Is it ever appropriate for a comedian to apologize for a joke?

There's two schools of thought on this
>NO! The only thing sacred is whether or not it was funny!
or
>YES! Words are powerful. Sometimes comics can't predict the ramifications of what they say and when they make mistakes it's important to own up to them.

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No, comedians should not apologize for jokes they have tried to make. Some jokes fall flat, some are classics. You gotta at least try, and making comedians apologize for jokes that fell flat will have a negative effect on creatively. It's why comedy is shit now.

No. Saying sorry is for Justin Bieber, not comedians.

who are they apologizing to? I need the context, I don't understand.

Comedians, as part of their trade, are given license to explore typically taboo topics in to secure the joke. Part of the humor is how uncomfortable the material makes the audience feel, and how generally unacceptable it would be in a normal setting.

Honestly, that's why SJWs hate comedians so much. The very profession of comedy requires a certain disregard for the conventions of society that they seem so desperate to set up. They deemed Jerry Seinfeld, one of the tamest comedians out there, too offensive and therefore unacceptable. Anything beyond a kitten telling knock knock jokes is too wild for these cucks.

You think it's contextual? I was throwing it out there without any specific example, but you think the answer might be "maybe, but it depends on the joke"?

Just listen to Patrice O'Neal beat the fuck out of the roastie on Fox news, or discuss Tracey Morgan and Hollywood on the O and A show. Theres 0 reason to apologise for a bad joke or a joke deemed too offensive. As
Said, it's a vital part of their craft.

A shitty joke? Sure.

NEVER for an "offensive" joke, though....

>Honestly, that's why SJWs hate comedians so much. The very profession of comedy requires a certain disregard for the conventions of society that they seem so desperate to set up. They deemed Jerry Seinfeld, one of the tamest comedians out there, too offensive and therefore unacceptable. Anything beyond a kitten telling knock knock jokes is too wild for these cucks.

Pulling the comedy card is a lame excuse for not being able to be held accountable for what you say.\

>There's two schools of thought

No there aren't. There's the way that things have been forever, then there's the bullying mentality inherent to thought police, I mean SJWs, that has been forcefully visited upon comedy in the past three or four years while people pretend it was always this way....
And I'm an old school liberal saying this.

No.
Anyone who is physically there watching the comedian and is offended is a retard. Don't go and see comedians if you don't understand what you're getting yourself in to.
Anyone who is watching the comedian online or heard about their act on the news and is offended is a retard. They don't even understand the medium.

Why not?

who gives a shit

(((stand-up comedy))) has got to be the most degenerate medium that exists. Any trace of dignity the profession once had is gone, what little ever existed.

The big name stand up comics are the worst. They view themselves as modern day philosophers, but the one thing they all have in common is that they couldn't ever hack it in a real job. Yet they have the gall to use their medium to push a political agenda, and redditors lap it up and praise them.

The appropriate way to view a stand-up comic is like a court jester. A sad imp whose only purpose is to demean himself for the audience. Not lecture to the crowd on how the world works when their whole existence is a joke. They should solicit laughs, not applause. Rodney Dangerfield was probably the best example of an appropriate stand-up comedian.

Never.

Nope. As long as you aren't calling on people to be murdered in an unironic way or trying to cause immediate panic, you don't have to apologize for shit.

found the extremist reich-wing Sup Forumsster

Yet, they're wealthy and popular and you're some impotent moral crusader on Sup Forums. How accomplished you must feel...

Reminds me of this classic
>youtu.be/BoLPLsQbdt0

>Not lecture to the crowd on how the world works when their whole existence is a joke

The jester part is wrong, but this is just idiotic. The clowns in Shakespeare are always the most "wise", accidentally or purposefully, it doesn't matter

Because at the end of the day, it's just a joke and jokes are made to make light out of bad or uncomfortable topics and situations.

Me too
youtube.com/watch?v=IwBoVZh1ruQ

I'm inclined to say no just to go against SJWs, but the way a lot of comics are self-righteous about comedy kinda bothers me too. Comedy isn't some sacred thing to be protected at all costs and if you say something that offends a lot of people then people have the right to respond to it. Not saying it should be as extreme as someone losing their job, but no one has the right to say anything they want unanswered.

right**

it's the same thing for famous actors/actresses.

Most of them got where they are by sucking dicks and taking it up the ass from some hollywood producer, never got a secondary education, never worked a real job beyond waiting tables between nude photoshoots, etc... but when they finally "make it" and get a platform the whole world is suddenly supposed to respect their bullshit opinion on any divisive issue

Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't know shit about global warming.

>black dude constantly heckles
>constantly talking loudly to his friends
>ruins the show for everyone
yeah, he's legitimately a nigger

that's because they aren't real people, and their "jokes" were written by a genius playwright who was actually contributing something to society

not some fat, ugly, bloated jewess who's only famous because her uncle is a senator

>Here's what happened. As we walked in, we sat down and started ordering drinks. And, as we ordered drinks, I guess we're being a little loud, because there was 20 of us ordering drinks. And he said, "Look at the stupid Mexicans and blacks being loud up there." That's the first thing he said. And then he kept on with his bit. And, then, after a while, I told him, "My friend doesn't think you're funny." And then when I told him that, that's when he flipped me off and said, "F-you N-word." And that's how it all started.
Really activates my almonds

Responding to something is different from shouting it down to the point of shaming it into some type of forced censorship. This shit is just short of the real thing. If this current generation is supposing that open discussion in an open forum (i.e. - free speech) isn't as important as feeling fuzzy, then we are FUCKED.

i've never seen a good woman stand-up and most stand-up makes me cringe, but the gems are legitimate

all i'm trying to say

I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but
>jokes are made to make light out of bad or uncomfortable topics and situations
You think that's the purpose of jokes? I'd argue they're ment to make sense of the absurd. Humor is an evolutionary advantage that stops beings with reason from killing themselves at the face of the futility of an unforgiving universe. We laugh, because if we didn't we would cry. And if we couldn't cry, we simply wouldn't do anything.

The word joke implies that its just for giggles and in the big picture no harm is mean

michael richards should never have apologized
He could have done a half-ass apology, like
>Yeah, well maybe I read the guy wrong and he took my act the wrong way
>But that's the act; if you can't handle it don't come to my show nigger!
and he woulda been fine

>The audience goes from laughter to awkward chuckles to silence, gasps, and anger
Pure kino

Should anyone have to apologize for their opinion?

Are you saying that people should be punished for holding incorrect opinions?

No, but acting like a jagoff and pulling the "ITS JUST COMEDY BRO RELAX" is lame as fuck

That's not the topic at all.
Read the subject at the top of the page.

Don't be ridiculous, laughter is just social behaviour

I think his fate should've been switched with someone like Chris Brown.
>Get away with brutally attacking, including biting, your then-girlfriend
>Get away with making hit songs complaining about how the media treated you
>Get away with insulting suicidal people
>Get away with dressing up as an Arab at a Halloween party
>Get away with calling an Arab comedian various slurs for making fun of you
>Get away with threatening to kill your current girlfriend
>Get away with pushing her down the stairs
>Manage to achieve continued success by making the same song 80 times
>Have adoring fans that will jump to your defense 24/7
Poor Michael Richards

Sorry, I mean to say, should anyone have to apologise for saying things that people don't like?

No, I think it depends on the situation. Like, what is the situation. Who are they apologizing to? why? Is it over a joke or something said to an audience member?

If they're apologizing over a joke they should just quit comedy.

You know what?
Fuck it
nobody should apologize for anything

you can be convicted of a crime and pay a fine or go to jail, and that should be enough

nobody ever believes apologies anyway, so what's the point?

what does
>held accountable for what you say
mean?

No. Even if you're not joking like Michael Richards you should never publicly apologize EVER. The only people he should've considered apologizing to were those black guys in the audience personally. Apologies are between individuals, not collectives or communities or groups or organizations you've never directly communicated with.

Yeah, so? The infinite folly of man and the confusion of life, it's purpose and the absurdity of language and convention are worthy of breaking from once in a while.

If there are people that can provide such an experience in a more original and provocative way than others, then more fucking power to them. This shit is a zero sum game as far as I can see and I, for one, welcome a little diversion.

while I don't necessarily agree with everything you've said, I think it's inappropriate to apologise after saying something that offends people

If you can't take a joke, that's your own damn problem.

Go develop a sense of humor and stop ruining everyone else's good time.

Because this isn't about being "offended", it's about power.

ALL this SJW faggotry isn't about being "offended", it's about POWER.
They want the power to define what is, and what isn't, appropriate to talk about. It starts with supposedly "offensive" shit, and it changes over time as they find new things to be "offended" about in order to silence those with opposing views. Soon enough, being critical of a political party, leader, or policy is going to be deemed "offensive". FUCK THAT!

FUCK SJW'S and their "offended" bullshit.

Damn son

Isn't there a comedian who did something about how being offended by something makes people feel important or something? In the end he said something like
>if you're offended I don't care

I don't think so. Bugs don't laugh. I haven't heard any good prairie dog jokes lately. Primates do though.

It's the ability to have a comprehension of the world outside of yourself and it's order and structure combined with the compounded understanding of feelings and emotions about it, and noticing when reality deviates from your expectation.

You need the ability to have expectations of your perceived reality, the ability to have feelings about it, and then in the face of having those expectations proven false- having a coping mechanism for mental homeostasis.

That's what I think jokes are. There's a strong chance I may be autistic or some sort of ayy lmao

Bow down to your new queen!!!

I'm starting to become convinced that this whole SJW thing is a boogyman concocted by the right so that they have a strawman to distinguish themselves from

all the conservatives I know (without exception) use the positions of SJWs as a way to defend their own positions
>Look how crazy those people are! I must be doing the right thing by combating the crazy liberals!

Yes, if saying sorry is part of the joke. Apologizing for bad jokes is a classic way of getting the crowd to be on your side. Conan did it ever single monologue he had for the last 30 years.

i used to think something similar before I moved to california for two years

Being called out for being a jagoff

>Because this isn't about being "offended", it's about power.

This.

It's literally the only reason i post here. This site is full of pedos and Sup Forums nazis but it's also one of the main messageboard sites still championing free speech. Hate these other weird, obnoxious fags as I might, bullying people into opinion submission is no joke.

Not that user, but curious now. Where do you live? Who do you interact with? i try very much to be nonpartisan, but Im in california so it's very liberal from young people and still very conservative too. SJW are pretty fucking awful. I do comedy and the idea that someone should be shamed and not allowed back to perform banned what have you comes up a lot from these SJW types. They literally want to silence people who aren't of their voice. It is a level of insanity that I liken to those who believe in the healing word of pray. Both sides have their extremism and SJW are in no way an agenda I use to defend my free speech. If they don't want me speaking at places they own and they frequent fine. When they come at me at places I frequent more than them and I have ties to the owners, I feel attacked. Fuck them.

Monkeys don't really laugh, they kinda do when they are playing together, but they don't crack up when something unexpected happens, and people laugh quite a lot more when they are around other people than when they are alone, like 30 times more often, there's a theory that laughter comes in two kinds, the sort which is like the noises a dog or a monkey makes when they are playing, to signal that everything is okay, and the second which is purely a social tool for manipulating others

I think that's fine, someone says something that offends someone else, that someone else now thinks they are a dick, and nobody needs to apologise for any of that

>should be shamed and not allowed back to perform
>banned
>want to silence people who aren't of their voice
as a liberal from new york, I've never met a single person who thinks that way
which is why I have this suspicion that they might not actually exist

is the entire SJW culture contained within cali?

What part, user? The middle class parts of the Bay Area are the probably the worst offenders

Probably Carlin.

>this whole SJW thing is a boogyman concocted by the right

They're not smart enough to do that.

it's not about being smart
they concoct things that don't exist every day
it coulda' just been that this particular thing "stuck"
like pizzagate and such

who put you in charge of deciding what's okay to say and who decided you get to enforce your decision on other people?

I'm also a California user. I went to this arts program that was hosted at CalArts, which is in Southern California, during my senior year. Over there, there were people that unironically identified as "nonbinary," and there was some chick that asked about trigger warnings prior to a play (to be fair, she had a massive panic attack at a previous reading about rape, but still.)
Thing is, they weren't terrible people, other than the whole degeneracy as it pertained to their triggers and genders and whatnot, they were just normal high schoolers. I was born and raised in a poorer part of the Bay Area, then I moved to the Central Valley, both of them located in Northern California and outside of the CalArts thing, the worst I've seen over here are Trump protests.

>they concoct things that don't exist every day

No, it's leftist faggots and feminists, dude. It's not "the right".

>Pulling the comedy card is a lame excuse for not being able to be held accountable for what you say.\
Tell that to John Stewart

If you had to estimate, how many of these real SJW people are there?
Are we talking like, a couple of thousand? 100k?
It seems to me that, even if these people really do exist, that they live only in some places within the state of california
it doesn't seem like they're enough of a threat for conservatives to even waste time talking about
and yet they come up (or their retarded positions do) in basically every conversation

I do comedy in the SF bay area, oakaland, sacremento, santa rosa and such. Ive had such complaints against me. Usually the owners/managers have seen me perform more than they've seen the customers who complain. I get if it I went into a coffee shop Id never been to and they had an open mic that was all very liberal and safe space and I do a joke about making love and making hate at the same time is called rape and it triggers them or what not. I wouldn't do that though. I would scout out a venue Im performing at and be safe.

The difference is, SJW want safe spaces EVERYWHERE. Even if they've never been to that place before and represents a community they're not part of. It's this huge sense of entitlement. That if they can have it their way in some place, should be ALL places. It's the damn peanut allergy mentality. People want peanuts, we shouldn't ban them world wide and get rid of peanuts because some people cant deal. The people that complain never outweigh the people who stay and enjoy the show though. Thats why comedians shouldn't apologize. for every person you offend you easily have 1 that agrees and 1 that didn't even think anything of it.

Ive never performed out of the west coast, but.... they exist in oregon, nevada and seattle as well. Ive never had issues at venues in those states, but have you know, little hiccups with some people.

>Is it ever appropriate for a comedian to apologize for a joke?
Yes, as long as you use it is as a platform to then insult the people complaining about it

If you have a second Satan, I disagree
>but they don't crack up when something unexpected happens
youtube.com/watch?v=FIxYCDbRGJc
As to your second point, I'm not opposed to those also be aspects of how laughter is used, but primarily I was talking about HUMOR

Not that user, but it's hard to say. It isn't necessarily conservatives purposefully inflating the threat by implying they exist in greater numbers than they do. It might just be that they're an extremely vocal minority on the internet and in certain circles which makes it hard to gauge how many of them there actually are.
I live in New York and I've met people like this. I drove a girl home to her terrible neighborhood once and she said things like "I feel uncomfortable being alone with a CIS man," and recounted a story of how she felt really threatened walking through a nice neighborhood once as a queer person of color.
I'd known her since high school and she was definitely mentally ill and latched onto the movement in the last few years, but these people do exist. I didn't believe people actually said things like that in real life until I heard it.

>it doesn't seem like they're enough of a threat for conservatives

Fuck conservatives, you flag-waving asswipe burgermeister. This is bigger than that. Bullying people into censoring themselves is bigger than a party issue.

These fucks are as detrimental to liberalism as you people should have realized the Tea Party was to your own.

In your opinion, do you think the SJW thing is a "movement"; that it is growing and has staying power?
or do you get the sense that it's a fad that will die out

>Apologize once
>Be a bitch for the media forever

If Tumblr is any indication, SJWs can live in pretty much every state. Plus, the whole state isn't SJW utopia, there are parts within Central Valley and Southern California that are very conservative, or parts where it's roughly half and half, like where I currently live.
Plus, SJW is a pretty broad term that encompasses a lot of traits. When it comes to full fledged, "nonbinary," safe space types, I'd say they are an extremely small minority. California has a population of 40 million, after all.
In all honesty it's most likely limited to certain spaces, like art schools.

>the SJW thing is a "movement"; that it is growing and has staying power?

No.

It's a political ideology that will die out because it's fucking stupid, and people will only "tolerate" so much bullshit telling you to pound sand up your ass.

but regular liberals don't even acknowledge any of that because they aren't associated with it
what do you want liberals to do about mentally deranged people who happen to vote for the same party?

>the kind of comic that bitches this hard about the SJW cops on Sup Forums
post some of your stand up if you're so great.

You won't.

>I bet you suck. make me laugh faggot
Truly, the perfect environment for a stand-up comic!

It's a fringe movement, I guess. A small but very vocal minority of people. I think it's definitely something that will disappear over time

if that really is a 10 year old kid he's a very strong individual, good for him

I didn't say you suck. You talk a lot of shit about how everybody's policing your words- this is an open space. You can say whatever you want, and if it's funny people will let you know.

>if it's funny people will let you know

Nah. This place is quite often a massive circle jerk, full of people who only respect and laugh at subjects that parrot their ideals back at them...or the opinions will be contrary for "teh lulz."

Very rarely will you get a genuine reaction here.

I'm not even the standup guy
I'm just pointing out to you that you're approaching comedy in the improper manner

>I didn't say you suck.
and you did, you said
>if you're so great
in an insincere manner