Carr Crash

Jimmy Carr is coming in for a lot of criticism for his Holocaust Gypsy joke.

To get a joke you need to be able to detect an incongruity in its multiple interpretations and resolve that incongruity by inhibiting the literal interpretations and appreciating the meaning of the funny or ironic one. Some don't possess that mental ability. I personally believe this to be the case in this instance.

Carr's delivery and facial expression while delivering the punchline demonstrated to me that this was pure satire that produced an irony and the irony was directed at the audience. 

There's no doubt that many in the UK detest gypsies - I myself don't have a positive experience with them. We used to get them camped on the common, on the other side of our hedge, year after year and we even facilitated them with water, to start with. But they left their camp an absolute tip upon leaving - the detritus from the many jobs they did in the area, along with their rubbish, was dumped in the hedge and even bags of human excrement were left there. Curiously, this did not endear them to me, as we had to clear it up. 

That was several incidents in one place, albeit over a number of years by one specific community; however, they haven't camped on the common for the last 3 years. My view of them is clouded by this, but only that bunch - does my experience make me a bigot? You could accuse those who hate Nazis of being bigots; however, key element in the definition of bigotry is the word 'unreasonable'. 

We do tend to extrapolate from the specific to the generic based on our experiences - that's all we have to base our opinions on. There again, any reference to Gypsies in the news press is also very negative, and that too colours our perception. A recent report found that of 365 stories published over three years, more than half were in the Daily Mail and Daily Express, who seem to hate Gypsies more than Europeans. A majority of these stories were about allegations of crime by Gypsies and issues around campsites. Outlets such as the Guardian and the Independent did more diverse stories overall and gave more space to Gypsy writers. But these were outweighed by the right-wing tabloid media.

However, back to Carr - his joke highlighted that many detest gypsies - the audience laughed, for God's sake. He was not, despite the protestations of many, advocating the extermination of Gypsies. His facial expression said, admittedly to me (and to Hay); "Take a look at yourselves - you laughed. And what's more, you know you laughed and you feel a little uncomfortable about that. Good." It was certainly provocative. It was certainly funny.

You might say; "Then if that's the case, why didn't he explain it that way?" But do comedians explain jokes to those who don't get them every time? In this case, however, he did explain it with a punchline preamble about how few talk about Hitler's extermination of Gypsies. 

Jokes around race and disability are hot potatoes and many have fallen foul of the po-faced Joke Police, who are determined to see the negative, literal interpretation in everything and attempt to silence those who see multiple, and intended interpretations. The media press, rather than digging further, reports the outrage.

That said, and as I have said before, the right to feel offended belongs to those who are the subject of the offence and not necessarily those who voice offense on their behalf and are not members of that community, unless they have evidence from that community being offended. In this case I believe they are, but it's in the interest of every marginalised community to err on the side of being offended when there's a choice, as it supports getting attention for their plight.

I'd like to bring some more evidence before the court, with M'Lud's permission - politics. 

In the 70s there were the apolitical comics (Tommy Cooper et al, who were just funny) and a whole raft of right wing comics (Bernard Manning, etc.). This started to change in the late 80s and early 90s when the right wing comics were gradually replaced by those who were decidedly more left wing and the product of universities, rather than the docks, factories and working men's clubs. 

Today you'd be hard pressed to find a right wing comic and the profession has become a decidedly left wing preserve. Carr is excoriated by the right for his left wing credentials (except around tax avoidance) and I find it hard to believe he's a bigot. He has even described himself as an uber-liberal (there are many definitions of the word liberal that fall on both sides of the centre, although in his case it's definitely left). 

The key question in reference to the 'Carr crash' is whether you found the joke funny and, more particularly, why. And be honest. Also ask yourself what your true opinion of Gypsies is.

One more issue to consider - the vast majority of what we call Gypsies in the UK are Irish in origin and in no way related to the Roma community, who were the ones targeted by Hitler. He may well have had a downer on Irish travellers, but we can't be certain. When we refer to Gypsies in the UK we do not generally mean Roma. Does that put a different complexion on the debate and can Irish travellers be genuinely offended when it's Roma who are the subject of the joke?

Finally, are they Gypsies or gypsies? I've used the capitalisation throughout the above, but my natural inclination was to use lowercase.