Yes, that is quite the sentence is it not? Humour is a funny thing. For me, I like humour delivered intelligent and/or edgy. The brits are great at dark and black humour. It is the kind I like. I do not know too many national humours, yet every nations has its own likings. So when I saw the BBC giving me ‘Jimmy Carr sparks fury with Holocaust routine in Netflix special’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-60261876) I had to stop and read it. You see, Jimmy Carr is not for everyone and he is upfront about this. And let’s be clear, he is not for everyone, several comedians bare (or is it bear) that template.
Now the joke is funny, and it is a truth, he is actually giving a spin to a truth and that is a given setting we did not anticipate. He even makes fun of the Jehovah’s witnesses and their watchtower. Yes, we can get angry, or, here’s a thought, we switch OFF the TV if it upsets us. Have people contemplated this? This is not Bernie reincarnated, this is not a concert of Babe the piglet or even a Tele-tubby, it is humour by the formerly youthful, now not so young Jimmy Carr. We know what he is like, there is nothing out of bounds for him and he gets us by going one way and taking a sharp right whilst we were looking to the left. So I say ‘Well Done Jimmy!’ And in the light of the joke, how many people knew the death camp fate of gypsies, homosexuals and other non Arian likings?
I know (for a few reasons) the scope of some events during WW2. And also let’s be clear, he was not making fun of the jews (in this instance), he was using a specific method to give us a truth with a twist. And yes, some people find it upsetting, but guess what, they had the option of watching something else. There will always be the setting where we watch something that offends us. It is an absolute given. You see, there are some that give us that at present at total 500,000 movies have been made. The idea that you like them all is absolute zero. So the idiocy (as I see it) to create fury is dumb on a few levels. On the one hand those who didn’t know his show will now check it out. On the other hand, those creating fury are merely enabling voices for censorship. Democracy is a great thing, yet that means that we are confronted with things we do not like. That is the consequence. So one side opens the other and that is good. It is important to see where our borders are, it is good to know what is too much for us and when we face it we look away, we change channels or we switch off what is there. It is our right to do so. On one side we should congratulate Netflix for giving edgy stuff, it shows that Netflix is taking a larger circumference towards what an audience wants and they also give us what some might not want. It offers us the chance to find out.