Jo Brand 'Throw Acid instead of Milk Shake'!

[Tinkerbell]

The “joke” was a joke... audience laughed. I didn’t think it funny, I don’t like Jo Brand, overhyped comedian. I’ve read comments on this thread and I’ve moved away from my original disgusted of tunbridge Wells approach to it

The issue is... who in the BBC thought this worth broadcasting, within the context of today’s society, did they not think it would cause outrage. However, should we not see comedians and anyone else pontificating about serious issues on TV and Radio for what they are.

There are however many controversial things said and the hypocrisy is outstanding

... had this been a joke about Muslim women looking like pillar boxes or bank robbers the person saying it would be held to task...

oh no sorry forgot if your potentially the leader of the Conservative party and thereby automatically the Prime Minister of the U.K.

Comedy is very subjective. Clearly the Brand woman is seen as funny by some as she’s still knocking around the corridors of the BBC

What annoys me more is the hypocrisy of people. Jimmy Carr can be so near the mark he is the mark,

Comedy is often the way in which issues can be highlighted and can make us feel uncomfortable, there’s a simple answer, switch off, but even comedians need to think about what is deemed offensive as opposed to humour and banter

I think the joke was not actually funny, it was a child like response simply to get a reaction, I’m not sure it’s the reaction she wanted.

It is going to incite violence, possibly, but in today’s society, giving a wrong look can incite violence, and the person who is going to be led to do something by a not very funny comedian was/ is possibly always going to be violent

Should the BBC have been more circumspect it broadcasting it, yes... but they’re as hypocritical as the next

[Lindaelaine]

Originally Posted by wanye

how many people on this thread have actually heard the whole clip in the context of the actual show rather than just an edited soundbite .

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I haven’t heard it but have followed this thread with interest purely to see other people’s take on it .
I can see both sides of the debate in that no way was she condoning acid throwing but I would have thought that she was media savvy enough to realise that saying something like that was going to cause outrage.
We all get caught up in controversy but it seems to be a thing now where people get highly offended on someone else’s behalf. I thought it was an insensitive thing to say and an apology would be the way forward but the media hype and outrage has latched on to it like she has committed a dreadful crime .

[Hotlush]

This does show what is a very real, and worrying, hypocrisy.

UKIP member "jokes" about raping a female MP? Pretty much ignored.
Brexit Party member dismisses Warrington bombing victims as whingers and excuses child pornography as freedom of speech? Pretty much ignored.
Farage states if he doesn't get brexit he will don khaki and get a rifle? Pretty much ignored.
Boris Johnson describes POC as melon smiled picanninies and muslim women as letter boxes? On track to be PM.

Jo Brand makes an obvious, albeit arguably poor taste, joke...

[LadyDebs86]

It was a joke.

I’ve heard far worse come from the mouths of politicians. Where was the thread on here when the UKIP member said he ‘wouldnt even rape’ Jess Phillips? Don’t recall it.

Was it a joke in poor taste? Yes. But still a joke. There is literally nothing in it when read in its full context which suggests people should actually do it.

Ricky Gervais puts it perfectly when he talks about comedy and offence. People are happy to laugh at controversial jokes until the butt of them is something you are personally sensitive to. Then it’s an outrage. He had an exchange with a woman on Twitter who said to him that jokes about Aids and the holocaust were totally fine, but no one should ever joke about kids with food allergies as her son had one. Either we accept that some jokes are going to offend us, or we ban all comedy outside of knock knock jokes.

[LadyDebs86]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I am sure nobody thought she intended to do it. But that is not the point, some things should not be joked about, throwing acid at people is one of them. Incidents of throwing acid have been on the increase, I wish they would go back to being that very very rare event.

Comedians using acid throwing as joke material helps to normalise acid throwing at people as something we do in our society. I also feel pretty sure that a lot of people defending Jo Brand would take a different view if Nigel Farage cracked a joke about same. Comedians do not have a greater right to “freedom of speech” than other people.

And as for her saying immediately afterwards that she didn’t mean it, well that is meaningless. It is a bit like saying “I don’t mean to cause any offence but...” and then going onto saying something offensive.

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Where is your line on what things should and shouldn’t be joked about? Who gets to decide where that line sits? You get very close to censorship with that sort of attitude.

[Nimbus]

I've never listened to the Heresy show before but, by chance, I was in a car driving back from a meeting with a colleague and he was listening to it. So I did get to listen to the whole thing. And...

It was a joke!

Blimey, have we all lost our sense of humour? Do people not know what humour is any more?

Jo Brand was in no way suggesting people should actually throw battery acid at anyone. No more than someone who tells a joke about chickens crossing the road are seriously suggesting poultry should risk their lives crossing busy roads in order to get to the other side. And people who tell jokes about their dog having no nose are not suggesting that they ever mutilated their dog's muzzle in order to determine how they would smell.

I get that some people may not have found the joke funny. Humour is very subjective and what's amusing to some, definitely isn't for others. But that doesn't stop it from being humour.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Claudette

Comedians using acid throwing as joke material helps to normalise acid throwing at people as something we do in our society.

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Seriously? No it doesn't.

Telling a joke about someone shooting someone else or someone drink driving or someone throwing battery acid doesn't "normalise" anything. If anything, it highlights the issue. Lots of jokes are told about serious issues - war, deaths, illnesses, violence, extreme weather, Brexit, President of the most powerful nation in the western world, etc. Those jokes are in no way condoning anything.

Next you'll be saying action movies where good guys beat up the bad guys should be banned because it "normalises" violence.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by LadyDebs86

Ricky Gervais puts it perfectly when he talks about comedy and offence.

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The thing with offence is that it's meaningless in the grand scheme of things. It's merely someone stating their opinion, nothing more. Given the billions of people out there, there will always be at least one person out there who will find something you say offensive. But all that means is that they have a different opinion to you and, as we know, everyone has an opinion.

We don't generally ban things just because some people find them offensive.

Sometimes I am offended by some people's political views. Doesn't mean I want to ban them. I respect their freedoms even whilst I disagree with their point of view. On a more humorous note* I find some reality TV offends my intelligence but I'm not writing strongly-worded emails to TV channels demanding they should be taken off the air.

(*I feel I need to state that I'm saying something in jest just in case someone does get offended by my dislike of reality TV shows ).

[Mazbar]

There is a difference between doing a joke in a show that people have paid to come and watch and one on a publicly funded radio show ( the bbc is should be impartial) I love Jimmy Carr and have seen his show a few times I wouldn’t expect him to use all his jokes in his show on a bbc radio show they are too extreme. So it now comes to what is acceptable when doing a joke, so can anyone now do jokes about anything on the bbc as long as it is seen as a joke. It doesn’t matter if it offends people ( there have been interviews with acid attack victims who have condemned the joke). Can we expect the likes of Bernard manning coming back to our airways because it is only a joke, child abuse, intolerance. So yes comedians can do jokes what they want but in their own shows that people pay money to go and watch and know what they are getting but I do think the bbc needs to have certain standards.

[IndianaMac]

The funding for the show matters not one jot. The suitability for content is driven by target audience and, one would presume, watersheds.
The show's called "Heresy" - one can get from the title a decent impression that the content could be somewhat edgy. Easily offended? Don't listen.
People can choose to tune in, or not... just as they can choose to watch extreme content in Luther or wooly hugs (subversive, controlling for potential snowflakes, that's tongue in cheek*) content in Songs of Praise; viewers know the content they're about to be subjected to.

*or maybe not