A new moral authority on humour has stepped forward. Rosie Jones, a proudly progressive millennial comedian known for appearances on shows such as The News Quiz and 8 Out of 10 Cats, has decided it’s time to discipline comedians who fail to meet modern ideological standards. In an interview with Attitude, the LGBTQIA+ magazine, she vents her frustration at what she calls “privileged cis white straight men” who make “inappropriate jokes” about “the trans community”.
Her targets include the likes of Ricky Gervais and Jimmy Carr. To them, she offers this advice: “With respect, shut the f— up.”
If you happen to belong to the demographic she condemns, you may reasonably assume that her warnings apply to you as well. But there’s no need to panic. In the same interview, Jones generously outlines her framework for “telling jokes responsibly”. A phrase that sounds less like guidance on comedy and more like the label on a bottle of gin: Please joke responsibly. Excessive laughter may be harmful. Do not exceed the recommended weekly allowance of smiles.
According to Jones, before telling a joke, a comedian must conduct a careful moral audit. The first question is identity-based: Who are you? Do you possess “lived experience”, or at least proximity to it?
Translated into practice, this appears to mean that comedians are barred from joking about groups they don’t personally belong to. Hence, Gervais and Carr should steer clear of jokes about trans women, since they lack the relevant lived experience.
But both men do, of course, have lived experience of being male — something shared by all trans women. Does that count? And if lived experience is truly the rule, does that mean people who are not cis, white, or straight are forbidden from mocking cis, white, straight men? Must one have served as President of the United States before being allowed to joke about Donald Trump? Or do exceptions quietly apply when convenient?
The second test Jones proposes concerns intent. Is the joke kind or cruel? Is the comedian “punching up” or “punching down”?
For those unfamiliar with the terminology, “punching up” refers to mocking people deemed more privileged than oneself, which is considered virtuous. “Punching down”, targeting those judged less privileged, is taboo. Of course, this framework becomes slightly awkward when wealthy, middle-class, left-leaning comedians spend years ridiculing working-class Brexit voters or Trump supporters. But perhaps this is another case where the rules are flexible.
The final question, Jones insists, is purpose. Why tell the joke at all? Is it meant to “start a conversation” or “challenge perspectives”? Or is it merely designed to provoke?
There was once a time — distant though it may now seem — when comedians told jokes for a simpler reason: to make people laugh. Opening dialogues and reshaping worldviews were not always part of the job description.
Take Bob Monkhouse’s famous line: “I want to die like my father, peacefully in his sleep — not screaming and terrified, like his passengers.” Was he attempting to spark a discussion about heart conditions? Or raise awareness about elderly drivers? Almost certainly not.
By today’s standards, that approach to comedy is presumably hopelessly obsolete. Still, there is one Monkhouse quote that modern progressive comedians might find useful:
“People laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they’re not laughing now.”
Pandering to the crowd
Following a diplomatic dispute over Taiwan, Japan has been forced to return all the pandas it had on loan from China. To avoid upsetting visitors, one Japanese zoo has devised a creative workaround: it has dressed staff members in panda costumes, placed them in an enclosure, and invited the public to feed them.
How visitors feel about this arrangement is unclear. But the development should delight Peta, the animal rights organisation that has previously declared drinking cow’s milk a symbol of white supremacy and encouraged women to go on a “sex strike” against men who eat meat.
Peta has long condemned zoos as cruel institutions that profit from animal exploitation. Replacing animals with humans, then, must surely represent progress in their eyes.
Personally, I’d go one step further. Release all zoo animals entirely, and replace them with Peta activists instead. Visitors could feed them by pushing chunks of Quorn through the bars of their enclosure.
