...but I'm not comfortable with it, writes James Smyth

The worst thing about holding an opinion is that sometimes, at least ostensibly, it turns out to be the very same opinion as the one held by somebody you hate. It makes things very difficult. For instance, I have recently been mildly irritated by the recent slew of Correspondents’ articles on Chortle criticising jokes or comedians that ‘make fun of people’ or make as the butt of the joke a social group that ‘doesn’t deserve it’.

Oh for God’s sake, I thought. Listen to these lefty, pseudo-liberal, bleeding-heart hippies. Heaven forbid some delicate soul might get ‘offended’. Get a bloody sense of humour.

And suddenly, with crystal clarity, I experienced a vision. A glimpse into some terrible future. There was I, in a dingy pub, pint of lager in hand. Across the table sat Jim Davidson. We were both laughing. Laughing? We were guffawing. Jim leaned forward and put a hand on my shoulder, his weird, gimlet eyes only inches from mine.

‘You’re right, mate,’ he said. ‘You’re dead right. They’re only jokes, right? We’re only taking the piss. That’s what the fat birds and the Pakis don’t understand.’

‘Glad we’re on the same page, Jim,’ I said. ‘Another pint?’

Shudder. But then, this is what happens. At the risk of over-simplification, I think most opinions can be broadly polarised. Either you roughly agree with something or you roughly don’t. There are going to be idiots on both side of the fence, and whichever side you choose to set up camp, you’re going to be surrounded by them, hooting and hollering and boggling their eyes while you try to enjoy your picnic. It’s an unfortunate fact of life.

So do I agree with Jim Davidson? Good Lord, no. Which is to say, maybe, in a way. And if that sickens you, you’re not alone. I’m right there with you, being sick too. But let’s be sensible about this. It’s the worst kind of liberal bigotry (and depressingly common) to assume that anyone who holds a different set of values to you can never have anything valid or worthwhile to say.

JD may be a small-minded and unfunny man (and indeed he is), but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a perfectly reasonable opinion. To say ‘that man once made fun of an ethnic minority, therefore I extrapolate from this that everything he ever says or does will be hateful and wrong’ is frankly pathetic.

I don’t want to be on the same side of the fence as Jim Davidson. Likewise, I don’t want to be on the same side as the knee-jerk lefties. But I have to be somewhere. And what should separate me from my moronic companions is the quality of my argument. That, in a nutshell, has been the point of this lengthy prelude (during which I’ve typed the words ‘Jim Davidson’ more than is probably healthy.) Just because I might sound slightly Davidsonesque at first glance, it doesn’t mean I am. All right?

For a start, I would never resort to the oft-peddled argument, ‘well, it’s just a joke, isn’t it?’ This seems to be trotted out with dismaying regularity, often by people who should know better. We know it’s a joke. The most hard-core, bark-whittling, whale-song-loving hippy in the world knows it’s a joke. Putting the word ‘just’ in there doesn’t ameliorate (or indeed, mean) anything.

The debate is, does making jokes on certain subjects have an overall effect on the public’s perception of certain social demographics in a negative or damaging way? The definition of the word ‘joke’ doesn’t contain within itself the concept of harmlessness, so we need to delve further.

If I make a joke at the expense of a fat girl, say (obviously I would never, ever, ever do this), am I collaborating in a male conspiracy to define and limit women by their physical appearance, or am I merely eliciting a vicarious, mischievous thrill? Am I perpetuating a misogynistic stereotype or indulging in a shared understanding of how we all really think?

There are arguments from both camps, and there’s no doubting the fact that many, if not all, facets of popular culture have far-reaching and long-lasting effects on the way people perceive each other.

If I may tip-toe over to the other side of the fence just for a short moment (taking the opportunity, while there, to sample some delicious organic hummus), I find myself forced to admit that probably yes, sexist and racist jokes and the like, delivered to a wide audience, almost certainly have an not inconsiderable impact on the attitudes towards sex and race among that audience. Many times such comedians are already preaching to the converted, but if they are not creating racism and sexism, they’re certainly not discouraging it. And you may be wondering now, what on Earth I was doing on the other side of the fence in the first place. Why can’t I just stay here, with the nice people and the nice hummus? But no, I must go back. It’s as if I can hear Jim calling for me.

And I’ll tell you why. Because for all the talk of cause and effect, of changing attitudes, of rising above the baser instincts of the human animal and creating a world of equality and mutual respect, I can’t help but think that art should challenge, should dig deep, should unearth unsavoury truths illuminate, as well as elevate, the consciousness.

Effectively, there should be no limit. And I don’t mean this in some baseless, political ‘freedom of speech’ kind way. I mean it intellectually, in that art only has meaning without restriction, and that perhaps a less-than-utopian society is a price worth paying for a culture that isn’t bottled, homogenised and spoon-fed to us by committee.

Racist and sexist and all the other -ist jokes might work through shock value, or ironically, or by reinforcing the prejudices of the audiences, or for whatever reason, but the fact remains, that in many people, they touch a part that doesn’t often get touched. For that reason alone, I don’t mind having them around.

So there. I may have similar opinions to Jim Davidson, but certainly not for the same reasons. Anyway, Jim and I aren’t friends any more. He’s just read that last paragraph and thinks I’m a right poncey twat. Ah well.

Published: 16 Jun 2010