Comedian Frankie Boyle on Jordan & Harvey.

sideswipe

The problem with Boyle's 'shock' comedy is that there is always a needed to push the boundaries of what's acceptable to the majority and to be more shocking. That has always been the way, jokes that once upon a time would have been thought of as shocking and 'going to far' are now seen like knock knock jokes, IMO the only way to deal with it ( for those that are offended) is to point the remote and press the button.

K-9

OutlawPete wrote: »

Give me a break, we all understand how gags work, he's far from a comedic genius for knowing how punch lines need to be structured.

A fecking knock knock joke has structure, people don't just say:

"Guy knocks on a door and says he's a doctor after the resident says: 'who'."

They were shock value gags, nothing more.

The one about not wanting custody has been done before. It is funny because we all want to kill our kids at one stage or another. It has been done before. First time I heard it, funny, second time in my office from a colleague, still funny, third time from Frankie Boyle.............where have I heard this before? though still funny!

The joke about her son isn't funny. Loads of posters have described why. Even the posters defending it have explained why it isn't funny, though they thought they were defending it!

Really, if the defence is, "oh he's hilarious as long as he doesn't offend me personally"...........................

Dudess

I don't see any cleverness to it, or anything in any way relevant - just an indication that when he was writing his material he thought "Oh I'll just say something totally random and shocking".

This isn't an expression of outrage btw, just a point of view.

TimeToShine

Frankie Boyle is absolutely sh1te, as you all should know MTW is set up, and if you've ever watched Frankie's stand up he just rips straight from it and lets loose on MTW, if you've never seen his stand up its quite funny but when you see him repeat the same joke word for word you realise how pointless and irrelevant the vast majority of his jokes are. I don't give a flying fúck about Jordan or the joke he made, I'm just saying he's not nearly as funny as he's given credit for.

DOC09UNAM

TimeToShine wrote: »

Frankie Boyle is absolutely sh1te, as you all should know MTW is set up, and if you've ever watched Frankie's stand up he just rips straight from it and lets loose on MTW, if you've never seen his stand up its quite funny but when you see him repeat the same joke word for word you realise how pointless and irrelevant the vast majority of his jokes are. I don't give a flying fúck about Jordan or the joke he made, I'm just saying he's not nearly as funny as he's given credit for.

The contradictory bit in Bold made me laugh.


Practically every other comedian does the exact same thing, it's standard practice to use the jokes from your stand up, on the tv shows.

---

Also, I never thought I'd see the day that AH chose Jordan and the super-strong babies side, over a comedians side.

RoundyMooney

Whatever about Frankie and his contrived shocks (and I did LOL-even though the biggest joke is Dwight Yorke, who can go fcuk himself for his absenteeism), most standups plagiarise themselves the whole time, with varying degrees of spontaneity.

It shows up more these days, due to internet dissemination; in the past they could do different talk shows in different countries and no one would join the dots, now we have youtube etc., and universal discussion.

K-9

RoundyMooney wrote: »

Whatever about Frankie and his contrived shocks (and I did LOL-even though the biggest joke is Dwight Yorke, who can go fcuk himself for his absenteeism), most standups plagiarise themselves the whole time, with varying degrees of spontaneity.

It shows up more these days, due to internet dissemination; in the past they could do different talk shows in different countries and no one would join the dots, now we have youtube etc., and universal discussion.

That explains the tired custody joke, yep it's still funny.

Is the ******** plagiarised?

Lady von Purple

I actually watched this a couple hours ago. I completely agree with everyone saying 'if you don't like it, change the channel.' For the people saying that you'd be offended if someone on the street said that to you, of course you would, but in the context of a comedy show, it's completely different. in the same show, boyle also said 'people are humourless, they can't tell if you're joking anymore. is the comedian on the comedy stage at the comedy show joking? of course i'm ****ing joking!' It's not some randomer coming up to you and insulting your children. He made a LOT of pop culture references in that show, it was practically nothing but pop culture references (which gets dull) and he insulted a lot of people, and got a lot of laughs. I laughed at a lot of his jokes. I was a bit shocked at some of them. But the fact of the matter is, that theatre was packed. That's a lot of people who paid money to go see him, and a lot of people will buy that dvd. No matter how offensive some people find it, the man's got an audience and they seemed to like his jokes. I agree that it's very hurtful to harvey and jordan, but I don't see them getting anywhere with a lawsuit to be honest. I just don't know how punishable a joke like that is. Particularly in the middle of a show with so many other jokes that insult or deride other people.

Exclamation Marc

In fairness it doesn't take much to get an audience. Anyone can get an audience.

Dave McSavage sold out Vicar Street once, it doesn't reflect at all on his ability.

His "picking on the crowd" material isn't funny at all. Its pure bully tactics and just slagging people flat out with no humerous undertone or overtone, which is fine if you're into that sort of thing, its just that it doesn't take much talent to actually go up to someone fat (for example) and be vile towards them (at Vicar Street it was literally five minutes of flat out abusing this lad with "gems" like why don't you stop eating ya fat cúnt before we've to evacuate you with a crane"). Whereas other comics tend to slag off audience members with quite a large amount of wit and usually fool the audience member into making themselves the target.

I get that a lot of people clearly like him and good on them for finding someone they find funny, but I just can't see how anyone can find him funny. I mean I HATE Lee Evans, and I hate Alan Carr but I can see how people find them funny despite my dislike of their humour, but with Boyle everytime I see him its just "oh look at me being offensive and outrageous" and as I said before when I see him actually create a humerous moment without having to use a taboo I might see the funny side of him, but until then he's just a mouthy shock-artist who'll get stale soon and end up quite niche like Chubby Brown.

Lady von Purple

He's by no means my favourite comedian. As I said, I laughed at a few jokes. I'll take wit over shock tactics any day, but I think when people are paying to go see Frankie Boyle, and have bought tickets having seen his previous stand-up, that clearly a lot of people do find him funny. I wouldn't go to one of his gigs myself, but a lot of people do so, ergo, people find him funny. A lot of people seem to think, in general, that if they find something offensive, there's no way it can be funny. To anyone. Because it's clearly offensive. I disagree with that kind of thinking.

Jazzy

f**k jordan

Dudess

DOC09UNAM wrote: »

Also, I never thought I'd see the day that AH chose Jordan and the super-strong babies side, over a comedians side.

Don't really see how it's a case of choosing sides, or even defending Jordan. It's just a bad taste being left for some by a comment about a vulnerable kid. In my case it's just a matter of not finding it funny. Not saying others don't have a right to find it funny.

Scanlas The 2nd

FireballPitcher wrote: »

To me he's just a comedian, nothing exceptional or hugely talented about him. Rarely have I heard him construct a joke that doesn't have a taboo about it and the joke be inherently funny, its usually just taboo + controversial remark = crowd laughing in a "i cant believe he just said that" as opposed to a "wow that was a very clever joke" reaction.

People like Dara O'Briain or Michael McIntyre or Peter Kay who make jokes out of the most boring everyday happenings to me are very talented comedians, whether I like their material or style, at least I can see their material creates humour out of nothing as opposed to just coasting on material that will get a reaction no matter who says it. If I go up on stage and make those comments about the boys and their parents and w@nking as another poster posted, I'd get a reaction, not because its funny, because its controversial/shocking. If I went up and did some Dara O'Briain material or McIntyre material, I wouldn't get any reaction.

Then look at Boyle whose whole repetoire revolves around being shocking. It's like the new Jimmy Carr who only jokes about anal sex and homosexuality or Chris Rock whose whole routine revolved around "N" word jokes. If "shocking" is your main attribute you will burn out very fast as a comedian as when the shock wears off what will be left behind is just a sometime funny core. Look at Tiernan, as soon as people got over him being shocking, they saw he wasn't that funny deep down.

He should stick to panel shows and throw in the shocking remarks here and there otherwise he's the next Roy Chubby Brown (and if you dont know who he is, look him up and you'll see the resemblence in material)

Tommy Tiernan is not even in the same league as Chris Rock and Frankie Boyle. Tommy Tiernan has no wit, I think more people used to like him because he used to have a bit of with to his performances years ago, not because they grew bored of his shock value. The fact that Tommy Tiernan still has lots of fans is evidence of the power of simply enjoying your own performance as much or more than the crowd. The man shouts and jumps around with not much wit or real humour, but because he seems to be enjoying himself regardless of the reaction of the crowd he still has a following. To put Frankie Boyle and Chris Rock in the same bracket as Tommy Tiernan is ridiculous. Chris Rock and Frankie Boyle have wit as well as shock value/being edgy.


Michael McIntyre is a genius, he is brilliant. Dara O'Brian is ok, I think he is overated.

I don't think you would get many laughs on stage, you'd probably be so nervous few would laugh at your jokes even if they were brilliant. Even though Tommy Tiernan is an awful comedian, I'd give him credit for being able to perform on stage as a comedian in front of a crowd. That is not easy for most.

The fact that lots of people don't find Frankie Boyle's comments about Harvey rude is evidence to the theory that social rules are all about maximising good emotions for the group. Frankie Boyle gave lots of good emotions to the group so in many people's eyes he is not rude regardless of his nasty comments.

Exclamation Marc

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Tommy Tiernan is not even in the same league as Chris Rock and Frankie Boyle. Tommy Tiernan has no wit, I think more people used to like him because he used to have a bit of with to his performances years ago, not because they grew bored of his shock value. The fact that Tommy Tiernan still has lots of fans is evidence of the power of simply enjoying your own performance as much or more than the crowd. The man shouts and jumps around with not much wit or real humour, but because he seems to be enjoying himself regardless of the reaction of the crowd he still has a following. To put Frankie Boyle and Chris Rock in the same bracket as Tommy Tiernan is ridiculous. Chris Rock and Frankie Boyle have wit as well as shock value/being edgy.

I don't think you would get many laughs on stage, you'd probably be so nervous few would laugh at your jokes even if they were brilliant. Even though Tommy Tiernan is an awful comedian, I'd give him credit for being able to perform on stage as a comedian in front of a crowd. That is not easy for most.

The fact that lots of people don't find Frankie Boyle's comments about Harvey rude is evidence to the theory that social rules are all about maximising good emotions for the group. Frankie Boyle gave lots of good emotions to the group so in many people's eyes he is not rude regardless of his nasty comments.

Chris Rock is a great comedy actor but as a comedian he's not great. He had a great concept but failed to expand it past one show. I've been to see him twice over the space of 5 years and seen both his DVDs and no word of a lie, they're exactly the same, same jokes different structure. Take any jokes which reference to the "N" word, and his show would be about 20 minutes long, and not very good..

I never compared him to Tiernan I was just giving examples of comedians who used a lot of shock value originally, and Tiernan did that at the very start as he was quite edgy for an Irish comedian (Late Late Show etc) at that time. And actually having witnessed Tiernans latest show, he has introduced a lot more humour and wit into his show and his standards of comedy have been raised.

Boyle on his first year or two on MTW was ok and came out every now and again with a great remark, but his fandom only kicked off majorly when he got "shocking" with his Queen remarks and then from there he saw the reaction he got and continued attempting to be hugely offensive. As I said I'm yet to see any constistent wit or humour outside of being disgusting/offensive/crude and when I do then I'll actually be able to judge him as a credible comedian.

landsleaving

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

The fact that lots of people don't find Frankie Boyle's comments about Harvey rude is evidence to the theory that social rules are all about maximising good emotions for the group. Frankie Boyle gave lots of good emotions to the group so in many people's eyes he is not rude regardless of his nasty comments.

Social theory aside, isn't the fact he was 'rude' exactly why people found it funny? The joke is the offensiveness, the comedy is in the shock and not the joke itself. I'd suggest everyone finds it rude, but for many it's not necessarily offensive, and then it comes down to whether you find rude and shocking, but ultimately witless humour funny.

It's all a bit Rainier Wolfcastle for me, Jordan's child is disabled... THAT'S THE JOKE.

Scanlas The 2nd

landsleaving wrote: »

Social theory aside, isn't the fact he was 'rude' exactly why people found it funny? The joke is the offensiveness, the comedy is in the shock and not the joke itself. I'd suggest everyone finds it rude, but for many it's not necessarily offensive, and then it comes down to whether you find rude and shocking, but ultimately witless humour funny.

It's all a bit Rainier Wolfcastle for me, Jordan's child is disabled... THAT'S THE JOKE.

People don't find rudeness funny on it's own , I've rarely seen people break into laughter when someone doesn't say thanks for a favour.

Frankie Boyle is funny to people because of the way he says his jokes, the way he speaks, the way he carries himself and his use of making statements with underlying assumptions that contradict the audiences underlying assumptions.

landsleaving wrote: »

It's all a bit Rainier Wolfcastle for me, Jordan's child is disabled... THAT'S THE JOKE.

That's not the joke. Not many people would laugh at that,it gives bad emotions so he would be classed as rude.

The joke is in the following: in his first statement he says " Jordan and Peter and still fighting for custody of Harvey", the underlying assumption of the audience here is that they each want custody. In his next statement he says " eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him". The underlying assumption here is that they each don't want custody. That's what the crowd are laughing at, not the because it's rude. They are also laughing because he is enjoying himself and doesn't seem to care about the reaction of the crowd.

landsleaving

People find rudeness funny in a context where they can laugh at something that otherwise would be taboo. The difference here is that jokes like his don't challenge any assumptions, the people who laugh probably make the same kind of jokes themselves, but the comedy is that someone says it in a public context. Suggesting he challenges people's assumptions is giving him far too much credit I think. It takes subtlety and intelligence to actually make people think, direct statements like his just offend some, amuse others and make the rest of us wonder what the fuss is about.

Scanlas The 2nd

landsleaving wrote: »

People find rudeness funny in a context where they can laugh at something that otherwise would be taboo. The difference here is that jokes like his don't challenge any assumptions, the people who laugh probably make the same kind of jokes themselves, but the comedy is that someone says it in a public context. Suggesting he challenges people's assumptions is giving him far too much credit I think. It takes subtlety and intelligence to actually make people think, direct statements like his just offend some, amuse others and make the rest of us wonder what the fuss is about.

I edited my comment, you'll see exacly where he contradicts assumptions.

zeds alive

I seriously doubt Jordan would be so vocal about the wrongs of what Frankie Boyle said if it was about some random kid with disabilities , She's only pissed because someone attacking her image and Harvey is part of the image she sells.

War Machine 539

Theres a warning at the start saying and I quote " This show features UNCOMPROMISING humour which some people WILL find offensive "
I dont think its relevant what people have to say about his set, If they get easily offended dont watch it!

landsleaving

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

That's not the joke. Not many people would laugh at that,it gives bad emotions so he would be classed as rude.

The joke is in the following: in his first statement he says " Jordan and Peter and still fighting for custody of Harvey", the underlying assumption of the audience here is that they each want custody. In his next statement he says " eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him". The underlying assumption here is that they each don't want custody. That's what the crowd are laughing at, not the because it's rude. They are also laughing because he is enjoying himself and doesn't seem to care about the reaction of the crowd.

Frankie Boyle wrote:

'I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter - she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from f****** her...'

This is the joke that caused the offense. Where are the underlying assumptions there for the crowd to laugh at?

Not that the one you quoted is very clever either, I've heard similar stuff plenty of times, and it still challenges nothing other than the audiences reaction to his previous sentence. If they're watching Boyle then they're waiting for the inevitable shocking punchline, not being challenged by his razor sharp wit.

Scanlas The 2nd

landsleaving wrote: »

This is the joke that caused the offense. Where are the underlying assumptions there for the crowd to laugh at?

Not that the one you quoted is very clever either, I've heard similar stuff plenty of times, and it still challenges nothing other than the audiences reaction to his previous sentence. If they're watching Boyle then they're waiting for the inevitable shocking punchline, not being challenged by his razor sharp wit.

Not all humour is about contradicting assumptions. Some people will laugh simply because the comedian doesn't care about the reaction of the crowd when he makes edgy statements. I never claimed everthing Boyle says is funny or has wit. I explained an example of a couple of his statements that were funny and explained why people laughed. I didn't say that the statement I quoted was very clever. It doesn't need to be very clever. It was a standard format for contradicting underlying assumptions that all good comedians use. It was a decent joke that showed he has more than shock value.

landsleaving wrote: »

and it still challenges nothing other than the audiences reaction to his previous sentence".

It's a comedians job to be funny, not to challenge big meaningful beliefs or to be a philosopher. His statement contradicted the underying belief of the crowd. All good comedians do it, and it's usually funny when done right. When I say he contradicted the audiences underlying beliefs you seem to believe that those beliefs must be of epic importance. The belief being contradicted can be arbitrary and unimportant. Its standard decent humour.

Namlub

War Machine 539 wrote: »

Theres a warning at the start saying and I quote " This show features UNCOMPROMISING humour which some people WILL find offensive "
I dont think its relevant what people have to say about his set, If they get easily offended dont watch it!

What people have to say about his set isn't relevant to his set?

Exclamation Marc

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

People don't find rudeness funny on it's own , I've rarely seen people break into laughter when someone doesn't say thanks for a favour.

That's just not true at all. I was (unfortunately) at a Roy Chubby Brown gig a few years back and a lot of his routine was grabbing his crotch on random occasions (not as a punchline or following/leading anything, just in between stories) and the crowd burst into laughter every time.

His material consists of just being as filthy as possible, there is no way you can watch his routine and say the people are laughing because his material is hilarious, its because he's being rude and offensive.

landsleaving

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

Not all humour is about contradicting assumptions. Some people will laugh simply because the comedian doesn't care about the reaction of the crowd when he makes edgy statements. I never claimed everthing Boyle says is funny or has wit. I explained an example of a couple of his statements that were funny and explained why people laughed. I didn't say that the statement I quoted was very clever. It doesn't need to be very clever. It was a standard format for contradicting underlying assumptions that all good comedians use. It was a decent joke that showed he has more than shock value.

I agree with most of that, he has ok delivery and timing, but in the end it's the shock value that gets him an audience, and it's the lack of other material that makes me think he's a lazy comic and that it was a fairly banal joke.

Exclamation Marc

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

The joke is in the following: in his first statement he says " Jordan and Peter and still fighting for custody of Harvey", the underlying assumption of the audience here is that they each want custody. In his next statement he says " eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him". The underlying assumption here is that they each don't want custody. That's what the crowd are laughing at, not the because it's rude. They are also laughing because he is enjoying himself and doesn't seem to care about the reaction of the crowd.

You are incredibly naive if you think that the joke is merely about custody. There's not a hope in hell the crowd would laugh if he replaced Jordan/Peter with a random normal couple with a normal child, they'd just shrug and maybe give a pity laugh.

The joke is "who wants custody of a blind child", its as obvious as can be. Its not about "haha, who would want custody of a child", its to do with the fac that he's blind (a taboo subject comedywise) And thats not funny (not in an uppity moral way), just in a genuinely unfunny comment way. Take the taboo out and its just a statement thats not that funny at all.

landsleaving

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

It's a comedians job to be funny, not to challenge big meaningful beliefs or to be a philosopher. His statement contradicted the underying belief of the crowd. All good comedians do it, and it's usually funny when done right. When I say he contradicted the audiences underlying beliefs you seem to believe that those beliefs must be of epic importance. The belief being contradicted can be arbitrary and unimportant. Its standard decent humour.

Stop editing it's blowing my mind!

I think my main disagreement with you though, is that I don't think it's decent humour, it's lazy, shock for shocks sake. I don't think some comedians who use less offensive material are as bad, because they have the ability to point out the absurdity of everyday existence. You're right, they don't need to be philosophers, but I expect them to be smart enough to say something unique. Boyle isn't and doesn't.

When I say things about challenging assumptions, I'm aiming it more at those people who seem to think that kind of shock humour challenges societies beliefs, as if it's somehow more than just a shot at the disabled, or whoever the joke is at the expense of. It's schoolyard humour, and nothing more.

landsleaving

FireballPitcher wrote: »

That's just not true at all. I was (unfortunately) at a Roy Chubby Brown gig a few years back

How, and why, did you end up seeing him???

Trog

His jokes aren't ALL shock value though, he has a clever way of presenting it sometimes. He didn't just go out and say LOOK SOMEONE'S RETARDED! Although the joke in question is hardly the most intelligent.

At the end of the day, if there's a market for it it's gonna be sold, that's a fact of life. He's a comedian, not a politician. His job is to make people laugh, if you don't like how he goes about it, don't but his product (or watch his show).

Jordan has a right to be offended, cos he mentions her specifically, but I don't think you can sue someone for being offensive, can you? You shouldn't be able to anyway.

Exclamation Marc

landsleaving wrote: »

How, and why, did you end up seeing him???

My Dad really liked him (for whatever reason I'll never know other than RCB being a "filthy b@stard". I got him two tickets for his birthday maybe 4 or 5 years ago in the front row for him and whoever...

When I gave them to him he asked me in a "oh lets have a father and son" night, get dinner beforehand etc, and I think he assumed I meant the tickets were for the two of us so it was fine, was for my Dad so I just gritted my teeth

He came out for his encore with nothing but a hat on......

Still scars me......