Humour: I have a right to offend

[Paragon]

^^^ Now what are you saying? That your topic about humour unintentionally offended some? If so, sorry, cos I thought it was intentional in that it carried the name: " (humour) I have a right to offend". And that also you didn't care about others' pain.

 

 

NB: I am human, and at that a reflectivist (to some extent), so to claim am always unemotional or remorseless in this kind of matters will be a complete lie. It is the very fact of your believe in 'only' others being emotive in response and you unemotional got me involved in this topic. Purely objective (but not without emotions). I am sure you know (even if little ) of moral conducts. Agree it or not we are both emotionally involved in this.

 

I stop here. I wont bother you further sxb. As you were .

[Baashi]

Ngonge,

 

My final thoughts on this thread...let’s understand the distinction between the freedom of expression and the right to offend. Of course, we all agree on the first one. The latter is akin in asking the right to kill and then dragging the reader the importance of the intention of the person who commits the deed (medical mistakes, right to defend oneself, etc). Offence is not an offence when done unintentionally saaxiib. It becomes an offence when after the fact one refuses to back down and invokes farfetched claims such as the freedom of expression or the right to actually offend people to justify one's blunders.

 

Now, if the remarks made are offensive to others it does make a world of difference if the person apologizes and explains that his intentions were not meant to offend the people who got offended. On the other hand, if the person insists on to have the right to offend others and refuses to retract (after the fact) the negative remarks on the grounds of the freedom of expression then in my opinion what the person is basically asking is impunity. In other words, the person (alone) becomes the arbiter of who got legitimately offended and who is not according to his own yardstick.

 

If one of us reserves the right to offend others with impunity and ask us to rely on his inner thoughts and intentions for us to make the judgment of whether the uttered remarks are offensive I say that person is being unreasonably stubborn and recklessly provocative. I can see others reserving the same right to offend and simply justify their snide remarks as being unintentional (they might believe that theirs simply do not constitute an offence at all). Do you see the danger here?

 

Some offences are clear enough more like black and white. Others are not so clear, the poster implies, the reader infers, and hence the intention falls in a grey area. Therefore, it all depends on whether the poster is willing to clarify and explain how the post was not meant to offend anyone; and further poster must be willing to apologize for his unintended insults to show how sincere one is. Clarifying, explaining, and apologizing is markedly different than invoking the right to offend.

 

@ baying mob. I wonder...never mind

[Faarax-Brawn]

If one of us reserves the right to offend others with impunity and ask us to rely on his inner thoughts and intentions for us to make the judgment of whether the uttered remarks are offensive I say that person is being unreasonably stubborn and recklessly provocative

Baashi, Earlier in this thread i commented on the above remark you just wrote out there.(of course with less words and charisma!). No one paid attention to me.

 

I will quote myself below. (See the striking similarities and of course the difference of the language.), Btw this is what I meant when I said I was gastronomically disturbed @ your attempt to be correct.

 

 

Fine, stubborn older middle aged men cant even have the face and (and face!) to simply accept an err they made. Come on man.

 

 

If one writes something that someone FINDS offensive, then comes back and says they have the right to offend, then comes back and says their intention was not to offend, but still have the right to offend if it was meant not to offend. Then one can safely conclude that the poster is indeed a flip-flopper(ala-john Kerry),

 

I also believe outside interference (read mediocre paralegal/groupies) who felt the need to speak for the poster (that he didn’t mean to offend but rather…) when indeed the poster himself titled the topic, how he has the right to offend if he so wishes.) Had something to do with the poster standing his ground about how he has the right to offend and then saying he never meant to offend. Can a man stand by his words these days???

 

 

Anyway This is a phenomenon that I have seen lately where people reply to personality rather than the content of the subject.

 

People come in and try to ‘speak’ for the other side, while clearly disregarding the obvious.

[Tahliil]

To Moderators:

 

pray that someone would come to his sense and put a stop to this charade...

 

To the rest:

 

It amazes me beyond imagination why some of u couldn't quit when u make your points...but would rather sit and hang around until u exhaust and exhaust your point/s....shame on u, I mean the once with the big vocabulary and no brain to match... This is truly a power-horse problem for you guys...

[NGONGE]

Heh. Oh the disappointment!

 

In circles we go again. J11, nobody is free of emotions, saaxib and I never claimed that I was. So far, whenever I accused anyone on this site of being emotional, I believe I was 100 correct. When someone does not present me with an argument, a logical reason for their passionate words or even point out the holes in my argument to explain their passionate reply, I believe that someone is being unduly emotional. It’s an obvious and simple point, saaxib. I am not, despite all other appearances, trying to reinvent the wheel here.

 

Do you always make your mind up purely on the basis of the title of a piece, saaxib? Surely not!

 

Baashi,

 

Fear not, you were not part of the “baying mobâ€. Though lately, I’ve been finding many of your analogies falling short of the mark, what’s gone wrong, saaxib?

Come on, up your game and keep up with me here. The Jester’s right to offend is in no way similar to the right to kill (if such a right existed in the first place).

 

This back and forth business of discussing things is extremely tiring, saaxib. Fine, let us go back over old ground once more. In your first post here, you confirmed that in your opinion, my post on the other thread was fine and had nothing offensive in it. In subsequent posts, you reverted back to the original comment and, surprisingly enough, tried to hint that those comments were indeed offensive! What gives, saaxib?

 

Note that I have not addressed the other thread and didn’t attempt to explain my post there. This is because I believed the complaints and the wailing (yes wailing) to be disproportionate to the words I wrote. It was a childish knee-jerk reaction that did not require me to dignify it with an answer. Instead, I decided to tackle the bigger issue of one’s right to offend. Apart from the side replies to the few fickle people, I still believe that I managed to objectively address the topic. I’ve given you all plenty of examples of when one is free to offend and I have not got any acceptable refutations from any of you. Instead, you rehashed my own arguments and presented them as your own! Do you believe Mel Brooks, David Heller and the others I mentioned were that different to me when they wrote about the Second World War and highlighted the absurdities of that war? Since you chose to revert to those original comments of mine, do you believe them to be any different than caricaturist paintings on the Iraq war or the Tsunami?

 

When one unintentionally offends, the apology that you expect them to issue is at the Jester’s discretion. It depends on the nature of the offence and if those offended have explained their case in a way that makes the jester see the errors of his ways. In the case of my earlier comment, which, oddly enough, we’re squabbling over now, I don’t believe my comments were offensive and think it, as I’ve already said, very self-indulgent on the part of the offended parties. It’s not a matter of sensitivity, my friend. It’s a matter off emotional blackmail. I suppose it’s just easy to shrug and apologise in order to keep the peace, but what shall I do the next time some naval gazing kid feels like getting offended by words unrelated to his problem or pain? Shall I apologise again? Notice where the right to be offended and the right to offend would overlap? I get the feeling that you’re saying the offended party would take precedent because it’s the “right†thing to do. All good and well, but what if the offended party is chasing shadows and basing his/her offence on assumptions, perceptions and hearsay?

 

See, your whole argument is based on my original words, you need to go back on that and decide if you think they are offensive or not and then make an argument based on your conclusion. To say that my words could have been construed the wrong way. But I should apologise so that I could prove that I’m a nice guy and my words did not mean to offend, whilst it carries good intentions (and I applaud you for them) is not a valid argument, saaxib.

 

I wonder if the fog will clear anytime soon.

[Passion_4_Fashion]

well said Tahlil, big vocabulary yet little dictionary!

[Diamante]

aww shucks....they have come to their senses

come on, humour a girl...get this thing off the road again

[NGONGE]

Dedicated to the greatest comedian of all time.

 

 

“You can do anything you want and you can say anything that comes to mind — just so long as it’s funny. If you ain’t funny then get the f*** off the stage, it’s that simple.â€

 

Obituaries

 

 

 

The Times December 12, 2005

 

Richard Pryor

December 1, 1940 - December 10, 2005

Stand-up and actor of comic genius who brought a brutal honesty to the art

 

 

 

RICHARD PRYOR was an American comedian of antic genius.

He was born Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III — no mean appellation for a boy who grew up in a brothel run by his parents and owned by his grandmother in Peoria, Illinois.

 

 

 

Young Richard learnt the facts of life by peering through keyholes. Yet for all that, he had a strict upbringing. He attended church and went to parochial school until the church authorities found out what his family did for a living, at which point he was abruptly transferred to the public education system. It was then that his trouble started. Pryor dropped gradually into a pattern of drugs, alcohol, violence and lawsuits that was to dog him through the next two and a half decades.

 

Despite his chaotic personal life, or perhaps because of it, Pryor’s talent bloomed rapidly. He had appeared in amateur comedy shows while serving with the US Army in Germany, and became a professional comic at a club in his home town of Peoria after his discharge.

 

But Peoria, the archetypal synonym for the more boring aspects of middle-America (despite the Pryor family’s thriving brothel) was hardly the entertainment capital of the world. Nor did it suit Pryor’s iconoclastic, raunchy style of comedy. In 1963, inspired by the success of the black comedian Bill Cosby, he took a chance and moved to New York.

 

He started out in the same “colourless†mould, once saying: “I made a lot of money being Bill Cosby.†But with his wild eyes and arched eyebrows dominating a face forever in motion, Pryor was never that safe. Television appearances began in 1966, though the nature of his material usually confined him to late-night shows, and he was soon hired to appear in Las Vegas for $3,000 a week. But as his success mounted, so did Pryor’s resentment at the restraints placed on his style by the white show business establishment. They wanted him, he said, to become “the kind of coloured guy we’d like to have over to our houseâ€. It was not the style of an entertainer who once summed up his outlook on comedy by saying: “You can do anything you want and you can say anything that comes to mind — just so long as it’s funny. If you ain’t funny then get the f*** off the stage, it’s that simple.â€

 

As soon as his act no longer amused him, Pryor did just that. In 1969 he abandoned his Las Vegas routine halfway through, saying: “What the f*** am I doing here?†Pryor retreated to Hollywood. He appeared in a few minor roles while making some highly successful recordings of his comedy routines.

 

His live performances, which had become darker, bluer and even more searingly honest since Las Vegas, were packing concert halls across the country. He delivered surreal monologues in the argot of the drug culture, calling himself a “crazy niggérâ€. Critics hailed him as a major step forward in the evolution of a true black humour in the US.

 

He was now writing, too, gaining two Emmy awards for his work on Lily Tomlin television shows and collaborating with

Mel Brooks on the 1974 film Blazing Saddles

. For the latter he received the American Writers Guild Award and the American Academy of Humour Award. Although nervous studio bosses would not let him play the sheriff in the film, his collaboration on the screenplay with Gene Wilder laid the foundations for a lasting partnership. The on-screen double act was only postponed and Silver Streak (1976) was the first of four films in which they co-starred during the next 15 years.

 

The money was rolling in, Pryor’s film roles were getting bigger, and behind the scenes his private life was falling apart. There was a conviction for possession of marijuana, another for assaulting a motel desk clerk, and a running battle with the income tax authorities. He had a self-confessed addiction to cocaine — “like I bought Peruâ€, he said later — and failed marriage followed failed marriage. In 1978 he was charged with shooting at his estranged third wife. Fortunately, being stoned at the time, he only succeeded in hitting her Mercedes. “I killed her car,†he would joke.

 

On June 9, 1980, everything changed. Pryor accidentally set himself on fire, possibly while attempting to freebase cocaine, and was taken to hospital with severe burns over 50 per cent of his body. He lay on the critical list for several weeks, underwent several skin graft operations, and eventually emerged from hospital a reformed character. In his autobiography Pryor Convictions and Other Life Sentences (1995), he suggested that the freebasing story derived from an attempt by his managers to cover up what was really a suicide attempt. By his own later account, however, he had been taking cocaine for several days on end before drenching himself in brandy and setting it on fire — an unusual way in which to attempt suicide. It was often difficult to extract the facts of Pryor’s life from his stories, often blown out of proportion as comedy routines.

 

His talent was undiminished, though it now lacked the wild, angry magic of his earlier days. The release of Stir Crazy (1980) presented Pryor and Wilder as two hopelessly ill-prepared jailbirds, like an updated Laurel and Hardy. It was a major hit, and by 1982 Pryor was rated as America’s fifth top box-office star, ahead of Paul Newman and Harrison Ford, and the $4 million fee he received for playing the computer genius wooed by Robert Vaughn’s villain in Superman III set a record for a black actor. He was reunited with Wilder on See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989), in which Wilder was deaf and Pryor his blind buddy, and on Another You (1991), the weakest of their films, with Wilder as a former mental patient and Pryor a conman.

 

Now solid gold at the box office, Pryor’s bad days seemed to be over, but fate still had one trick up its sleeve for Pryor: in 1986, visiting the Mayo Clinic to check on some slight disorientation, he was told that he had multiple sclerosis.

 

As the disease progressed, Pryor became a virtual recluse in his Bel Air mansion. He stayed in his bedroom, a revolver always within reach. In 1990 he suffered a major heart attack but recovered, later moving to a smaller house in Beverly Hills. He had quadruple bypass surgery in 1991.

 

It seemed that his career was long over, but in August 1992, on a rare visit to the Comedy Store on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, Pryor astonished his friends by going on stage and performing. Six months later he was back on the road, giving six live shows in ten nights. He was wan, frail and sometimes confused, but still recognisably Richard Pryor, and still determined to be funny.

 

In an interview given to The New York Times in February 1993, Pryor looked back on his past life: “I got friends who say, ‘Oh I don’t regret nothing’. But I can’t say that. I regret some of the things I’ve done. But one thing I’ve learned: when they’re done, they’re done.â€

 

In 2001 he married for the final time. His latest wife was Jennifer Lee, to whom he had been married briefly in the early 1980s. It was the second time he had remarried an ex-wife. He is also survived by seven children, one of whom is the actress and comedienne Rain Pryor.

 

 

Richard Pryor, comedian, actor and scriptwriter, was born on December 1, 1940. He died of a heart attack on December 10, 2005, aged 65.

 

 

 

 

Source

 

PS

It's not about me, it's about him. :cool:

[N.O.R.F]

"I went to Zimbabwe...I know how white people feel in America now, relaxed! Cause when I heard the police car I knew they weren't coming after me!"

There's a thin line between to laugh with and to laugh at."

"It's been a struggle for me because I had a chance to be white and refused"

A legend who paved the way for many of todays artists. Saturday Night Live which was later done by Eddie Murphy was a hit, then there was Def Comedy Jam with the likes of Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, JAmie Fox, Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, Cedric the Entertainer all doing the Pryor thing. Now you have David Chappell!!!

[Ibtisam]

i took me years to figure out that this post wz from ages ago, like after reading 2pages and wondering what the hell these farahs and xalimo's are pissed at; if only i had checked the date FEB :rolleyes:

 

anyway on BB4 last night they did a whole 2hrs on him and his jokes

[Passion_4_Fashion]

^^^boy am i glad that u figured that this old topic

 

i was about to get pissed....not this thread again....hope they don't start all over again

[AYOUB]

^^Sorry

 

Have you heard the one about the Jews?

 

Jamie Glassman

 

As a writer on The Ali G Show I can do insulting jokes. But the anti-Jewish sentiment at Edinburgh is shocking

 

 

THERE’S NOTHING I like more than a Jewish joke. It’s the anti-Jewish ones I’m not so keen on.

Wandering through the streets of Edinburgh during the world’s largest arts festival, you never know what sight or sound you will be bombarded with next. Half-naked men on 6ft stilts meander by, half-naked girls rush to sell you their show, troops of Japanese acrobats tumble past. But I wasn’t prepared for the verbal assault I got when I wandered into a comedy gig this week.

 

There have always been anti- Semitic jokes. But you know times are changing when you go along to a stand-up show at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe and you hear audience members shouting “Throw them in the oven†when the comic suggests kids should stop playing Cowboys and Indians and replace it with Nazis and Jews.

 

Stand-up comedy is as good a prism as any through which to look at the changing attitudes in our society. If my past few days are anything to go by then it is becoming increasingly acceptable to hate the Jews. Again.

 

I’ve seen two comics so far who have been happy to amuse their crowds with Holocaust gags. I’m not sure which to be the more concerned about.

 

One was a left-leaning angry Australian conspiracy theorist, Steve Hughes, whose show The Storm is an assault on all things Western. “I want to bash Condoleezza Rice’s brain to bits and kill that f****** Jew Richard Perle.†Hughes is the one at the Pleasance Courtyard while Perle is an adviser to George W. Bush as he was to Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton on foreign affairs.

 

The second was a far more charming African-American comic who for much of the show was thoughtful, funny and even quite sweet. But he seemed to have a problem with Jews, too. Reginald D. Hunter is doing sell-out shows in the new E4-sponsored venue, the Udderbelly. Three hundred come along every night to see Hunter’s Pride and Prejudice and Niggas. You should see the poster.

 

I was laughing along until he announced that he was about to be extremely controversial and break the last taboo of stand-up comedy. Long silent pause. "Jeeeeews" Another long pause with some giggles from the audience. "You see, you’re not allowed to say that."

 

He went on to say how its illegal to deny the Holocaust in Austria. He has a good mind to go to Austria, stand in the street and say the Holocaust didn’t happen so that he could get arrested and tell the judge he was talking about the Rwandan holocaust. Whether or not he thought there should be a law against going to Rwanda and denying that genocide, he didn’t say.

 

By claiming that making a joke about Jews is the one last, great comic taboo, he simultaneously provides the moral justification for a crack at the Jews and he silences them from the right to complain, as this would only confirm the unspoken premise: that Jews are overprotected in society or even worse that Jewish media controllers are obsessed with silencing any criticism of their own.

 

His joke is essentially one about freedom of speech and selective Jewish control of that freedom, but he gives the lie to his true feelings by his choice of example. Of all the possible targets, of all the things he might wish to say, his complaint is that he is not permitted to parrot the greatest anti-Semitic slur of the last hundred years — that the Holocaust never happened. As a believer in free speech, I am not convinced by the criminalisation of Holocaust denial, but that does not mean I am confused about the motives of those who wish to utter it.

 

The great Lenny Bruce, a comedian who suffered endlessly at the hands of the American authorities for the right to freedom of speech and to break taboos, once did a bit that began: “Are there any niggers here tonight?†His liberal audience was initially shocked at this racist outburst, but as the monologue continued he made it clear that it was “the suppression of the word that gives it the powerâ€. That was taboo-busting. That was a righteous plea for freedom of speech.

 

The African-American comedian Dick Gregory was in attendance that night. He subsequently published a book entitled Nigger, and dedicated it: “Dear Momma, Wherever you are, if you ever hear the word ‘nigger’ again, remember they are advertising my book.â€

 

It’s hard to imagine a Jew reacting similarly to Hunter’s bit. The question of what is acceptable material for comedy is always going to be a complex one to answer. Comedians should certainly be allowed to say anything. In fact, it is their role and their duty to be breaking taboos where they need to be broken. But comics do have an obligation to think about whom they might be offending with their material and whether or not those who say they are offended are right to be.

 

These questions are not entirely foreign to me. As a producer and writer on The Ali G Show, I have been accused of racism, among other things, in the past. All three characters in that show had their prejudices but I hope all thinking people would see the satire not far below the surface.

 

Borat, the fictional Kazakhstani journalist, was overtly anti-Semitic. Sacha Baron Cohen would dangle Borat’s anti-Semitism in front of our interviewees and we would all be shocked and amazed at how many of them would take the bait and join in. The Country Bar in Phoenix, Arizona, where the crowd sang along to Throw the Jew down the Well, was a terrifying example.

 

Jewish communal organisations in the US were concerned at the time that the tune would catch on and spur a rise of anti-Jewish attacks. Fortunately, most people saw it for the satire it was intended to be.

 

Borat was also prejudiced against blacks and Gypsies. Ali G was a homophobe and a misogynist. Austrian fashion presenter Bruno hated the disabled, all fat people, ugly people and the Jews too. Apologies if I have forgotten some colour, creed or lifestyle that we would use as bait.

 

But what is going on in Edinburgh now is no satire. For me, Hughes represents a growing trend among left-thinking people in this country and around the world to accept as dogma that those on the Left should hate Bush, Blair, American imperialism, Israel and, while we’re at it, the Jews. It is a cultural trend that I’ve found increasingly evident but never before has the Jew-hating element been so overt. This week has confirmed that my Jewish paranoia is not entirely unfounded. As the old saying goes: “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me.â€

 

Hughes wasn’t one for the odd remark or the clever comment; he waxed lyrical on how Osama bin Laden is far less of a threat than Dick Cheney, before defending Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, saying he has no intention of destroying Israel, he has just been misquoted.

 

Yet I sat in that audience and I didn’t heckle. In hindsight it is heartening that half of his audience sat in stunned silence, as I did, for most of his show; but at the time it was the other half of the audience who were whooping along and lapping him up that made the greater impression.

 

As for Hunter, he seems like a nice guy, well meaning and at times very funny. While Hughes did little to hide his Jew-hatred, in a way it is even more disheartening that Hunter is so keen to make the Holocaust fair game. timesonline