This question is about comedy. I was watching a comedy act the other night, and someone cracked a joke about people who wear Age of Autism T-shirts. I am sure you have all read in the news about Jordan and Peter making an official complaint about the Frankie Boyle's show, that contained a controversial joke about her disabled son. My question is... Should we be allowed to make jokes about sensitive subjects, even if it makes the majority laugh? It's horrible to admit, I laughed at Boyle's joke, but I remember when Ricky Gervais made jokes about cancer victims, I got a little upset, as my brother has suffered with that. After hating Ricky Gervais for years, I find out he has done loads of charity work for cancer, and his mum died from it. So are we going too far with being overly sensitive? Should we be able to laugh at things like this?

Thanks Brian

Welcome to the BCG Brian.

As someone who suffers from a condition on the autistic specturm myself (I've got Asperger's syndrome), I think it very much depends on what the joke is. Are you laughing at the disabled or with the disabled?

I myself didn't see Boyle's gag (I thought his series was so bad I stopped watching before I got that far), but I think in his case it was wrong to make jokes about Jordan's son because of his disability. He should have made jokes about Jordan for being a talentless, pointless, vacuous waste of space.

Hello Brian, I too have difficulty with this material.

Ian I agree totally, nothing else needed to add.

Is Brian offended by jokes about him being short?

My parents died of cancer, my wife died through alcoholism and my youngest son is severley autistic yet I can laugh at jokes about all these subjects - if they are funny.

One thing I do find hard to laugh at though is Ricky Gervais

The problem for me, is that Frankie Boyle's jokes are so poorly crafted, and just not that funny. It's more like a game of "what's he going to say now?"

Any of those subjects can be funny, but Boyle fails at making it funny

Quote: fasty @ January 22 2011, 12:12 PM GMT

My parents died of cancer, my wife died through alcoholism and my youngest son is severley autistic yet I can laugh at jokes about all these subjects - if they are funny.

One thing I do find hard to laugh at though is Ricky Gervais

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OH dear I expect everything is difficult, esp humour, difficult when I had cancer but , normallity and friends got me through.