews" stuff is so funny is because it's considered comically evil at this point, from the most horrible events in history in living memory and a big deal in our culture. A lot of humor is about contrast, us here saying gas the jews is funny because it's deliberately not taking seriously something very serious in reality. The world's a dark place and sometimes you have to not take that darkness so seriously.

The left can't handle shocking humor because they've basically acquired the Puritanism the religious right had in the 70s and 80s.
 
Humor is the best tool to dismantle fear and tyranny. If you want to know who to be afraid of, just look to the people you're not allowed to mock.

Humor is supposed to be shocking. That's what disarms you of your prejudices and expectations. A pug being taught to heil to mock the owner for loving her pug too much is funny because her dog was made to do an ugly thing against her expectations. Because pugs are cute and no one expected to see it heil. Because nazis are legitimately scary but here's a "nazi" thing that won't actually hurt you. But it's also commentary. Teaching a pug to heil just to shock people isn't disrespectful to history, it's an acknowledgment of the fact that this ugly part of history is rightfully shocking. Same with Louis CK doing a bit where he says rape isn't okay, unless you want to have sex with someone and they don't let you. The collective groan from the audience is a visceral reminder to us that yes, these subjects do generate a strong response for good reason.

Humor is supposed to shock because it's supposed to challenge you to consider your boundaries in an open forum - because just getting on a soapbox and proclaiming them to be "X is okay, Y is not okay" means nothing, anyone can lie about being on the right side and having the right opinions when they're given time to pen a diatribe. If humor shocks you into laughter or any other immediate emotional response, then it has negated your ability to lie about where you stand. It makes demagoguery and moralization impotent and forces everyone to admit what they think even if they didn't mean to. That is why humor is important.
 
What's interesting is that you can often substitute the same joke for several different groups - for instance, a blonde joke can work for the Irish, the Poles, whatever group is considered stupid in your social circle. I've even heard medical students retell such jokes with biomedical students. Yet if you don't put a specific group in, if the punchline revolves around non-specific idiots, the joke just isn't funny.

I think in days past, it was about removing the fear of the other. I think often, stereotyping particular groups as stupid or lazy came about because people felt intimidated. This large group of people move into your area, you don't speak their language or understand their customs. In a way, they're kind of scary, but there's nothing you can do about them. So you laugh at them and they're not so intimidating.

These days, I think non-PC humour is a bit like dirty jokes, in that it's the forbidden fruit. You know you shouldn't laugh, and that's what makes it funny. And it allows you to let off steam - everyone's so worried about offending people, sometimes it's good to just say "fuck it, here's a black guy joke."

I think the best analysis of this phenomenon was in Avenue Q:
 
Catharsis. Plus, bonding over insults is a pretty masculine thing like humor itself. Just one of those weird things we overgrown tree-rats do.
 
In [current year] saying "nigger" and using racial stereotypes are the most offensive things you can say in polite, mainstream society. And theres no clear-cut rules in humour, but a big part of what makes good comedy is always about crossing the boundaries of the day, saying something shocking, making people uncomfortable, etc.

Its less something inherently funny about racism, but more the reaction that racism gets in 2018, in the same way that jokes about religion or sex were shocking and funny in the 60s.
 
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