What Makes a Joke "Offensive"?

Today: The Flying Monkey answers all questions, including what makes a joke offensive?

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Q: Unrelated to Tracy Morgan's comedy debacle, in which his "jokes" were obviously not even jokes but just ignorant, offensive statements, I've been thinking, "When is a gay joke tasteful?" and conversely, "When is a gay joke offensive?"

This question was prompted when I was hanging out with some friends and someone said, "How do you get four gay guys to fit on a footstool?" to which the answer was, "Flip it upside down." While I initially thought it was funny, I began to think that it might be distasteful. It's very common for the columns on this site to condemn certain people's attempts at gay humor while exalting others. I just was hoping there'd be some easily identifiable rainbow line that should never be crossed so I can laugh at a gay joke or disapprove of one. For me, violence is a clear line, but the joke in question isn't violent. Can you offer any sage advice to this young, uneducated gay? -- Jokester, 18, NY

A: It’s a fascinating question, but I think the answer frustrates a lot of people:

It all depends on who you ask.

I don’t think we’ve ever written about any “offensive” gay joke on this site without someone chiming in to say, “I’m gay, and I don’t think that’s offensive at all!”

Even Wild Hogs and Harold and Kumar 2: Escape From Guantanamo Bay, which, frankly, kind of shocks me.

Trust me, there’s even some gay person somewhere who would think that Tracy Morgan’s set wasn’t offensive.

And that’s all okay. Comedy is, by its very definition, subjective. It’s often deliberately infused with irony, and the specific intent is to shock or provoke. Comedy can’t ever be taken literally. There’s a lot of truth to the idea that thinking about a joke makes it not funny anymore.

Which isn’t to say we can’t all have our own opinions about any joke. We all have a right to our own reactions – and since it is all opinion, there literally can’t be a “right” or a “wrong” answer.

Still, our opinions obviously take on more resonance the more people there are who agree with them. If 99.99% of people agree that what Tracy Morgan said was offensive – and even Tracy Morgan agrees now! – then, for all intents and purposes, it’s “offensive.”

So when some writer here at AfterElton.com finds something offensive, we try to make our case with offerings to the great cyber gods, pointing to elements in the show or comedy routine that support what we’re saying.

Whether everyone else agrees with us or not, we’ve had our say.

But in the end, there is no rainbow line (which is a joke of yours, Jokester, that I think is funny!). Or if there is a line, it’s a very blurry one.

Want me to confuse things even more? For me, whether or not a joke is “offensive” depends, on part, on who’s telling it – and how it’s told.

That footstool joke? I actually think it’s kind of funny – not hilarious, since all gay anal sex jokes seem obvious and tired to me at this point. But funny.

But it would be a lot funnier to me if it was told by a gay or a gay-supportive person who’s in on the joke, who is using it as a way to bring audiences together so they can laugh with gay people, who he or she obviously sees as fully human.

And it’s a lot less funny when it’s told by a comedian with a history of gay-baiting or bigot-pandering, who uses this and other gay jokes to portray gay people as scary, disgusting aliens or barely human sex freaks.

Dear Flying Monkey: I'm a 70s baby. I grew up watching the most popular cop show of the time, Starsky and Hutch. I loved how openly affectionate they were and how they weren't afraid to show love for each other through hugs, lots of touches and smiles. They were cops, but first and foremost, they were the best friends in the whole world to each other and were always there for each other. Hutch once even told Starsky he loved him.

Why aren't there TV characters like Starsky and Hutch anymore? Is it because their affection, both physical and verbal, will be automatically perceived as gay and therefore “bad” by homophobic audiences? -- Bent Monkeh, NYC

A: I think you’re spot-on: a lot of that 1970s “bromance,” or even outright homoerotica, wasn’t intended as such. It was before the days of the internet, or slash become so popular, or even any real awareness that two masculine stars of a TV show could be gay.

But I’m not sure I agree that that has been lost. I think it’s been replaced by an admittedly less innocent, more self-aware and ironic bromance, in shows like House, Scrubs, Boston Legal, Smallville, Hawaii Five-O, and Supernatural (whose characters also openly “love” each other, even as the shows’ creators Supernatural openly riff on their own strong slash following). And let’s not even get started on all the reality show bromance, on Make me a Supermodel, The Hills, American Idol, and more.

Society has changed. But I’d say that, if anything, we’re more open to same-sex affection now than we were in the 1970s. And even better, we’re fully aware that same-sex affection sometimes (but not always) has a sexual component.

Q: What is it with this site and using the word “queer”? I was reading the story about Game of Thrones and there is the line 'including a number of queer characters' … queer as in something is wrong with them? At the top of your page you have the banner After Elton: “The pop culture site that plays for your team.” Well you aren't playing for my team using that word to describe gays. Are you trying to take that word back so it's not an insult or what?

I don't what it is with you Americans but here in the UK we don't describe ourselves as queer and it's, to be blunt, a little insulting. Every time I see that word I consider stopping coming here. So please explain! -- Anonymous

A: It’s a cultural difference. Back in the 1980s and 1990s here in the U.S., there was a widespread movement among younger GLBT folks to “reclaim” the word queer, using it as a catch-all term to replace alphabet soup terms like “LGBT” and “GLBTQI,” but also trying to fundamentally redefine our movement as one of outsiders and subversives.

Truthfully, I didn’t identify with the term and I didn’t agree with the movement’s agenda. Still, 20 years later, I can’t deny that the word was reclaimed, at least here in the U.S. But it didn’t redefine our movement, and now the word is mostly used interchangeably with “gay,” or in an ironic way – “Hey, remember that movement that tried to reclaim the word ‘queer’?”

But it’s worth pointing out that AfterElton.com isn’t necessarily trying to make a political point. I use the word simply because it gets awkward writing “gay” or “GLBT” over and over again. So occasionally I use the word “queer” instead, which, as I said, it now used interchangeably with “gay.”

I appreciate your being off-put by the word, but keep in mind that cultural differences are pretty much inevitable in the world of the internet – and you’re tilting at windmills if you expect the whole world to conform to your culture.

In the UK, for example, you’ve “reclaimed” words of your own-- namely “poof” or “poofter,” as in Jonathan Ross’s house band, Four Poofs and a Piano. You also still use “homosexual,” which here in the U.S. is used far less frequently – mostly because of a different moment in the 1980s which encouraged the use of “gay” instead, since “homosexual” had strong associations here with mental illness.

The point is language is malleable, and – a point that we’ve made before, even in this very column – its “meaning” all depends on context and intent. Nonetheless, for a variety of reasons, including the fact that some folks do find it off-putting, we’ve changed the title of our daily TV guide from Queerview. But you should still expect to see the word pop up on the site as different writers see fit to use it.

Q: My friends think our state capitol (Springfield, IL) is the only state capitol in the United States that doesn't have a Gay Pride Parade (and festival). I say surely there has to be a few others, especially in the South. – TheFabulousThomasJ, Decatur, IL

A: What is this, some kind of test of my abilities? Like the mystical wizard in the 1980s classic Dragonslayer, the Flying Monkey doesn’t do tests! However, I will open it up to my readers. Readers, who knows of state capitals without pride parades?

Have an entertainment-related question? Contact me here (and be sure and include your city and state and/or country!)