If anything, aren't they MORE PC in America? They always go on about how much more we can do and say on our TV compared to theirs.
Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights Page 32
I think people are more outraged at the shitness of Boyle's non-PC comedy.
What was that final sketch about? I kept waiting for the punchline... then black guys were singing about AIDS?
What?
What?
*Titanic crashes through set*
What?!?
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ December 30 2010, 1:14 AM GMTF**king hell that was weak.
I've never seen a comedy start so promisingly and fizzle out so comprehensively.
Indeed. 
Quote: Matthew Stott @ December 30 2010, 3:04 PM GMTIf anything, aren't they MORE PC in America? They always go on about how much more we can do and say on our TV compared to theirs.
They're not PC in the slightest.
Hard swearing is pretty much verboten on any station that takes ads. Sex stuff is tolerated a bit more on cable.
But they have a *far* more relaxed attitude to race material -- if you're a bit brown you can get away with pretty much anything (cf Mind of Mencia.)
Quote: Marc P @ December 23 2010, 10:58 PM GMTScrutiny is not within the gift of an audience when responding emotionally to a joke.
The mental faculty to think about something does not affect whether it is or is not racist.
Quote: sootyj @ December 24 2010, 12:25 AM GMTIf my writing is truly that lumpen, cheap and predictable after all these years.
In all seriousness I'm giving up
Is that a promise?
Quote: Nat Wicks @ December 24 2010, 12:30 AM GMTOnly one of your pretend sketches where SootyJ the character is doing something surreal with signs. Not one of your proper ones.
Psssst. He thought those were his masterworks.
Quote: Tim Walker @ December 24 2010, 12:54 AM GMTCook (especially) had a sympathy and deep knowledge of his intended targets - Boyle doesn't have the wit or the humanity of someone like Peter. He's just a bitter recovering drunk/addict lashing out.
Sorry, but that seems to be bollocks. Not your putting down of Boyle, but the talking up of Cook to such a level. And that is exactly what Cook was too.
Shucks Aaron you haven't said anything snide to me in months.
I missed it.
Quote: Aaron @ December 31 2010, 6:36 PM GMTThe mental faculty to think about something does not affect whether it is or is not racist.
What does then?
Quote: Marc P @ January 1 2011, 1:26 AM GMTWhat does then?
Intent, and to a lesser extent, context. As was discussed in the original post.
Quote: Tim Walker @ December 24 2010, 1:44 AM GMTToo late to start trying to take every difference I can think of in my head and form them into some kind of coherent argument. But one of the most important reasons that Derek & Clive has a kind of warped charm to it, why it is forgiveable, is because of the characters of Pete & Dud. We very much know that Cook and Moore are playing a pair of characters, rather than versions of themselves, because we understand that they played a far more innocent and genial pair of idiots previously. Derek and Clive as characters, or as a performance, does not work nearly so well in isolation. We can accept the extremes of the language, the aggression, the misogyny etc... because we are aware that Cook and Moore, though not saints by any means, were generally respectable and respectful comedians/people in their backgrounds. We know that they are intelligent with cultured and cosmopolitan lives.
Frankie Boyle has never shown another side of himself, so what is an "act" and what is "him" is not as clear-cut. Plus, Cook and Moore (via some wonderful improvised dialogue, especially the ever-eloquent Cook) really nail their characters: these inadequate yet pompous, seedy, pathetic white working class men called Derek & Clive - men who only get any respect from themselves and each other. They're a couple of bullshitters, filling the desperate hours with talk of "that big poof nigger" and kicking Valerie in the c**t for half a f**king hour, or "naturally, I stooped down to rape her". They are, simply, boring and hollow bullies and losers. They are the joke. That much is clear.
With Frankie Boyle he a) doesn't have the attention to detail in his use of language in order to make the use of such aggressive/dark humour funny enough, and b) doesn't give any sign that tells us he doesn't actually agree with the vile things he says. In short, he doesn't give us a character which is the loser of the piece. He is the winner. And the winner (unlike Derek & Clive) will always look as though he is someone whom you should respectfully agree with, not someone who is laughable by their pathetic - if funny - disgusting-ness.
Many of the improv sketches in Derek & Clive work so successfully because Cook & Moore had spent years doing exactly the same kind of sketches, with the same rich use of character and language, but just without the really hideous, dark side let loose. Cook and Moore get away with breaking the rules of comedy with Derek and Clive because they know the rules so well. Frankie Boyle has not learnt the rules well enough to be good enough to get the language and the performance correct in order to subvert them.
(I could continue spewing this rubbish, or I could go toss off into a sock?
Yep, agreed.)
I don't think any of your points stand up (unlike the sock). Derek & Clive more charming than FB? This must surely be down to personal preference. Some people find Ricky Gervais unconceited.
FB has shown other sides to himself and you've read his autobiography so you know very well what he thinks. He has even deconstructed his humour in the show explaining that a friend who died from cancer didn't have cancer and didn't even exist - 'It's just a joke'. He also explained the use of father f**ker (because he was told he couldn't use motherf**ker).
FB has great attention to detail in his humour and his use of language is extremely precise for a comedian.
Quote: Godot Taxis @ January 1 2011, 5:24 PM GMTHe also explained the use of father f**ker (because he was told he couldn't use motherf**ker).
Yet he said "motherf**ker" regardless and it was not bleeped, thus negating the point he was attempting to make. What point do you think he was trying to make?
FB has great attention to detail in his humour and his use of language is extremely precise for a comedian.
Whilst I totally agree that Boyle has a superb way with words, the statement in bold is just bizarre. If he was aping Buster Keaton then, fair enough, his use of language would be worthy of comment but he's a stand-up comedian! He writes gags for a living!
Besides, isn't brevity the something something something?
Quote: Gregor Shamsa @ January 2 2011, 6:55 AM GMTYet he said "motherf**ker" regardless and it was not bleeped, thus negating the point he was attempting to make.
Sometimes such shows get allocated a quota of certain swearwords, so it might have been that he was only allowed to say it once.
" Of the writing process, Stade said: 'Me, Jim and Frankie are just sitting there going "I wonder what the f**k we can write that will absolutely piss everyone off" and we seem to have achieved that.' "
http://forums.chortle.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=319282#319282
Contoversy for controversy's sake. Lazy lazy hack hack hack. This has just made me even more annoyed.
Quote: Nat Wicks @ January 5 2011, 4:40 PM GMT" Of the writing process, Stade said: 'Me, Jim and Frankie are just sitting there going "I wonder what the f**k we can write that will absolutely piss everyone off" and we seem to have achieved that.' "
http://forums.chortle.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=319282#319282
Contoversy for controversy's sake. Lazy lazy hack hack hack. This has just made me even more annoyed.
Have a gin and tonic, Nat.
The show wasn't written in the way that Stade said, because nothing gets written that way. As I've already said in this thread the show was written around the regular Boyle themes, and much of it was very well crafted and original, it's just not what a lot of people were waiting for. On the other hand I'm on a permanent look out for jokes like:
"When I saw the Jodie Foster rape scene on the pinball machine in The Accused I cried. Because some bastard had beaten my high score... with his balls."
Godot, since you seem to have enjoyed more of the show than most, how would you defend the reliance on punchlining sketches (or basing them entirely on) the same half-dozen (generously) themes (namely: AIDS, murder, paedophilia, rape, bumming, underage-bum-rape)
Quote: Kevin Murphy @ January 5 2011, 6:01 PM GMTGodot, since you seem to have enjoyed more of the show than most, how would you defend the reliance on punchlining sketches (or basing them entirely on) the same half-dozen (generously) themes (namely: AIDS, murder, paedophilia, rape, bumming, underage-bum-rape)
You left out PCP, prison, childhood and games/comics.
You didn't really watch it, did you?