Xref: utzoo news.misc:2180 soc.culture.jewish:8458 rec.humor.d:1239 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!ucsd!orion.cf.uci.edu!elroy!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!mayville From: mayville@tybalt.caltech.edu (Kevin J. Mayville) Newsgroups: news.misc,soc.culture.jewish,rec.humor.d Subject: Re: The Good, the Bad, and the Stupid (LONG) Message-ID: <8734@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> Date: 29 Nov 88 15:54:18 GMT References:<1092@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> <8980@gryphon.COM> <1101@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu> Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu Reply-To: mayville@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (Kevin J. Mayville) Organization: California Institute of Technology Lines: 39 >>>But other ethnic >>>groups, having suffered a significant amount of discrimination >>>DO find such jokes offensive, and their wishes should be >>>respected. > >>1. Why? > >It's called politeness and consideration for the feelings of >others. Nancy, that does not answer the question by any stretch of the imagination. One of the basic tenets of comedy is that it respects *nothing*. Nothing is sacred. You can hop up and down, stamp your feet, and yell 'Discrimination!' for as long as you want, and this will never change. Or if it does, that will spell the end of comedy. >>2. How does one determine what jokes "other ethnic groups" find >> offensive? Who is the authoratative spokesperson for an ethnic >> group? > >No one person can be the authority. I think it just depends on how >many people complain. If the number is significant, maybe the joke >really is offensive. But nobody (well, nobody rational) really cares if some people think a particular joke is offensive. Millions if not billions of people think, say, Richard Pryor's comedy routines are offensive. Yet that hasn't stopped him from releasing new albums, or me from enjoying them. And I don't recall any great setbacks to the civil rights movement caused by the ethnic flavor of some of his jokes. Kevin mayville@tybalt.caltech.edu "She's beautiful, popular, and obviously going through some emotional shoot-out to consent to date....the human tater-tot. What did you do, Keith, threaten her life?"