{"id":982,"date":"2018-01-22T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T07:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/?p=982"},"modified":"2018-02-23T17:28:28","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T00:28:28","slug":"friends-without-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/2018\/01\/22\/friends-without-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends Without Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

News item<\/a>: Still Friends? The trouble with old sitcoms<\/p>\n

Reading the above article this week, I didn\u2019t know whether to laugh, cry, be angry, gloat, shake my head, or just do a little sideways head-tilt that older people do when they want to do a generational comparison thing.<\/p>\n

It seems that those that grew up with \u201cFriends\u201d and who loved the show back when it first aired, are now feeling uncomfortable about the targets of the gags.<\/p>\n

Apparently, they now see Ross as \u201csexist\u201d and \u201chomophobic\u201d, Joey as \u201ccreepy\u201d, and the entire show as \u201cwhite\u201d. And there are comments about \u201cfat Monica\u201d and \u201cgay Chandler\u201d jokes too.<\/p>\n

I never was a fan of \u201cFriends\u201d, but I know millennials who were, and it was mandatory viewing. My generation\u2019s mandatory viewing was Monty Python\u2019s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers, among other classics. Do I feel uncomfortable about some of the humour of those shows? Yes, but mostly only because other people are.<\/p>\n

If I were to defend Basil\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t mention the war!\u201d outburst, or the ignorance of Mrs. Scum\u2019s declaration <\/a>in response to having guessed the name Henri Bergson in the \u201cSpot the Braincell\u201d quiz show (Monty Python live at Drury Lane), I\u2019d have the PC police down on me like a 16-ton weight.<\/p>\n

However, the thing about the two examples above is that the humour comes from poking fun at the people who do<\/em> hold views that condone comments like Mrs. Scum\u2019s; or at least, that\u2019s how I interpret the lines. But now I\u2019d be in trouble for condoning the use of bigots<\/em> as targets for humour\u2014after all, even bigots deserve respect, don\u2019t they.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, if I did hold such liberal, enlightened, non-PC views, I wouldn\u2019t be alone. A clip from Fawlty Towers<\/a> in which the Major puts us all straight on the ethnicity of the Indian cricket team is up on YouTube, and a large number of comments point out that the joke is on the Major and his cohort, not the people his insensitive remarks insult.<\/p>\n

By the way, the clip in question was cut from recent re-runs of Fawlty Towers, according to the BBC\u2019s \u201cFriends\u201d article.<\/p>\n

I struggle with the juxtaposition of criticism of this type of humour with the culture of graphic, sadistic violence on TV, in films, and on video games. If you apply the \u201csticks and stones\u201d adage to this juxtaposition, you\u2019d think it was the so-called insensitive humour that would be the \u201cnames will never hurt me\u201d and the lopping-off of limbs and exploding of entire bodies that would be the \u201csticks and stones\u201d.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we need a new adage. How about \u201cBombs and guns are loads of fun, but names can mortally wound me\u201d?<\/p>\n

But maybe society is conditioning itself so that future wars will be fought using so-called insensitive humour as weapons of mass destruction.<\/p>\n

Which brings us nicely round to Monty Python\u2019s \u201cWorld\u2019s Funniest Joke\u201d sketch, which imagined World War II engagements between British and German forces in which a joke, translated into German, was deployed with devastating effect\u2014effectively neutralizing staggering numbers of enemy forces. It also portrays Hitler telling the \u201cMy dog doesn\u2019t have a nose\u201d joke. So far, I haven\u2019t seen any blatant criticism of this sketch, but give it time\u2026<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in what the \u201cfunniest joke in the world\u201d is, you\u2019ll probably have to go to the \u201cdark web\u201d, because If you type the German version of the joke into Google Translate, it returns \u201c[FATAL ERROR]\u201d. The folks at Google have a sense of humour!<\/p>\n

\"The

How Google translates the world’s funniest joke<\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s lots more I could write on this topic, but (a) there\u2019s little of entertainment value in it and (b) I might offend the two green-skinned, high-functioning genius dolphins who read my columns regularly in the comfort of their fish-shaped reclining chairs in the shallows of Montego Bay. And that just wouldn\u2019t do, would it\u2026<\/p>\n

I cannot let the following thought go unsaid though.<\/p>\n

Please sit and give some careful, unbiased thought to the logical conclusion of the witch hunts currently going on in comedy. At some point in the proceedings, witches are<\/em> going to register their offence at the persecution of their sisterhood being used in such a derogatory manner. The resultant increase in the toad population will precipitate a \u201c#realtoadsarecool” campaign, which might escalate to an amphibian inter-racial Armageddon. And those of us whom the witches left in human form will have to deal with the froggy fallout.<\/p>\n

Frogs\u2019 legs, anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News item: Still Friends? The trouble with old sitcoms Reading the above article this week, I didn\u2019t know whether to laugh, cry, be angry, gloat, shake my head, or just do a little sideways head-tilt that older people do when they want to do a generational comparison thing. It seems that those that grew up with \u201cFriends\u201d and who loved… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[490,77],"tags":[509,510,511],"class_list":["post-982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-commentaries","category-rant","tag-friends-has-dated","tag-pc-witch-hunt","tag-worlds-funniest-joke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/reggothard.com\/kelvin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}