Jokes in T.V Programs

[FAH]

Is it sinful to take pleasure in (laugh at) jokes or comments in T.V programs that aren’t that appropriate?
For example when I was watching the Simpsons there was a crass comment made by one of the characters that I laughed at. Would you view that to be sinful? Or am I being scrupulous?

FAH

 

[Bookcat]

Yes it can be. Depends on the joke…

and also remember sometimes we can start laughing before we are ‘aware’ we should stop…or even despite ourselves…

of course we can also judge what to watch or not…

or if a show is getting too much…and to watch something else

 

[Lost_Sheep]

An English professor once told me (the whole class, actually) that there can be no humor without suffering.

If you think about it, it is true. For example, note that the two masks that represent theatre are Comedy and Tragedy; one happy and one sad. Any time you tell a joke, someone must be the butt of the joke whether it be blondes, lawyers, foreigners, people of different races, religions, politicians, men, women, anyone or anything. Even animals. Even God, sometime. If you are going to have humor, someone is being laughed at.

That being said, if you want to eliminate guilt from your life, you will have to eliminate laughing. And that probably won’t be a good thing.

 

[Rascalking]

I think your being overly scrupulous. Relax, lighten up a bit, and laugh at a good joke every now and then. Yes, we can lecture each other on all humor being based on cruelty (it’s partially true/partially not true) but in the long run, I’m fairly certain that life doesn’t have to be a constant lecture on sinful behavior where people can never laugh at anything.

 

[Bookcat]

It is not a question of people not being able to laugh…certainly such can be very very good.

But yes…some jokes we should not go in for…

 

[FAH]

Thank You all for the replies.

God Bless you all.

 

[Glennonite]

An English professor once told me (the whole class, actually) that there can be no humor without suffering.

If you think about it, it is true. For example, note that the two masks that represent theatre are Comedy and Tragedy; one happy and one sad. Any time you tell a joke, someone must be the butt of the joke whether it be blondes, lawyers, foreigners, people of different races, religions, politicians, men, women, anyone or anything. Even animals. Even God, sometime. If you are going to have humor, someone is being laughed at.

That being said, if you want to eliminate guilt from your life, you will have to eliminate laughing. And that probably won’t be a good thing.

I used to think that, but I wonder. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think that humor is the response to the unexpected. It’s where logic takes a left turn and the surprised realization of the unexpected prediction, is what gives us…joy. Usually that means someone is hurt or embarassed, but not necessarily:

A guy is sitting with a banana in each ear. A friends says, " Do you know that you’ve got bananas in in your ears?"

The guy says, “What?”

His friend says, "Do you know that you have bananas in your ears!?"

The guy says, "What!!?"

(This happens once more, but louder.)

The guy finally takes the bananas out and says, “I can’t hear you…I’ve got bananas in my ears!!”

Dumb joke, I know, but it will make a class of 10 year olds crack up. No body gets hurt in the joke, but the illogic of the situation makes people laugh. No harm, no foul, no sin.

What do you think?

Glennonite

 

[mom2em]

A guy is sitting with a banana in each ear. A friends says, " Do you know that you’ve got bananas in in your ears?"

The guy says, “What?”

His friend says, "Do you know that you have bananas in your ears!?"

The guy says, "What!!?"

(This happens once more, but louder.)

The guy finally takes the bananas out and says, “I can’t hear you…I’ve got bananas in my ears!!”

Dumb joke, I know, but it will make a class of 10 year olds crack up. No body gets hurt in the joke, but the illogic of the situation makes people laugh. No harm, no foul, no sin.

hehe theres a similar joke in Elmo’s Christmas Counter Downer movie my daughter watched when she was younger. Only Ernie has a gingerbread in his ear

 

[Lost_Sheep]

I used to think that, but I wonder. I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think that humor is the response to the unexpected. It’s where logic takes a left turn and the surprised realization of the unexpected prediction, is what gives us…joy. Usually that means someone is hurt or embarassed, but not necessarily:

A guy is sitting with a banana in each ear. A friends says, " Do you know that you’ve got bananas in in your ears?"

The guy says, “What?”

His friend says, "Do you know that you have bananas in your ears!?"

The guy says, "What!!?"

(This happens once more, but louder.)

The guy finally takes the bananas out and says, “I can’t hear you…I’ve got bananas in my ears!!”

Dumb joke, I know, but it will make a class of 10 year olds crack up. No body gets hurt in the joke, but the illogic of the situation makes people laugh. No harm, no foul, no sin.

What do you think?

Glennonite

The butt of the joke is that the guy asking about the bananas is made to feel stupid because the guy with the bananas is in effect saying “Well duh. Can’t you see I have bananas in my ears?” Someone or something is always the butt of a joke. It may be obvious or not obvious or subtle or not-so-subtle. But if you look closely and dig deep, it’s always there.

In that same English class, we were shown an old Charlie Chaplin film from the silent movie era. There is a scene where Charlie is in a clock tower and is desperately trying to avoid getting hit by a giant clock pendulum. Finally, he does get hit and bouncing down the stairs, crashes into something resulting in another object falling on his head. Charlie was suffering, but the class erupted in laughter because it was the funniest scene in the movie.

 

[Glennonite]

The butt of the joke is that the guy asking about the bananas is made to feel stupid because the guy with the bananas is in effect saying “Well duh. Can’t you see I have bananas in my ears?” Someone or something is always the butt of a joke. It may be obvious or not obvious or subtle or not-so-subtle. But if you look closely and dig deep, it’s always there.

In that same English class, we were shown an old Charlie Chaplin film from the silent movie era. There is a scene where Charlie is in a clock tower and is desperately trying to avoid getting hit by a giant clock pendulum. Finally, he does get hit and bouncing down the stairs, crashes into something resulting in another object falling on his head. Charlie was suffering, but the class erupted in laughter because it was the funniest scene in the movie.

Not to be arguementative, but I think we’re not laughing at the friend who is made to feel stupid. We generally find bananas silly, and more to the point, we enjoy our own surprise at the turn at the end.

Abbott and Costello’s Who’s on First? is all about playing on how rediculous pronouns and phases sound when replaced by nick-names in an unrelated situation. I guess you could insist that the humor is due to the guy not understanding and getting upset…his stupidity. I think that’s just an additional form of humor that’s along fot the ride; the basic illogic of the word-play stands on it’s own as humorous.

Why didn’t the skeleton go to the dance?

He had nobody (no body) to dance with.

A lot of word play can be used as humor. No harm, just unexpected surprise and our discovery of it.

Glennonite

 

[FAH]

What if characters within soaps or the like make uncharitable comments or jokes about another character in the program, as long as the comment/joke wasn’t of a rude nature would it be ok to take pleasure in it? Because it wouldn’t harm a real person just a fictional character.

 

[Glennonite]

What if characters within soaps or the like make uncharitable comments or jokes about another character in the program, as long as the comment/joke wasn’t of a rude nature would it be ok to take pleasure in it? Because it wouldn’t harm a real person just a fictional character.

I think (unfortunately) a great many jokes on today’s ‘comedies’ are little more than an endless string of put-downs or ‘zingers’. There’s not much cleverness in the humour and therefore relies solely upon the homour that comes from another’s misfortune or embarassment. This thread detoured slightly for a few posts referencing this point.

The Germans have a term for this:
Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

As I said above, I think this form of comedy is almost exclusively used in today’s sitcoms. While only the characters are being insulted, I wonder if constantly seeing it portrayed as being normal and funny doesn’t desensitize us.

Shouldn’t kids see a little more compassion rather than joy at people’s misfortunes? Life’s rough enough, I think, for us to willingly expose ourselves to a bombardment of sloppily-written lines of derision directed at our friends and family members.

Sinful to laugh at? Probably not. Good for us? Probably not.

Glennonite

 

[vz71]

The Germans have a term for this:
Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

As I said above, I think this form of comedy is almost exclusively used in today’s sitcoms. While only the characters are being insulted, I wonder if constantly seeing it portrayed as being normal and funny doesn’t desensitize us.

Shouldn’t kids see a little more compassion rather than joy at people’s misfortunes? Life’s rough enough, I think, for us to willingly expose ourselves to a bombardment of sloppily-written lines of derision directed at our friends and family members.

Sinful to laugh at? Probably not. Good for us? Probably not.

Glennonite

Indeed, pehaps this situation is reaching a point where people cannot tell that much of humor does not involve insult or injury to anyone.

Perhaps our constant exposure to this corrosive type of humor is causing people in society to think…

Someone or something is always the butt of a joke.

Perhaps the best way to complete this thread is with a series of jokes that involve no harm to anyone…

A dog limps into a bar and announces “I’m looking for the man that shot my paw.”
Everyone groan now.
And the few that insist that someone must be the butt of the joke are welcome to point him out.

Vitually every episode of ‘The Adams Family’ illustrates a brand of humor that involves nothing more then taking average and turning it on its head.
No one is insulted, no one is the butt end of the joke.

 

[Rascalking]

People need to not take everything seriously. A joke is a joke sometimes. When you learn to laugh at yourself you grow up leaps and bounds, and when you learn to be the butt of a joke and NOT take it personally, you grow up even more.

 

[Glennonite]

People need to not take everything seriously. A joke is a joke sometimes. When you learn to laugh at yourself you grow up leaps and bounds, and when you learn to be the butt of a joke and NOT take it personally, you grow up even more.

I am lightened-up; but I’m also a sociologist and this topic really facinates me.

The little girl says to her teddy bear at the tea party, “Would you care for another cupcake?”

Says the bear, “No thanks, I’m stuffed.”

Glennonite

 

[wynnejj]

Laughing at a joke is often a knee jerk response to the sudden understanding of double meaning or preposterous potential outcome of the setting of the joke. Since it is a knee jerk, I doubt that it is sinful even if it is a dirty joke that was foisted upon you without your OK beforehand.

Schadenfreude in a cartoon or fictional setting for comic effect is no more sinful than watching a fictional murder mystery. Schadenfreude connected to a real life story is another story. For example, I would say watching Super Dave Osborn is OK; watching Evil Knieval maybe is not. A morbid curiosity about a potential catastrophe strikes me as morally unacceptable.

One incurs sin for bad jokes when there is knowledge beforehand that you are going to be fed a diet of bad jokes and accepted participation or, if you repeat any of the jokes after the fact.

I’m intrigued by jokes that seem to be slightly irreverent but actually have a very good message. One of my favorites goes like this…

Jesus says to the crowd “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and a pebble comes flying into the ring and, Jesus responds “Mother-r-r!!!”. The joke reinforces the idea that Mary is without sin with the preposterous idea that she would do anything that is even mildly off-color.

In the same way, jokes can be used to reinforce secular ideas by mocking Christian values. There has been many an anti-Christian joke that caught me unawares that I laughed at and, then said “Now, wait a minute…” as the ramifications dawned on me.