The Adventure of the Joke Controversy

In which I dissect a joke...

You've probably heard the recent controversy over comedian Jimmy Carr. In his recent Netflix special His Dark Material, Carr made the following joke: 

"When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives".

There has been a lot of reaction to this joke with groups like the Holocaust Memorial Trust and the Gypsy, Romany and Traveller Community condemning it. But there have also been a portion of people who have defended it and point out that it's a joke. I find myself struggling to decide my position on this issue. 

Some context- whilst I wouldn't name Jimmy Carr as one of my favourite comedians I have been to a live show of his and enjoyed much of his television work over the years. I also have very strong views about the importance of the Holocaust and the education of it, having been deeply affected by my own visit to Auschwitz. 

On the one hand then, this is a deeply offensive and racist thing to say. Whilst racism of many communities is still an issue it's generally no longer socially acceptable. I think though that being racist towards gypsies is more widely acceptable in the UK. I don't think it should be but that feels like a tangible fact. I suspect this is partly because many communities clash with traveller groups when they arrive in town, often pitching up on sites that few believe is a suitable place for them and there's a perception that may or may not be true that crime increases in the area. Then again, traveller groups say that councils do not give them space to park up and so they are left with little choice. It's a hugely complicated issue but I think most sensible people agree that whatever our objections to individual groups, we can't condemn a whole race and saying they should be killed is abhorrent. 

But then, is Jimmy Carr really saying it was good that gypsies were killed in the Holocaust? I don't believe he was. When you hear Carr talk in a non-performing context he comes across as a genuinely nice man and many of his friends have spoken up to say the same thing. I think the comic's real beliefs are important in this context- if someone genuinely has racist beliefs than that is inarguably problematic. I believe Carr's controversial joke though drew a laugh because it's shocking. Sure, there probably was a portion of the audience who laughed because of the actual content of the joke. But I'm pretty sure that the majority of people laughed because it was a shocking thing to say- the actual content is almost irrelevant for the laugh, it's the notion that this is deeply inappropriate that was funny to the audience. 

This issue kind of boils down to the question of whether there is a limit to what subjects you can make jokes about. There was a bit of discussion about this when JoJo Rabbit was released, a film which follows a member of the Hitler Youth who initially totally falls for the Nazi ideology of anti-Semitism. For some this was a subject which just couldn't be joked about but I thought it worked well and was funny. Context is hugely important- JoJo Rabbit is funny because it laughs at the Nazis rather than their victims. The Jimmy Carr joke kind of does the same thing in a different, more subtle way- the joke is on Carr playing the role of a racist rather than the victims, or that is the intention at least. 

There's an argument that allowing this line of joke is dangerous. If comedians can regularly say this sort of thing it could potentially snowball into telling racist jokes being acceptable, and potentially then onto being racist being acceptable. I like to think that we have moved past that point, that comedians can tell jokes like this and the audience will understand that this is not an appropriate sort of thing to say, but maybe I'm wrong about that. 

I tend to believe that nothing is off limits when it comes to comedy. I don't particularly like Carr's joke and I much prefer his clever wordplay to this vein of jokes which people laugh at because they are offensive rather than because they have anything clever contained within them. Should Netflix edit this joke out of the special or even remove the whole set? It feels pretty futile at this point anyway seeing as though it's been widely publicised anyway. Cancel culture is often discussed at the moment and I think that if you are found to have been abusive, committed a criminal act or been racist than fair enough, you deserve to lose work because of it. But should it be the same for a joke? I suspect Carr will lose work because of this issue but he himself has said in the past that he can live with that as long as he is still able to perform stand up.

I haven't really reached a definitive stance on this issue. I certainly dislike the joke but I think that Carr was entitled to tell it. I suppose people will decide their own thoughts on it and chose whether or not to buy tickets to his gigs in future and I hope this controversy means that Jimmy Carr and indeed other comedians will think twice about making these kinds of jokes in future.