Suicide Video Sketch Page 2

Quote: Tim Walker @ November 15 2009, 3:35 PM GMT

Simon's sketch is neither satirising nor mocking any aspect of suicide or those whom it affects.

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I tend to agree with Tim. I also think that humour is an important part of talking about difficult or very serious subjects. IMO there's an evolutionary reason for humour. It helps us prick authority (nobody feels powerful if everybody's laughing at them), and it helps us form friendships. Also, surely soldiers, paramedics, firemen etc would have a hard time staying sane without gallows humour.
I really liked the sketch in question. It's probably not going to be everyone's cup of tea but that's comedy and that's fine.

As someone who has both personal (a close uncle and a good friend) and professional experience of suicide and its implications, it didn't even cross my mind that this sketch was in any way controversial. To suggest so really misses the whole point of it, I think.

Again, good work Simon.

Dads Army was both moving and funny and didn't at any time in it's long and illustrious tenure as Britains most popular comedy have to resort to this type of subject matter.

Well there's no arguing with logic like that.

Quote: IT David @ November 15 2009, 7:15 PM GMT

Dads Army was both moving and funny and didn't at any time in it's long and illustrious tenure as Britains most popular comedy have to resort to this type of subject matter.

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Though curiously there were the occasional references to a conflict in which seventy million people lost their lives and in which most members of the original audience had suffered bereavements.

Quote: Timbo @ November 15 2009, 7:40 PM GMT

Though curiously there were the occasional references to a conflict in which seventy million people lost their lives and in which most members of the original audience had suffered bereavements.

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The sick bastards. And The Goon Show used to mercilessly mock people who had fallen in the water, with no consideration to the hundreds of people who drown every year.

Plenty of that in my family too, but I still liked the balcony bit and didn't find it offensive at all.

The debate makes me think of Charlie Chaplin's words: "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot."

Mockery just makes things easier to deal with sometimes, it wasn't done in a nasty way.

Quote: IT David @ November 15 2009, 12:25 PM GMT

suicide is a dreadful thing not only for the people who are so unease with the world that they have to take their lives but also their families too, and I question if therefore it is a suitable subject for a comedy sketch.

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Very noble, IT David. I'm surprised that so many fellow BCGers disagree with you.

Keep 'em comin - you're on a winner here!

Quote: IT David @ November 15 2009, 3:27 PM GMT

There are many things that I would deem unsuitable to be satirised. Mocking fun at suicide is hugely disrespectful to people who have considered killing themselves and their families.

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David, you're lucky you haven't seen the Slaggs' Death and suicide sketches. Rather more acerbic than this excellent piece of work.

Didn't the glorious Fawlty Towers have people running around with a corpse?

One Foot In The Grave famously had Mildred's suicide, and I would agree that that was unsuitable. This sketch was just about a pratt getting his comeuppance.

Comedy 'suicide'?

Opening sequence of Harold and Maude.

*bins High School Musical/Columbine High School Massacre cross-over sketch due to "unsuitable" subject matter*

Quote: Timbo @ November 15 2009, 11:27 PM GMT

One Foot In The Grave famously had Mildred's suicide, and I would agree that that was unsuitable.

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Are you sure you are not getting this mixed up with anther show? I do not remember this incident and I have watched every single episode of what is one of my favourite comedy series of all time.

Quote: IT David @ November 16 2009, 12:20 AM GMT

Are you sure you are not getting this mixed up with anther show? I do not remember this incident and I have watched every single episode of what is one of my favourite comedy series of all time.

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Except the last one?

And no-one has mentioned the 'homosexual guardsman and Private Godfrey' episode of Dad's Army either.