I feel like I should start by saying that I like comedy. I own the boxset of Peep Show, am a fan of Monty Python and have guffawed my way through Dylan Moran. My problem lies with comediens or TV personalities that attempt to rouse us into perpetual institutional bullying by making weak digs and pithy attacks on already vulnerable and at times marginalised groups and people. In fact it's the equivalent to a drunken oaf in a bar taking a clumsy and lazy lunge at a baby panda in a wheelchair.
It isn't brave to pull a ha-larious face in an attempt to imitate a kid with Downs Syndrome- sorry 'Mongs' and then post said photos on Twitter, it isn't risque to suggest that an 8 year old child is unwanted because he was born disabled- who admittedly must be fair game considering he is the child of Katie Price, it isn't tongue in cheek to suggest that train journeys should continue and further obliterate the remains of someone who has committed suicide because they had the sheer audacity to delay your journey, it isn't original to repeatedly liken a vulnerable public singer to a horse continuing the same boring, basic comparison until her death, it isn't clever to stand on national TV and tell us that all Mexicans are lazy and smelly or that TV is full of black, Muslim lesbians.
Another example, I'm not even going to bother mentioning the name of this next stud for fear of religious reprisal from Top Gear fans. Maybe it's a sign that he shares the same initials as Jesus Christ??...but I digress. My favourite 'joke', remember it's just a 'joke' is when he calls Gordon Brown a 'Scottish one-eyed idiot'. Harmless fun, poking fun at a man who at the time was sitting in JC's rightful place as Lord of this country. Hilarious. I mean, J.C could have disappointed us all by scraping the barrel and attacked his policies or made a tentative jab at his funny accent but no he decided to show true comedic genius by deciding that going blind in one eye during childhood is funny and worthy of our laughter whilst Richard 'Not a real hamster' Hammond tittered alongside him.
I've heard excuses of 'but it's tongue in cheek' or my favourite 'it's irony' from the anti-heroes themselves as well as fans. If that was really the case then surely there would be no problem whatsoever in me suggesting that people with cancer should be put out of their misery. Their corpse (which at this point smells of salsa and taco) should be thrown over a bridge. Onto some railway tracks. And then ignored...
But then I don't think poking fun of a victim of cancer would illicit the same response as a suicidal, selfish, time-waster.
In my defence, I typed this part while tongueing my own mouth ulcer which just so happens to be situated on the inside of my cheek. Therefore it's okay.
Yet, these are men that presumably have the comedic tools of satire, irony and wit at their disposable yet seem incapable of using them instead preferring to prod lazily at what they don't understand, preferring to mock the disabled, gays and Muslim women for cheap, easy laughs.
Considering my last article enraged a few people, this isn't an attack on anyone who watches Top Gear or who appreciates the fine idiosyncracies of Ricky Gervais. (really??). It is my own personal criticism of the nasty jokes that in my opinion, these nasty men tell.
