Can you tell a racist joke & not be racist?

I agree that "the punchline has to subvert the set-up." "Or it would be a one-liner" isn't relevant and while it is arguable I have my limits.

This next line though, "The Indian guy is taking the piss out of the white guy," is a matter of interpretation. If it were a contemporary comedian, and particularly if it was "an Indian guy" telling it, I'd agree that your somewhat "woke" (half-a-shot of espresso) interpretation is apparent, but as it is with a white man telling the joke to a white audience I think it's more likely that the underlying idea that subverts the set-up is that Indians are also racist against themselves and would prefer to have white neighbors.
It's then seen as a message that if you happen to be bothered by Indians you're not a bad person. They also bother each other!
Either interpretation is possible. Yours is not supported by anything that is actually said and given the context I find it very unlikely, but I'm sure you'll explain how it's actually the only valid interpretation with the same conviction you show when explaining Morrissey's various statements.

Indians are racist against themselves wouldn't subvert the set-up.

It's not woke, it's knowing how jokes are structured.
 
Yes, Manning knew what he was doing. He takes the mick out of all races and himself. No one escapes unscathed.

I'd say he's revered by the working class, but the media class find him repulsive which is why they never air him on TV. They have no humour. A mixed society works better if we laugh at our differences. But they don't want that.

That's because you know f**k all.

The media class loves him - they couldn't put him on tv that often because he was uncontrollable & the complaints would have been endless.
 
That's because you know f**k all.

The media class loves him - they couldn't put him on tv that often because he was uncontrollable & the complaints would have been endless.
I mean repeats. They used to air him back in the day. Now they never would. He's their repulsive dinosaur northern Hitler.

I don't think the middle class would even get his jokes - then or now. His audience were solely working class, as he was.

It's classic bawdy wind-up comedy from the unruly tradition of the old English music halls.
 
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Yes, I was the only one in the shop not wearing a mask. But I tend not to wear them in flu season.

I think your last sentence is actually very perceptive. I've thought that myself sometimes.

Then again I'm more of an observer than a hater.

Reelfountain today: "Then again I'm more of an observer than a hater."

Reelfountain yesterday: "The only people who dine at these places are scum. Get rid of them and do the world a favour. Lace the chicken with arsenic for all I care."
 
Reelfountain today: "Then again I'm more of an observer than a hater."

Reelfountain yesterday: "The only people who dine at these places are scum. Get rid of them and do the world a favour. Lace the chicken with arsenic for all I care."
That last one was about fried chicken shops and the knife carriers who hang around and sell drugs in them.

Even though 24 hours have passed and like all humans my mood varies, I can kind of relate to that one.
 
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I mean repeats. They used to air him back in the day. Now they never would. He's their dinosaur Hitler.

I don't think the middle class would even get his jokes - then or now. His audience were solely working class, as he was.

It's classic bawdy wind-up comedy from the unruly tradition of the old music halls.

He does get repeated.
 
On YouTube yeah.

On tv. He was only on The Comedians, The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club & chat shows. He was a blue comedian & he refused to clean up.

His very bleak humour owes a lot to his Jewish roots, so I'm surprised you're so keen.

 
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the bleak humor has to with the 'jewish' roots? WTF? more anti semitism?:mad:
 
On tv. He was only on The Comedians, The Wheeltappers & Shunters Social Club & chat shows. He was a blue comedian & he refused to clean up.

His very bleak humour owes a lot to his Jewish roots, so I'm surprised you're so keen.

Reelfountain's prophecy that all people who appear in the British media are secretly Jewish is turning out to be true! Even Bernard Manning!?! Is nothing sacred? Who's next? Roy Chubby Brown? Dave Spikey? Joe Pasquale? Roland Rat? I'm sorry for doubting you reel! But I know at the end of all of this it's just going to turn out that reelfountain is also Jewish and I'm not sure that I'm ready for that denouement.
 
Indians are racist against themselves wouldn't subvert the set-up.

It's not woke, it's knowing how jokes are structured.

The premise is that the racist lives next to an Indian, right?
So the subversion is that the racist white isn't actually any more racist than the Indian, if at all, because the Indian believes the same thing, that having a white neighbor is preferable.
 
On the subject of old comedians - Stanley Baxter has come out the closet at 94 (who knew he was in???) & his biography is GOLD.

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The premise is that the racist lives next to an Indian, right?
So the subversion is that the racist white isn't actually any more racist than the Indian, if at all, because the Indian believes the same thing, that having a white neighbor is preferable.

That isn't subversion. That's a variation of the set-up. It would kill the room stone dead.
 
I think you're willfully ignorant. I'm not sure about the willful part though.

I don't agree with you, & you give me no reason to agree with you.

The set up is the white guy thinks he's better than the Indian.

The Indian says he's better than the white guy - so he's not agreeing that Indians are lesser.

When asked why he's better - he says because he doesn't have an Indian neighbour for a start - taking the neighbour's belief & using it to prove he's better. If the neighbour didn't have the belief he wouldn't have the proof.

That's the joke.
 
I don't agree with you, & you give me no reason to agree with you.

The set up is the white guy thinks he's better than the Indian.

The Indian says he's better than the white guy - so he's not agreeing that Indians are lesser.

When asked why he's better - he says because he doesn't have an Indian neighbour for a start - taking the neighbour's belief & using it to prove he's better. If the neighbour didn't have the belief he wouldn't have the proof.

That's the joke.
Why don't you try repeating the same thing endlessly? That usually work.
 
You're a sore loser.
I said this before. You overestimate your ability to convince people. By not being convinced of whatever your point is here I have become the loser. I guess I am going to have to live with that.
 
I watched the new Borat movie yesterday and I both liked it and hated it...

Anyway, the movie is filled with racist jokes... but I think the point of the movie is actually denouncing those jokes and showing the other side of them (i.e, a character that is mostly designed as a stereotype of ignorance interacting with people who takes his jokes seriously and does not understand that they are jokes).

I remembered a great theater play, "Mein Kampf (Farce)" by George Tabori... the play, I saw it some 20 years ago, so my memory isn't perfect... but, anyway, it's a comedy with Hitler living in a small house with Jewish neighbours; and the first half of the play is mostly a slapstick comedy filled with anti-semitic jokes which are somehow funny. The second part of the play is different, the slapstick tone goes away and the play begins to get quite sinister, but the jokes go on... except that you do no longer laugh, they become painful, they becomes horrendous.
It's a very interesting play, because it deceives the viewer and invites the viewer to laugh lightly... just to tell him later: "Why the f*** were you laughing, asshole?".

Pasolini did something more or less similar in his Salo / 120 days of Sodom... in which the viewer is invited to take lightly the cruel acts of the rulers, but then it becomes a metaphor for fascism and it's no longer "funny" and the jokes are no longer jokes (of course, Pasolini is by far more interesting than Borat).

So, yes, you can tell a racist joke without being racist... it somehow depends on how you are doing it; Pasolini and Tabori would be two excellent examples. Though I should say that they were denouncing those jokes, but they had to use them before denouncing them.
 
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