
When Does Dark Humor Stop Being Funny? - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/when-does-dark-humor-stop-being-funny
======
fluxquanta
This ties in with the other article that was posted here about over-
sensitivity[0]. I follow stand-up comedy pretty closely, and so many comedians
seem to be facing more and more verbal (and sometimes physical) push back from
jokes that are "offensive", and I find this trend really disturbing.

It's an interesting phenomenon you don't see in other artistic performances.
Comedy is the one realm where an audience will show up, uninformed by reviews
or any research into who they're seeing perform (as opposed to say, watching a
movie trailer, for example), and be so offended (and entitled) that they feel
they must take public action against the performer directly.

A comedian's jokes may very well be unfunny to a group of people, but does
that inherently give anyone the right to try to silence it from being said?
And should a joke someone finds offensive cost a comedian opportunities in
their career?

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533219](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11533219)

~~~
nefitty
I can totally picture Anthony Jeselnik's first album Shakespeare causing a
huge backlash these days. That album was released a few years ago, but the
state of "offense sensitivity" is so heightened now that it would not have
gotten him very far today. It's one of the greatest comedy albums of the last
15 years, but considering he's a white cis male, the amount of fire he would
get today would be unbearable.

Let's see how some examples go down:

"People say it's easy to make fun of retarded people, but it's not. You really
have to explain it to them."

"My great grandmother threw herself in front of a bus. The police tried to say
she had committed suicide but the family knew she was just trying to stop
civil rights."

"I’ve spent the past two years looking for my ex-girlfriend’s killer... but no
one will do it."

[http://scomedy.com/quotes/Anthony-
Jeselnik](http://scomedy.com/quotes/Anthony-Jeselnik)

The last special he made, he bombed so hard I just stopped following him. It's
just hard to find things funny when absolutely no one else is smirking...

~~~
mikeash
I'm not offended by it, and they are somewhat funny, but your examples just
feel lazy to me. They're just very basic wordplay, and not particularly
clever. I think there are a lot of comics who use offensive topics to spice up
mediocre jokes, but adding an offensive element doesn't actually make the
humor better. You might attract an audience because of the shock value, but I
don't know that it's the sort of thing that's going to keep an audience long-
term.

Nothing wrong with incorporating offensive subjects in comedy, but there needs
to be more meat to it.

~~~
whatok
It's all about delivery. You can't read those jokes and get the same
experience. I could read those lines on stage and no one would laugh at all.
Anthony has great stage presence and his deadpan delivery really enhances his
jokes.

------
llamataboot
I think all the comments asserting that somehow "dark humor" is no longer
acceptable in this age of political correctness have it precisely wrong. I
give Louis CK as example #1. Louis is arguably one of the darkest comedians
that has ever existed. In fact, he's almost not even doing comedy anymore
sometimes, he's pushing into really profoundly dark existential territory and
then occasionally allowing the audience to come up for air. If you've followed
along with his whole career, you've seen his jokes evolve to where he's
"punching down" less and less, and now almost not at all. But his humor is no
less dark for it, it's MORE dark for it. It drives the bus straight into the
strange and absurd and uncomfortable parts of the human experience and parks
it right there. I can't find the interview right now, but he talks a lot about
how having to get rid of the easy "shock/offend" jokes has made him a much
better comic.

If what you are looking for is jokes about mentally handicapped people and
lesbians, you can always turn on the morning show of your choice in most major
American cities. To me, that's not dark humor, it's dumb humor.

~~~
toupeira
I absolutely agree, everyone who's only familiar with Louis CK's standup
should watch his brilliant shows "Louie" and "Horace & Pete", especially the
latter is totally ground-breaking in its approach to comedy, which no doubt
was only possible because it was entirely self-financed and -distributed.

~~~
anotherevan
I wouldn't categorise H&P as a comedy. There are funny moments in it, but it
is much more a drama or a character study than anything else.

Overall I really liked it (except for the ending). I was only vaguely aware of
CK as a standup comedian from a few youtube videos I'd seen, so his depth of
writing, character creation, and also his acting chops really impressed me.

------
whoopdedo
The author suggests that dark humor has an inoculative effect on tragedy. It
can also be remedial. I was reminded of how Mel Brooks explained why he makes
fun of Hitler.

    
    
        Of course it is impossible to take revenge for 6 million murdered Jews. But by
        using the medium of comedy, we can try to rob Hitler of his posthumous power
        and myths.
    

([http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-
intervie...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-interview-
with-mel-brooks-with-comedy-we-can-rob-hitler-of-his-posthumous-
power-a-406268.html))

------
rdtsc
That is actually a very interesting topic. Why and when is perverted humor
appropriate.

Slavoj Zizek like to talk about dirty jokes as a sort of a way to forge an in-
group, or a way to let the guards down.

He mentions it here for example:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0qiAita4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0qiAita4s)

Jokes are a way to probe and see if the other party is sincere. One example he
brings up is how there used to be racial jokes between ex-Yugoslavian
countries. They would meet and tell jokes about themselves basically. However
as soon as tensions started jokes stopped. So another way to think about,
dirty jokes are a bit like a canary in a mine. If jokes are allowed, other
party is laughs at jokes, everything is still ok, it means they don't harbor
hidden hatred or resentment. As soon as jokes stop, beware. You could be back-
stabbed.

Not advocating telling dirty jokes everywhere obviously, just present that
particular take on that.

~~~
tpeo
This is a nice video, I wasn't aware of Zizek's opinion on the topic. It could
also be that jokes coming from hostile parties sound more like threats.

~~~
rdtsc
> It could also be that jokes coming from hostile parties sound more like
> threats.

Exactly. He talks about the second type of jokes in the story about the doctor
in the army. How humor and jokes was used for oppression.

------
PeCaN
Dark humor is like a child with terminal cancer. It never gets old.

------
Eric_WVGG
This reminds me of this blog post regarding “how to make a rape joke” —
[http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-
joke](http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke)

tldr: “do not make a rape victim the butt of the joke, QED”

I think that applies quite well to this topic; dark humor ceases to be funny
when it becomes an actual attack against another person.

~~~
theorique
This is creating an arbitrary line where the writer is saying (gestures here)
"THIS is okay', but (gestures there) "THIS is not okay". But since comedy is
all about surprise, misdirection, and transgression, all that the writer is
saying is some kinds of transgression are allowed and some are "too serious"
to be allowed.

But what if someone told a joke that made fun of rape victims that also caught
people by surprise and made people laugh? Trying to create some arbitrary
lines about what kind of comedy is permissible and what kind is forbidden just
makes the forbidden stuff into more of a sacred cow. And humor is all about
slaughtering sacred cows.

~~~
EvanPlaice
Comedians dance a fine line. The best can waltz back and fourth across the
line with practiced precision.

Rape is about power. Power conceded by the victims and forcefully taken by the
attackers.

A rape joke could make fun of how, useless, sad, an worthless a person would
have to be to force themself on others.

How the act itself is nothing but a pathetic act of desperation.

Use perspective, artful storytelling, crafty dialog/writing to take the power
from the attackers. Face the fear behind their actions and reduce it to
reality; that rape is a sad, terrible, pathetic thing to do to somebody.

Take away the power from fear and gove it back to the victims in the form of
empathy and support.

The 'sacred cows' as you say aren't just topics with shock value. They're
topics that people are afraid of. Whether because they're taboo, morrally
wrong, or legitimately terrifying.

Some may say that the victims suffer more due to living dealing with the shame
and lying to loved ones to keep their past a secret.

In the right hands a truly talented comedian could make a great rape joke that
is actually empowering to rape victims. One that makes the topic less taboo
and helps victims feel less shame in a past that they had no power to shape.

Tasteless humor is noyhing but an ad-hominem dressed up with a fancy delivery.
Good comedians don't attack people, they shine light on the ridiculousness of
life and in doing so bring people together.

------
derpSauce
When you can't find the light switch

~~~
ktRolster
When no one's left alive to hear the joke.

~~~
ikeboy
Dark humor is like food: not everybody gets it.

------
pklausler
Laughing at our stupid selves is one of the best coping mechanisms for the
absurdity of being marginally intelligent apes living short irrelevant lives
in an uncaring universe.

------
aw3c2
Never, people have different taste in humor.

------
klean92
You can laugh at everything but not with everyone. (Pierre Desproges)

Before you make an offensive joke, check who's around you.

------
oxide
Just because you personally find something offensive doesn't mean it isn't
funny. Humor is subjective. It might just mean you have a shit sense of humor.

------
elcapitan
tldr: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjrWF-
RRlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjrWF-RRlg) (from the article)

------
awinter-py
hmm -- surprising that the article doesn't talk about the role of surprise /
novelty in humor. If there's a semantic metric for humor, it's that -- a
surprising link between topics your brain normally separates.

in-group out-group also matters. second cousins shouldn't be cracking jokes at
a funeral but immediate relatives are often under so much stress that they can
laugh at almost anything.

------
logfromblammo
It _never_ stops being funny, but you might not want to be the last one in the
crowd to cease laughing at it openly.

------
EvanPlaice
It never stops being funny. Many famous comedians suffer from depression
and/or mental health issues because that is one of the primary sources of
their inspiration. Laughter, and specifically dark humor is an inoculation to
misery. A perfectly healthy response to an unhealthy mental stare. When it
feels like the world is crashing down, it's best to laugh at the
ridiculousness of it all and move fowrard then be paralyzed by fear.

Laughter is also a common social signal, it signals safety and increases
happiness for all who join in. Dark jokes specifically, increase our threshold
to face terrible things and help distract from the anxiety of -- otherwise --
trivial matters in out day-to-day lives. It increases empathy and
connectedness among people, even strangers who have little or nothing in
common.

Just look how Austin Powers uses puns to lighten the situation.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3wafhDIMU6w](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3wafhDIMU6w).
It's cheesy and over-the-top to match the character but the effect is the
same. We joke about the things that make us uncomfortable because it makes us
feel better.

The only people up-in-arms about dark humor are individuals seeking to use
their own false sense of moral superiority to subjugate others.

In a way, I'd be more scared of somebody who can't find it in themselves to
laugh at all. To laugh at an awful joke requires self awareness and a clear
understanding of the separation of truth from reality. People who lack those
characteristics lie to themselves as much as others and live to project an
'ideal' image of themselves rather than face the humility of accepting their
own weaknesses. Whet her the reason is big or small, they project a facade
because they have something to hide. Is the person secretly a 'political
activist' with an agenda or a murderous psychopath a hair-trigger response
away from going off the deep end?

Of the dark comedians, Doug Stanhope is one of the darkest. Just watch the
following skit
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hY3W9Z4bdS8](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hY3W9Z4bdS8).
It's a clear middle finger to the 'Breast Cancer Awareness' movement for
distracting from one of the few things in life that he truly enjoys. Not only
is it extremely shocking but it artfully shines light on the ridiculous
hypocracy of a movement that is more marketing than substance.

As shocking as his comedy usually is it's surprisingly endearing and
disarming. Look past thr 'bitter old guy' image and it's hard not to see an
intelligent young idealist who gave up one day and said, "fuck it, I'm going
to ride out this existence until the wheels fall off."

BTW, the dead baby joke the author didn't have the courage to share was, "how
do you get a dead baby out of a blender... with a spoon."

In short, don't feel bad about laughing at terrible jokes but be on guard when
it comes to those who can't find it in themselves to join you.

------
unixhero
Torture scenes.

------
masterponomo
When Aaron hangs himself.

------
pklausler
There is a new right to never be offended, with the concomitant privilege of
defining what is offensive.

