"It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that" - as if it gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. "I find that offensive." It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that". Well, so fucking what?" - Stephen Fry
I started out with a phrase by a very successful comedian, actor and presenter who made his career in being in offensive, in your face comedies. When I first came to the UK in 2008, I had been one of those previous snowflakes that aimed to find offensive in everything. I found a lot of things to be quite socially unacceptable, and I was repulsed at the idea of watching a Bill Hicks routine or a George Carlin gig. In my liberal days, you would never catch me watching such things. Which is all the more surprising, given the closeness I had with one of my greatest sources of my now developed sense of humour. My affinity with all things British stemmed from a man who had come to England in the 1940s as a young man to study and work, as a travelling salesman who sought to break into the British market, working initially at the London Stock Exchange before moving back to his native Denmark, marrying, having three children and eight grandchildren in the process. My grandfather was that man: a man of impeccable humour, unbelievable wit and extremely poor taste. Despite all this, the humour came from a much darker source that would confuse anybody initially, unless they had the sense to listen once in a while.
My grandfather was born in the Brondby Kommune in 1928, and was the only Jewish child to attend his local primary school. For many years, even in much liberal Denmark, being visibly Jewish was still a taboo, and being seen or associated with Jews could have been social suicide. Though I don't know a lot about my great-grandfather, all I knew was that he would make sure that he children never mentioned the fact that they were Jewish, and would go to great lengths to ensure that any visible signs were eradicated as soon as possible, even making sure that they all attended a local Catholic school to just make life easier. He told me as a boy that this was absurd as the very size of their noses was a giveaway. In my youth, I laughed but found this very uncomfortable and offensive, especially having studied the Nazis and watched 'Der Ewige Jude' in a history class a few weeks prior to that encounter. I knew that he was a Holocaust survivor, having been uprooted from his home, seeing his German mother return to her hometown to care for her sickly own mother, to only be snatched off the streets and sent to Auschwitz where she would later be murdered upon arrival. He, my great-grandfather (who was severely ill himself) and his sister escaped on a boat to Sweden, arriving as refugees with nothing more than a small suitcase each. Having found out about the death of his mother, he rarely talked about it, which was completely understandable. He was left without his mother when he was just twelve, and was said to have recited Kaddish everyday for the rest of his life. I don't how true that was; I got that impression from my grandmother.
So, what has this got to do with anything? Well, as I mentioned, he was a man of impeccable wit who wanted to change his misfortunes. My great-grandfather returned to good health, though it deteriorated again after learning of the fate of his wife, and soon the family was left destitute. They went to London in 1948, looking for work in austerity hit Britain following the war. In 1948, having done well in school, despite limited English to start with, my grandfather earned a position on the London Stock Exchange, initially working as a broker for an insurer that had made its way onto the boards there. He was an excellent mathematician, something I only wished that I had the talent for. It was here where he engaged with colleagues who ribbed him a fair bit for his Scandinavian accent, though taught him cricket, going down the pub and other English customs. In 1954, my great-grandfather remarried an Englishwoman and relocated to Denmark, something my grandfather never totally forgave him for, considering his wife's murder only ten years prior at the hands of the Nazis. However, having drifted further away from his own father, my grandfather had taken pleasure in growing accustomed to English life, including the humour of local comedy clubs and bars. Considering that the war was still in living memory, many found comfort in the humour of the defeat of the Nazis, even though many in those clubs had lost family to the devastation of war. It was here where he had learned a valuable lesson: that survival and beating the enemy was something to take great pleasure and solace in. If one remains wallowing in self-pity their entire lives, that only proves that the enemy was able to beat them. The best cure for that was laughter.
As a youngster, I remember the many jokes he had learned in England before returning to Denmark in 1956, when his father had succumbed to pleurisy. I had many discussions about him about his experiences as a refugee and escaping the clutches of Nazi rule. It had shocked me when he told me this joke, about the Nazi death camps and its mixture with a game that I had never heard of before:
The Nazis lined up the prisoners. They told them that they were going to have a cricket match that afternoon to see who would live. Hut A would play Hut B for the ashes of Hut C.
This initially shocked me with how brutal the joke could be. It was numbing to think, that a man whose mother had been exterminated in the most brutal and horrible way, was now openly joking about one of the darkest events in human history. Liberal snowflake me found this all too offensive, and could never get my head round it. My father had said that this was how he always was: telling jokes that were beyond the pale because deep down, he had an uncontrollable sense of guilt and depression that could only be filled by the fact that he could find humour in the most horrible things, as a way of knowing that those who tried to destroy him could not have the last laugh. It's down to that word again: survival. It wasn't his only legendary quip. Here are some of the ones that I can vaguely remember over the years (pardon for any broken translations!)
Person A: They say that the Nazis could fill the gas chambers with 2000 Jews and one clown.
Person B: Why one clown?
Person A: See? Nobody cares when its the Jews.
The Nazis rounded up groups of soldiers and divided them by nationality. These groups consisted of British soldiers, French soldiers, Russian soldiers and Jewish soldiers, and gave them the chance to fight for their survival. The Nazis ask the British as to how many British were killed on the first day of the Somme. The British solider gives the right answer of 60,000 and allow the British to survive. Next, they go to the French soldiers and ask how many French soldiers died on the first day of the Somme. The French give the correct answer of 40,000, and so allow the French to live. Next, they go to the Russians and ask how many members of the Red Army died defending Stalingrad. The Russians give the answer of 1.2 million, and allow the Russians to live. Finally, they go to the Jews and say: "Name them."
Nazi officer: All right, I won't put you in the chamber unless you can tell which eye is my glass eye.
Jewish prisoner: It's your right eye.
Nazi officer: How can you tell?
Jewish prisoner: It's the only one with any compassion.
For anybody reading in 2022, these jokes would land one in very hot water. But, as he said, despite being crude and shocking, all they are remain to be words. Words that can do no harm, and did not do the same harm that the Nazis did to him and the Jewish population of Europe. Nor did these jokes do any harm to the millions of Romani, disabled, homosexual, communist, Polish and Jehovah Witness victims of the Holocaust machine. It made light of something that he found dark, and was something tat he took to his grave. When he died in 2018, after a long battle with Alzheimer's, my father (ill himself with prostate cancer), gave the Kaddish and spoke fondly of his kind nature, his charity work and his wicked sense of humour, which many people acknowledged in the congregation. Of course, none of these were repeated in the synagogue, but his mantra of surviving when those who sought to kill him was mentioned several times. His key to survival was that idea that humour in the very thing that had scarred him made him the man that he became, and had a big influence on my life.
The reason why this comes up is due to circumstances that I have been caught up in this week. A few days ago, it had emerged from a Jimmy Carr stand up special that aired on Netflix called 'His Dark Material', that a particular joke had been of great controversy. In the sketch, Carr had made this joke about the atrocities of the Holocaust, and in particular, about the decline of Romani people during this period:
When people talk about the Holocaust [nervous laugh from audience]...they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention thousands of gypsies (sic) being lost to the Nazis. Nobody ever wants to talk about that, because they don't want to talk about the positives.
It was a very edgy joke, but one that audience members should have been used to, considering Carr's previous jokes about rape, incest and paedophilia. It is also a regular part of Carr's routine to be outwardly offensive, and to use dark humour about taboo subjects. What has been inaccurately reported is that Mr Carr somehow 'celebrates' the genocide of Romani people, as groups like Hope Not Hate have asserted. What skills of inference they have, nobody knows. The GRT (Gypsy, Romani and Traveller) Movement have called upon Netflix to remove the segment at the end of the special, which before Carr had said: 'would get anybody cancelled'. On Sunday, during his sold-out tour, Carr said that this would be his last tour before he is actually cancelled. What amazes me more than anything is the removal of context and how the reaction has been, as if to say that jokes about paedophilia, rape and incest are acceptable, and jokes about genocide are not. If an audience enjoying a very dark joke about genocide makes one a racist, then the GRT's acceptance of keeping in jokes about paedophilia, rape and incest makes them...I don't want to go there.
Joking aside, let's look at the context again. Carr is a very successful comedian, having hosted 8 Out Of 10 Cats (and its accoupling Countdown spinoff), The Big Fat Quiz of the Year and has appeared on other panel shows too. He is known for his very brutal approach to many subject matters - not just the Holocaust, but the subject matters I listed above earlier, plus 9/11, abortion and the Catholic Church. Taking on such dark subject matter is going to land you in trouble, but the most successful comedians have always pushed the barrier. Look at Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Ricky Gervais, etc. All very successful comedians who have tackled dark subject matters in the past. Gervais made jokes about Schindler's List being a discount German snuff film (as it was filmed in black and white and had a 'shower' scene), and Carr has joked about the Holocaust in the past (twice to my knowledge).
They say there's safety in numbers. Yeah, tell that to six million Jews.
The Nazis did all kinds of terrible things, but they did conduct important scientific and medical research, all without harming any animals.
The impact of the jokes is that they subvert expectations, taking a harmless statement and providing a punchline that is meant to give the audience a reaction. Now, was Carr's joke about the Romani Holocaust particularly clever? No. Was context lost in purpose to drive an agenda? Absolutely. You see, Carr gave a run down on why the joke runs on three levels: because it educated people on the fact that 200,000-500,000 Romani gypsies were killed, that the phrase 'never forget' will remain true and that he will stay in a job. He said that it was still a joke about the 'worst thing in human history'. I fail to see where this 'glorifies' anything. The loss of context reminds me of the Count Dankula case, where he had trained his girlfriend's pug to make a Nazi salute upon hearing the phrase: 'Gas the Jews!' The context lost was that he was trolling his girlfriend, making the dog do the salute to 'make it into the most ugly thing [Dank] could think of, which is a Nazi'. Immediately, Dankula set up the premise that Nazis are ugly and foul, and that making a seemingly cute dog do something so barbaric was the joke. No different to how Carr set up his joke. Except, Dank's joke backfired and he ended up going to prison under the Communications Act 2003. His freedom for making a 'shitpost' cost him £800. The money wasn't the point, as he refused to pay the court and have it donated to a children's hospital in Glasgow, which was later seized by the courts instead. The point was out of principle: that freedom to say offensive things cost £800. The SNP have also continued their drive into authoritarianism, with local councillor Julia McKenzie stating that Jimmy Carr and his audience should be prosecuted for hate speech. This is the type of authoritarian nature that, rather ironically, was the start of fascism in Europe during the 1920s and 30s.
Thankfully, Carr has not been prosecuted for anything as of yet, but when you consider the material he used and how it stands up during his gig, the context rather than the content matters. Carr has never outwardly unironically endorsed a position where he believes genocide is right. The joke he made was clearly in jest, and had come out two months ago. If he had been at a right-wing gig and said such things, it would be titally acceptable to go after him. Except, he was at a comedy show with a multiracial, multicultural audience in front of him. Hardly a skinhead rally, was it? So, again, context is lost, which remains to be lost on people who get their information from only the BBC. What's more is the vitriolic response towards Carr's Countdown co-presenter Rachel Riley, a well-known Jewish mathematician, David Baddiel, a Jewish comedian, and Tracy-Ann Oberman, a Jewish actress. I wonder what the connection is between all three of these people? They don't go after the white man, but rather after three British Jews instead. Simply put, this is more offensive that three Jews should have to apologise for something that they never said, and is very racist in that sense. Ironic as people cast the first stones in their glass houses.
Of course, you get the usual brigade of woke mentality mobs (oops, sorry that's offensive) who want desperately to be oppressed, and yet come out with ludicrous statements like this:
To conflate a man's joke with a serious political standpoint is, naturally, pathetic and not reflective. If a comedian says that they're a dog, does that make them a dog? No, because it's part of a routine that they do. Carr also summarised this when he said how disabled comics use their experiences to make disabled jokes, or how ethnic minorities do the same thing, ending his monologue by saying: 'so two paedophiles walk into a park...' in an attempt to subvert expectations that an audience reacts to. It makes a comedian's job very difficult if nobody responds in that way. Soon, we'll get to a point where bland, uninteresting 'knock, knock' jokes would be the norm, but also be considered offensive to those who don't have hands. Joker did the subverting expectations line brilliantly, using a simple 'knock, knock' set up, only for the punchline to be 'it's the police, ma'am. Your son's been hit by a drunk driver - he's dead.' The audience don't react the way in which Arthur wants them to react, and a cranky, old woman says that it's simply 'not funny' because its a taboo subject that one isn't allowed to mention. Speaking of cranky old ladies:
I know that the profile picture is of Golda Meir, but this was from a person who tried (and failed) to argue the case that Carr was being serious with his joke, and that nobody Jewish would use such humour. However, when I pointed out the experiences with my own grandfather and how he dealt with humour, this is what the old bat responded with:
So, here we have blatant Holocaust denial, which is more offensive to me than a poor-tasted, not very well educated joke by a comedian at a comedy gig. A woman (I assume) giving it out to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor who told jokes about his own experiences. I of course say this in jest, but it shows a deep-lying bigotry from some within even our own community who see themselves as more 'superior', because their family was Russian, or German or Polish. Because we are Scandinavian, she did not feel as if we were 'Jewish' enough. The puffered up Scandi got under the skin of the uneducated, right-wing troll. Note the use of the word 'settler' too: a very sinister one, and very much that of a fear of myself as an immigrant, unafraid to say what I think.
The other important right is the right to also remain offended. I have no problem with people believing that Carr's joke was offensive, as that is the right of the individual. It should be up to the individual to decide what is right or wrong, the same way you decide what's funny or not (using a lot of Joker quotes today). But, as that Oscar winning performer said, comedy and humour remain subjective. What isn't subjective is the context, and I do not defend the joke, but rather the context that it was used in, and the threats to free speech that can arise from these ideas. Dangerous as it sounds, the path to authoritarianism is for authorities to decide what is morally right and wrong, and that is a danger to us all. I'm sure the same people decrying Carr are the same people who cried when Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen were cancelled from mainstream viewing because they were deemed 'problematic'. It would also be the same people who rightly defended the late Pete Newbon's right to post a meme using The Protocols to mock former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn when he was wrongly called 'antisemitic', despite being a Jew himself. To some, including author Michael Rosen, that was considered offensive, and mobs went after Pete too. Look what happened as a result of that, and reflect. At least the people who condemned both Dr Newbon and Mr Carr are consistent and not hypocritical on this issue: just twice the level of dense as those just decrying Carr's actions.
I will leave you with the final reminder of my grandfather's words about survival, and how that humour helped him to survive when the evils of the Nazis tried to murder him. If people try to destroy you, then show that you have no fear and step back. At the end of the day, it doesn't embolden them: it embarrasses them.
What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? I tell you what you get - you get what you fucking deserve! *gunshot*
That last joke was mind-blowing.
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