Jimmy Carr: A Comedian, Being Funny and Making People Laugh by Telling Jokes!

It never fails to astonish me how some well mannered, educated and polite people can be so painfully stupid! I was scrolling through some Jimmy Carr stuff and I came across a post where one person had asked someone.

“So you’re a feminist who think what jimmy carr said about women exercising is funny?”

My question: why wouldn’t someone who believes in equality for women, find Jimmy Carr funny?

The response to the question was:

“No. If you take a look, I actually posted a caption in response saying “One of many reasons to hate Jimmy Carr.” I hate his comedy and I don’t think he’s a very nice person. His jokes are stemmed from the dehumanisation and oppression of those who don’t fit the socially privileged characteristics he possesses of being white, heterosexual, middle class, middle aged and male. It is pretty common knowledge that he makes jokes about sexual harassment, rape and humours anybody over 10 stone” There is then a link provided to this video and she says, “Watch this video of him epitomising the double standard by congratulating a male audience member for his sex life and calling the female audience member “a dirty little hussy” for embarking on the same sexual activity. I could literally make a playlist of 1000s of videos where Jimmy Carr has used his privilege to degrade minority groups and even his own audience members. “I guess in this society being male and an asshole makes you worthy of our time,” to quote Kat Stratford from 10 Things I Hate About You.”

Now, where do I begin? How about at the very beginning, “a very good place to start” to quote Maria from The Sound of Music. Okay, you don’t like Jimmy Carr’s comedy fair enough. But you don’t know the man so how can you say you hate him? You can hate his comedy, by all means, but let’s be realistic. I’m going to assume that, since you’re not a fan, you’ve never met him. Therefore you are in no position to comment on whether he is a “nice person” or not. I, on the other hand, have met him and he is a very polite, charming, funny and grateful man. He is thankful to everyone who goes to his shows and tries to make the experience as great as he can for them – which is why (even though he must be exhausted) he stays behind after the shows and does a signing and has a chat with people who want to talk to him. I’m sorry, I fail to see how he is not a “very nice person”.

“His jokes are stemmed from the dehumanisation and oppression of those who don’t fit the socially privileged characteristics he possesses of being white, heterosexual, middle class, middle aged and male.” BULLSHIT! They mention these topics yes, and do you know why – because what he says is funny. It’s called “dark humour”, and guess what, he’s on stage talking to people who have paid money to see him. They chose to be there or to buy the DVD, you also chose to watch these videos. You’re creating your own misery – if you don’t like him don’t watch him. His jokes are not about rape being funny, his jokes are all about word play and taking serious issues and making light of them because that’s how people cope with horrible things. This is one of his jokes:

“They say there’s safety in numbers.

Try telling that to six million Jews.”

Now, at first glance, that’s about the Holocaust – the worst thing that’s happened in Modern History. But when you actually process the joke, it’s not about the Holocaust. It’s a play on words. He’s not saying “hahaha six million  Jews died. LOL that’s so funny!” he’s saying “here’s an innocent lead up, and here’s the punch line, that’s not what you were expecting, ha it’s funny because it’s a surprise and it’s word play”. Not everyone gets it, and that’s good – if everyone had the same sense of humour the world would be a very boring place.

His jokes are not about “dehumanisation and oppression” they are jokes about life. He doesn’t make jokes that say being gay is wrong because he believes that, he says it because it’s funny to make fun of homophobes.

“I think Civil Partnerships...are gay”

Where’s the harm in that? It’s true and funny. It’s also another example of word play. Because he says “gay” in the way a lot of people use it, as a derogatory term, but he literally means homosexual. No one got hurt, no one was dehumanised or oppressed by him.

As for him making jokes about “sexual harassment, rape and humours anybody over 10 stone” that is because he can make it funny. His jokes do not say that sexual harassment is a good thing, they don’t say that rape should be promoted, and he doesn’t make fun of anyone over 10 stone in weight, he mentions the topical issue of obesity and makes jokes referring to society’s attitude towards overweight people.

Not a direct quote but Jimmy Carr has made a joke saying that “rape” is not a nice word

and that it should be called “a struggle snuggle” because

“you couldn’t stay angry and a struggle snuggler”.

Again, his joke is coming from the use of words. It’s all word play. None of his jokes are “rape is good, haha she got raped, sucks to be her”. None of it!

Onto the issue of “Watch this video of him epitomising the double standard by congratulating a male audience member for his sex life and calling the female audience member “a dirty little hussy” for embarking on the same sexual activity.” You are a complete moron if you can’t see the joke behind this. The complaint you’re making about the double standard is the reason he made the comment. He is laughing at the whole double standard. HE DOESN’T MEAN IT! It’s called IRONY! Look it up! In the name of all things funny, it is one of the most common forms of comedy. He has taken something he doesn’t mean and said it to make a point through comedy.

“I could literally make a playlist of 1000s of videos where Jimmy Carr has used his privilege to degrade minority groups and even his own audience members.” Well as I’ve stated previously, you obviously don’t understand his comedy. Jimmy Carr does not do discriminatory jokes, he does not hate minority groups. He ridicules double standards.

“I’ve got a friend who can read the Qur’an backwards.

And that’s good because, that’s how you read it.

He then goes onto say that he made a joke like that because

he’s “not a fucking idiot” and follows that up with,

“What are Christians going to do? Forgive me? Good luck with that.”

Now, this is funny because he basically makes a joke about how it is socially acceptable to make fun of Christians because they’re not going to blow him up, which is the ignorant fear held by many people. His jokes are clever, they have deep meaning in them and if you actually looked you’d understand that jokes like this are not about what they appear to be about. It’s a lot of irony and word play.

He doesn’t use his privilege for anything. He routinely makes fun of his own accent and his background.

This may not be exactly right but I’m working from memory.

“Some of you may be having trouble with the accent.

I do not actually have an accent; this is just what it sounds

like when things are said properly”.

A further exhibition of your ignorance is that you seem to think it’s a terrible thing that Jimmy Carr makes fun of his audience members. You obviously don’t know his fanbase very well. We all go to his gigs and buy the DVDs because we have a dark sense of humour, we can take a joke and we know he doesn’t mean it. Some people go to his gigs in the hope that he will pick on them. To a lot of his fans, having him “shout abuse” at them is an honour because that’s his skill and it’s brilliant. I’ve got a front row seat at a gig on his next tour and I don’t care if he talks to me or not but if he did I’d enjoy every minute of it. I’ve met him twice and he is a very kind and polite man. You can tell when people are fake and I’ll tell you, that is one thing he is not. He appreciates his position and is respectful to all of his fans because he knows that without us, he’d have to go and work in Starbucks. He is one of my favourite comedians and it really pisses me off when people are so ignorant about these things. I mean, I’d understand if you didn’t get it, but his tone and delivery are dripping in irony. It is painfully obvious that he isn’t being genuine in most of the things he says until he says thank you.

I probably rambled and repeated myself a lot in this but I ramble in all of my posts and the repetition was purposeful. I was trying to get the point across that this girl is an idiot who does not understand: irony, satire, word play or the function of the “stop button”.