Is this joke offensive?

I'd be willing to concede this recently written joke by myself is offensive if someone argues for it well enough but I would like to think in my heart of hearts, anyone who's switched on will be able to see that it's really about mocking the initial premise rather than anyone that could be subjected to ridicule.

Anyway here we go:-

"Some people claim that yellow is the colour that brings about luck and prosperity.
No wonder the North Korean people have such great lives."

Comments are actively welcome.
xXx

Don't get it

and I get most things

I get it and don't think it's offensive particularly but it's not a much of a joke, sorry.

You guys!

Quote: Marc P @ April 15 2012, 10:11 PM BST

You gays!

View original

Piss off nancy.

"Some people claim that yellow is the colour that brings about luck and prosperity, but you try telling that to North Korea" works better but not by much. It's just not a great joke, really.

Is the joke that North Koreans have yellow skin?

Only that's racist, isn't specific to North Koreans perse and just isn't that funny.

The joke isn't about North Koreans having yellow skin, it's about using the horrendously awful scenario of the North Koreans to illustrate the stupidity of the philosophical position that colour signify anything. And I felt the most extreme way to run with this idea was to utilize the fact that unpolitically correct people would say that far east Asian people are yellow.

I don't particularly care whether people don't like the joke (personally I love the joke but that might be because I wrote it) all I was interested in was that it didn't come across purely as racist and had at least some degree of wit to it.

xXx

Ok technically jokes are about fast associations

eg my dog has no nose, how does he smell?

A fast play on 2 meanings.

This joke.

1 Yellow is lucky (is it news to me)
2 Korean people are percived as being yellow by racists.
3 But they're not.
4 North Korean have a comparatively harder life style than the rest of us.
5 Put together a North Korean person could be percieved as being yellow (in colour) but not fortunate as in being yellow.

That's about as clearly as I can demonstrate why this joke isn't funny without powerpoint and a pie chart.

YWB go out and write more better joke, don't wed yourself to this turkey.

Quote: sootyj @ April 16 2012, 6:57 AM BST

Ok technically jokes are about fast associations

eg my dog has no nose, how does he smell?

A fast play on 2 meanings.

This joke.

1 Yellow is lucky (is it news to me)
2 Korean people are percived as being yellow by racists.
3 But they're not.
4 North Korean have a comparatively harder life style than the rest of us.
5 Put together a North Korean person could be percieved as being yellow (in colour) but not fortunate as in being yellow.

That's about as clearly as I can demonstrate why this joke isn't funny without powerpoint and a pie chart.

YWB go out and write more better joke, don't wed yourself to this turkey.

View original

It's somewhat telling that Sooty's deconstruction of the joke is funnier than the joke itself.

Yes I'm fully aware how a f**king joke works.
It's about making the listener make an assumption and then contradicting that assumption which this at the very least does do.
And jokes tend to be good not so much due to the idea but as a result of editing and that's where I'll admit this joke is really doing the business.
Plus it's only one in about 305 jokes that I've written having just started out of which even the truely shit jokes I keep because the ideas are there to be drawn upon.
xXx

I'm sure you know how a joke works many of your jokes are indeed very good.

I was demonstrating how this particular joke doesn't.

305 jokes may sound a lot. But the mark of a good gagster is how they develop the good ones and dump the bad.

A while ago I got contracted to write 50 gags and thought, "thats easy I'll just use my 118 rejects back log."

Out of I think 550 jokes 7 were good enough.

Here's the same joke but tweaked ever so slightly...

"The medieval Cathars viewed black as the colour of perfection.
No wonder African people have it so great." xxx

...you tell me, is it offensive?

They say blue is the colour of depression.
So why won't smurfs stop singing?

They say green is the colour of being ill?
Hulk looks pretty feisty to me.

They say the imperial colour is purple?
But the purple people eater is just a chav.

They say yellow is the colour of cowardice.
Try telling that to Banana Man!