Thread: The Laugh Judgment: the results Board: The Laugh Judgment / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=61;t=000089
Posted by Simon (# 1) on :
 
The Laugh Judgment project is drawing to a close, and we've posted the competition results on the SOF mainsite this evening. The results give the Top 10 funny and Top 10 offensive jokes, as voted for on this board. You can read it all by clicking here.

Before someone asks: the results were obtained by taking a snapshot of the vote across all the joke threads on 23 August. Voting has been continuing since that date, of course, although I don't think any of the jokes have dramatically changed position in our poll.
 
Posted by The Coot (# 220) on :
 
From the Church Times reporter's comments in the article on the Magazine home page it sounds like the performance at Greenbelt was very worthwhile and revealing in itself.

It almost sounds like performance art* which included the audience as part of the artwork. I hope it was recorded on video!


* The art installation consists of real people posed or doing things. Then it is over: there is something fascinating about the ephemerality or the non-traditional nature of the medium I find.
 
Posted by frin (# 9) on :
 
Since there hasn't been a lot of reflection on the Greenbelt seminar on the boards, I thought I'd share some of the more interesting moments for those of you who weren't there. I hope that if I miss anything - or horribly misrepresent something - that someone else will add their recollections too.

The Laugh Judgement seminar contained jokes so offensive that panellist James Cary refused to stay in the room while they were read and encouraged the audience to repent of having laughed at any of them.

James read a few of the jokes from the funniest religious jokes list, but not most of them. He refused to read jokes with Jesus or other persons of the Trinity in them and those were performed by Steve Tomkins.
Leaving the room for the reading of the top ten offensive religious jokes James joked that the audience might be struck dead while listening to them - you never know when God might choose to do that kind of thing. Responding to a heckler who asked what James would do if he came back to find us all dead James said he would feel vindicated but would gain no smug pleasure from it, and commented that our deaths would make a fantastic headline.

Andy Harrison (white shirt guy) had agreed to read the offensive jokes. Before each joke the audience voted on whether they wanted to hear it. They voted to listen to all of the top ten, although a stream of people chose to leave as the reading went on.

Andy read all the jokes, including joke 2, which depends on a miming a visual pun. However, Andy chose to read the stage directions and did not mime the actions.

The audience stopped laughing at some point between jokes 6 and 4. It was an absolute given that no-one laughed at the last joke since the room was no longer in a joking mood.

James returned to his still living audience and told us that we should all repent if we had laughed at any of the jokes.

Afterwards some audience members expressed irritation with James' attitude to the jokes. Some others were impressed that there was a panellist who was so opposed to the jokes collected by the project and willing to share his personal discomfort with an unrepentant crowd.

Simon Jenkin's introduction to the joke reading strongly brought out the issues around the proposed legislation and the difficulty of policing offence and insult.

The panel were James Cary, who writes comedy for TV and radio including material for Smack the Pony and Milton Jones; Simon Jones, who edits Third Way and can currently be found posting in Purgatory; and, Andy Harrison "a bloke in a white shirt" whom Dyfrig tells me has something to do with the theatre company Riding Lights.
 
Posted by Auntie Doris (# 9433) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by frin:
James returned to his still living audience and told us that we should all repent if we had laughed at any of the jokes.
I have to admit that I found this even more offensive than the top ten offensive jokes. Seemed to be the general feeling of most of the ship-mates at the ship meet afterwards.

Auntie Doris x
 
Posted by Esmeralda (# 582) on :
 
Andy Harrison is a brilliant actor who has performed several great one man shows at Greenbelt and elsewhere. He does have a link with Riding Lights but that's by no means his entire portfolio. He's also a very funny man. So there.
 
Posted by frin (# 9) on :
 
Good to know. I wouldn't have recognised any of the panellists at all before Laugh Judgement day.

'frin
 
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
[Killing me] I just got the joke laugh/last judgement LOL.

P
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
[Roll Eyes] Better late than never [Roll Eyes]

That course you enrolled on, '101 Ways To Improve Your Mental Agility', is obviously paying dividends.....
 
Posted by Newman's Own (# 420) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Auntie Doris:
quote:
Originally posted by frin:
James returned to his still living audience and told us that we should all repent if we had laughed at any of the jokes.
I have to admit that I found this even more offensive than the top ten offensive jokes. Seemed to be the general feeling of most of the ship-mates at the ship meet afterwards.

Auntie Doris x
I think it was funnier than the top ten 'funnies' as well...
 
Posted by Little Miss Harlequin (# 10235) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by frin:
James returned to his still living audience and told us that we should all repent if we had laughed at any of the jokes.

I have to admit that I found this even more offensive than the top ten offensive jokes. Seemed to be the general feeling of most of the ship-mates at the ship meet afterwards.

Auntie Doris x
I'd been lurking here for a while before I went to the talk and I was mildly shocked by his attitude. He acted like no-one had told him what was happening until it was too late for him to back out. He seemed more concerned about his reputation than the actual content.

Another quick point of amusment, directly after saying he couldn't make religious jokes, he made one.
 
Posted by iGeek. (# 3207) on :
 
"...unrepentant crowd"? Since it's a crowd made up of individuals, I'm guessing that people were in varyiant states viz the jokes.

I was certainly impacted by the reading of the jokes and I think in a good way. It was Cary's command that we should repent (as if he knew whether we had or not) which seemed to arise out of his own discomfort rather than some special knowledge or relationship of accountability that annoyed me.
 
Posted by Atmospheric Skull (# 4513) on :
 
I couldn't stay at Greenbelt long enough to attend the Laugh Judgement session, which I was disappointed at. If James Carey is the same chap I heard speak last Greenbelt, though, he's very interesting on the subject of humour, but somewhat moralistic (he suggested that God wouldn't laugh at South Park, for instance, which made me wonder how he could possibly know). I'd say he was a good choice for a panellist, though, given how controversial his reaction seems to have been.

I'm not tremendously impressed by the final joke lineup, though -- most of the "funny" jokes aren't all that funny, and nor are the offensive ones. I appreciate it's based on our own votes, but it might have been more challenging if there'd been an attempt to identify the jokes for which both offensiveness and funniness were maximised, and tell those, just to see how people like Carey reacted.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
My God laughs at South Park.
 
Posted by romanlion (# 10325) on :
 
I registered in hopes of uncovering new and offensive jokes, yet was unsatisfied. Mine is still my favorite!

[ racist joke removed ]

[ 08. September 2005, 08:15: Message edited by: Pyx_e ]
 
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :
 
Hosting

Romanlion; I have removed the joke from your post because:


There may have been a place for this joke a couple of months ago as it would have caused debate. However I suspect it would have been removed for being anti-Semitic. Please feel free to PM the LJ hosts or board Admins if you need any clarification.

Welcome on board.

Pyx_e


Hosting
 
Posted by romanlion (# 10325) on :
 
Dearest Pyx-

Sorry if I was a jerk, however....
There have been many jokes posted in threads since the submissions were complete. As for the racism, some of the winning entries are FAR more racist than mine (one in particular), and mine is only racist if pointing out peculiar ritual brutality of a group qualifies as such. Per usual racism is acceptable as long as it is'nt considered to be the dreaded "anti-semitism". Curious to me that a group would need to clarify perceived discrimination with its own term when clearly racism would aplly nicely. No matter, thanks for the welcome!
 
Posted by Jel (# 9755) on :
 
There are two things which puzzle me.
1. Why are there none of the classic 1-liners such as "How do we know Dennis Thatcher's in heaven? Jesus schwepped." or the choral misphraseologies "While shepherds washed their socks by night." In fact, the jokes are all classic pratfalls, there are no puns, with the possible exception of "Chardonnay". As the pratfall is at root a failure to love one's neighbour, OW.
2. Living in Belgium, I'm out of contact with much of the UK activity and would have presumed Greenbelt would have still been in Bedfordshire (which shows how far out of date!), but having actually stopped in Cheltenham for three hours on August Bank-Holiday Monday, there was narry a trace of extraordinary Christisn activity. Has Greenbelt become a holy huddle?
 
Posted by starbelly (# 25) on :
 
1. We picked from a pool of jokes submitted to us, so the answer is because no one submitted them (we are closed for submissions now, but there is a thread in the Heaven section of the boards for jokes called "Jokes left behind" where you can post your favourite jokes.)

2. Greenbelt has been at Cheltenham racecourse fir as long as I have been going (at least 6 years) and I am suprised you missed the banners on the 2 main roads into Cheltenham advertising the festival! Discussion on various aspects of the festival can be found in Purgatory and All Saints on this board.
 
Posted by Pumbavu (# 10420) on :
 
I'm sorry. I am really trying to understand the nature of this "Debate". I've found the whole exercise pretty pointless. Not just that, a lot of the posts have actually left me feeling sad and empty.... I don't consider myself a prude, or easily offended... but hasn't this whole thing overstepped the mark?

I expected better.
 
Posted by starbelly (# 25) on :
 
Sorry you found it poinless, but perhaps the fact you think that a mark was overstepped has made you look at where that mark is drawn, and perhaps made you think how far it is acceptable to go in the name of humour. If so then this project has sort of been sucsessful.

What did you expect out of interest?

Neil
(LJ Host)
 
Posted by Pumbavu (# 10420) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by starbelly:
Sorry you found it poinless, but perhaps the fact you think that a mark was overstepped has made you look at where that mark is drawn, and perhaps made you think how far it is acceptable to go in the name of humour. If so then this project has sort of been sucsessful.

What did you expect out of interest?

Neil
(LJ Host)
I was expecting a debate over the issues of taste. That's not what we got... we got a load of tasteless jokes (in varying degrees of tasteless-ness) and peoples comments on whether they were offended or not of how funny the joke was. Not a real debate!

I don't think you can draw a mark, it is a very personal thing. And BECAUSE it's a personal thing it's something that SHOULD be handled very sensitively. Not... "Come on, send us your most offensive jokes"

Am I alone in thinking this?
 
Posted by Ophthalmos (# 3256) on :
 
I didn't go to the talk because of "another commitment" (no, it wasn't washing my hair), but I don't think I'd have bothered.

The best "religious jokes" aren't jokes at all - they are the ones in the context of episodes of series like Blackadder, South Park, Six Feet Under (for black humour), The Simpsons, etc.
 
Posted by Phil the Bear (# 10464) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Pumbavu:
I was expecting a debate over the issues of taste. That's not what we got... we got a load of tasteless jokes (in varying degrees of tasteless-ness) and peoples comments on whether they were offended or not of how funny the joke was. Not a real debate!

I don't think you can draw a mark, it is a very personal thing. And BECAUSE it's a personal thing it's something that SHOULD be handled very sensitively. Not... "Come on, send us your most offensive jokes"

Am I alone in thinking this?
The question of tastelessness is also a very personal thing. Are all jokes about religion / religious matters tasteless? To some people they probably are - to others they are not. There is a school of thought, to which I subscribe, that would say that if the religion isn't strong enough to bear jokes about itself then it's not a very strong religion.

On the other hand many of the jokes were derivative of jokes told over many years with different 'actors'. (The number 1 most offensive joke was a particular example of this). Some of the jokes which relied on the actor being a priest could have been told about a variety of other occupations and would, I submit, not <really> be religious jokes at all. The fact that the number one 'funniest' would only really be funny to those who were aware of religious in-fighting, on the other hand, would make it a genuine religious joke.

And I rather wonder how much peer pressure there was in the audience at the live show. Perhaps not laughing was just people behaving as they thought they ought to behave?

[Votive] Phil the Bear [Votive]
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Phil the Bear:
And I rather wonder how much peer pressure there was in the audience at the live show. Perhaps not laughing was just people behaving as they thought they ought to behave?
An interesting idea Phil.

Do we find things more (or less) offensive in different situations? I know I certainly found the jokes far more offensive at the talk itself.

I thought that was just because they were being said out loud, but about a week later someone at my rugby club told one of the "offensive" ones and I found myself laughing [Eek!] .

So I think how offensive we find things depends not only on whether it's being read or spoken, but also on which group of people we're with at the time...

(Of course, it's possible that I'm just completely fickle, and change my principles to fit whichever group I'm with. Who knows...)
 


© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0