|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Girl on a cliff
|
Alfred E. Neuman
What? Me worry?
# 6855
|
Posted
I'm surprised to find the poll at 72% Yawn as I voted just now. It's only the second I've bothered to post to and it's by far the most offensive and humorous of the lot.
If anything would bring down the wrath of the Religous Hatred police, it would be this one! Cold-blooded, over-the-top, anti-christian bigotry. Thankfully, when the new laws are instituted, those of us who try to uphold lifestyles representative of right thinking will no longer have our values threatened by just this sort of vile, degrading attack.
It's about time God was taken seriously again. Bring on the brimstone.
--------------------
--Formerly: Gort--
Posts: 12954 | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marquis
Apprentice
# 9750
|
Posted
I have to say that I am beging to doubt what the membership is doing in here with these jokes. Surely the point of this exorcise is to define, understand, clarify the nature of offensivness?
How do you expect to do that without having purile crap like this to work with? Does it not strike you as interesting that the threads with lots of commentary from the asembled bretheren are all the really offensive ones? ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Who would have thunk it eh? ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
--------------------
"I believe that the words Favour", "Owe", and "Big" were used....."
Posts: 28 | From: NYC | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Phred22
Apprentice
# 3857
|
Posted
I first encountered this joke in Playboy, only the priest was a cowboy and the girl a grown woman who'd been tied to the ground by Indians after they'd massacred her family. Is the joke less offensive if it's anti-female rather that anti-clerical? ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posts: 9 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Emma Louise
Storm in a teapot
# 3571
|
Posted
hmmmm - openly admit to reading playboy huh.....
Posts: 12719 | From: Enid Blyton territory. | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Phred22:
I first encountered this joke in Playboy, only the priest was a cowboy and the girl a grown woman who'd been tied to the ground by Indians after they'd massacred her family. Is the joke less offensive if it's anti-female rather that anti-clerical?
Why is it that if the bad guy is a priest the joke is anti-clerical, but if the bad guy is a cowboy, the joke is anti-female? Wouldn't it be anti-cowboy? Serious question here; I'm not taking the piss.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
When I saw the title I thought it was gong to be the old Max Miller joke (Brighton's famousest comedian)
quote:
I was walking along this narrow mountain pass with a cliff up on one side and a cliff down on the other - so narrow that nobody else could pass you, when I saw a beautiful blonde walking towards me.
A beautiful blonde with not a stitch on, yes, not a stitch on, lady.
Cor blimey, I didn't know whether to toss myself off or block her passage.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Phred22
Apprentice
# 3857
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Why is it that if the bad guy is a priest the joke is anti-clerical, but if the bad guy is a cowboy, the joke is anti-female? Wouldn't it be anti-cowboy? Serious question here; I'm not taking the piss.
The same reason the original joke is not first seen as anti-child. It's a matter of who the joke teller appears most hostile to. It can be the victim as well as the villain.
[Edited code to make quote clear]
[ 27. July 2005, 07:07: Message edited by: starbelly ]
Posts: 9 | Registered: Dec 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
|
Posted
It's offensive only because of the situation its asking people to find funny. It's not funny in the slightest. There's no wit there.
--------------------
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Posts: 5032 | From: Easton, Bristol | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Cartmel Veteran
Shipmate
# 7049
|
Posted
Of all the jokes in the laugh judgement, this is the one, the only one, I found offensive. But it's also the joke that made me laugh out loud the most.
It's bleak darkness is perhaps what makes it so funny, rather than laughing at the joke itself, it's laughing at the tone of it.
I've heard it told with other protagonists and it's just as funny to me. I suggest the reason there's a priest in this version is so it could be part of this discussion. If it was Father Christmas, a policeman or a teacher it wouldn't even be on the site.
Many of the jokes in the laugh judgement have a Christian bent in them because folks want to include them here. And sometimes I feel people get a little over-complicated asking why, in this joke's case, there's a priest in it. It's the joke equivelent of the anthropic principle.
Posts: 1041 | From: Dorset | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
Good point CBV. Alot of the jokes posted are not really about religion, just a person identified as relgious is substituted for the thick/mean with money/perverted one. The humour is supposed to come from either - this plays to a stereotype or this shows someone we are supposed to look up to has feet of clay and/or is a hypocrite.
I laughed at this one, not because I think all priests are peadophiles or that child abuse is funny - but because the tag line was unexpecteded and I like jet black humour.
Also a big, big, big part of this for me is the fact that the jokes aren't stories of real events.
In my line of work I hear people's stories of violence and abuse, and I have never found them funny - they are sometimes very distressing to hear.
I think that this gallows humour is one way of coping with that. I think I would find a joke about this topic offensive if it implied the resposibility lay with the victim - that's were I think they start to be posionous.
[ 25. September 2005, 12:22: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
DaveF
Apprentice
# 10538
|
Posted
It's not very funny. The "It's just not your day, is it?" is humerous as an understatement. The stereotyping of the priest as a paedophile is as funny as all stereotypes (ie not very). It lacks internal consistency - why is he a preist? Why is she just standing there (for long enough for him to approach without having seen the car)? Why did the car go over?
The offensnse is in the stereotype and the inappropriateness. That inappropriateness is emphasised with the childs bereavement & vulnerability so emphasising the offence.
I wouldn't write this kind of joke but if I did I would "shaggy dog" it into a long tale of cumulative woes giving space for some humour on the way to the punch line. Giving it a stronger but more fantasy based plot.
--------------------
DaveF
Posts: 5 | From: Uk | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
wanderingstar
Shipmate
# 10444
|
Posted
Hi Dave F.
I think the brevity of this is what gives it its punch. To "shaggy dog" it would be to enfeeble it.
Have you never laughed a laugh that was forcibly dragged from your throat?
I would not take this as a stereotype of (Catholic or otherwise) priests, merely of people. It's not about paedophilia, just power generally,
**** it, I'm doomed aren't I?
NB I would welcome you to the Ship, but that would seem presumptuous.
[ 15. October 2005, 10:47: Message edited by: wanderingstar ]
--------------------
You know what you shouldn't have done? You should never have let me press all those buttons...
Posts: 273 | From: Hollow lands and hilly lands | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Printer-friendly view
