Jokes about mental disability, Ethical ?

brownpaperbagproductions

brownpaperbagproductions

Well-known member
MODERATOR NOTE: Due to the nature of this thread, please be cautious to remain respectful to everyone during the discussion. Some posts have been edited to conform to DVXuser's guidelines on professionalism and mutual respect.


We did this short a couple years ago and just edited last week, but we're uncertain about the ethics of the piece. It was made before the South Park where Cartman tricks the special Olympics so we didn't know any better.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=20770094

So what is it that makes it unethical I guess is the question, if you see it as unethical.
 
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having done jokes about handicapped people myself i'm probably not in any position to judge. but i will anyway.

to state the obvious, i think there's no blanket rule pro or against, it just depends on how you do it. there's definitely a place in comedy for challenging taboos. south park, larry david, even ricky gervais with 'extras' have made a career out of it. but they do it with exceptional wit.

consider the thrust of the joke. what is being presented as funny? in the case of your short, it seems as though the humour lies in laughing at terry, his appearance, his speech affectations, his failure to comprehend the dead fish and his incongruent fight with the other guy. in other words, it seems like you're just poking fun at a retard for the sake of it. consider something like curb your enthusiasm or extras, where the joke is always about the awkwardness of transgressing the social taboo. very different humour.

lastly: i can guarantee you this short will not win any awards. not only is it incredibly politically incorrect, there doesn't seem to be any justification, any irony etc. film festivals typically adhere to a very strictly politically correct agenda. they really are nazis in that regard! (and i am speaking from personal experience).

so.... uh.... hope that helps.


ps. check out this clip from an EXCELLENT australian comedy in the mockumentary style, 'summer heights high;' the guy playing the teacher is the writer/creator of the show and plays two other characters. this is quite controversial because the kid in it actually has down syndrome.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XfMJB9UZMPk
 
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Yeah - Summer Heights High is a pretty impressive show.

Overall I think that if you're ever basing your humour on making fun of someone who is at no fault of their own (i.e. - retarded people for desperate want of a better term) - you really are making the lowest form of joke.

I didn't finish watching your vid, but from the 3/4 of it I did watch, any comedy that there was seemed to be based on, as DArcyFD said, the fact that the bloke was retarded. Poor form.
 
Yeah, we agree with you guys it is totally in low form. We were younger then and didn't really have any skill, we still don't, but we tried to put an air of irony and to make the short funny on level of "laugh at the guys who have such low form as to write something like this," with the myspace description and mentioning the South Park episode, but we don't think it helped much.
 
yeah, this is shockingly pathetic as humor. It's just not funny. And it's really lazy. I mean, if you're too lazy to sit down and think up a joke more original than making fun of a retarded kid, you might as well just go work at McDonald's and call it a day.

The main problem is that, as stated above, this is mean and plays on something that is no fault of the subject's.

To me, the kind of humor that is completely open game is humor based on peoples' BEHAVIOR. To me its the funniest, because it is within their control, so if they act stupid, I have no problem laughing at them.

Now, if GOB from Arrested Development tried to give a fish CPR, THAT would be funny. Because he has no excuse but his own indolence for not knowing about such things.

That show is a good example. They go after so many topics, but all of the humor comes back to the flaws in the characters. Even when the mother adopts the new son, the humor comes from all of the family being ignorant assholes, and not from us laughing at a poor immigrant kid.
 
If it's funny to you and you want to entertain like-minded individuals, do it. If you want to appeal to the masses or keep some sort of dignity that those opposed to the humor will try to take away from you, don't.
 
look at it this way. If you were mentally challenged and saw a movie where mentally challenged people were the "joke" of the film, how would you feel?

Look at the movie The Ringer. The movie was about the mentally challenged, but at the same time, it was handled in a very respectful, yet funny way. And not once did it make fun of being mentally challenged.

Like stated before, making fun of disabilities people have no control over just isn't cool, it's cheap entertainment in my mind.
 
the actions of the moderators has reminded me that we're treading on very thin ice here and there are values that need to be upheld and respected.

having reread my original post, i'm concerned i come across as perhaps condoning this type of humour.

i tried to provide a thoughtful, respectful response which clearly explains why brownpaperbag's video is not cool.

but, to be perfectly honest, i don't think it would have been inappropriate for me to just say outright: 'dude this is f***ed, you should be ashamed.' moreso, you shouldn't really need us to tell you this is wrong. you should know it's wrong.

but, since he did raise the issue of shows like south park, i thought it was worth explaining how jokes, involving people with handicaps, have been done with a degree of success (and ethically).

i raised the issue of political correctness and film festivals more because it is a pet peeve of mine than of being relevant to the discussion......

lastly, i feel i should address my opening comment, in which i claim to have "done jokes about handicapped people myself."

about a year ago i made a short, a comedy in the mockumentary style. the two lead characters were a film director and an actor. the film followed the efforts of the director to raise money to make his next feature, in spite of the destructive actions of the actor, also his best friend, who basically is an a**hole. i spent about 30min establishing this character as an extremely offensive, socially inept egomaniac, who lives in his own unique reality. in the climax scene he offends a girl who was willing to finance the film by coming to a dress-up party as a handicapped person. the whole point of the joke was how offensive his actions were, not pointing fun at handicapped people. it's exactly the same sort of thing that goes on all the time in shows like curb your enthusiasm, extras, and to a lesser degree south park (which comes dangerously close to crossing the line).

so i guess what i'm saying is brownpaperbag's video is pretty atrocious, but it raises a very valid discussion, ie. what is the difference between good and bad politically incorrect humour, not just regarding people with handicaps but also racism, sexism etc.

i just don't want anyone to misinterpret my words as somehow approval of brownpaperbag's video, or of making fun of handicapped people.
 
The thing is we know it's bad, but we're not sure why exactly, we posted it because we haven't made anything in awhile and just started editing old stuff that we never got around to before.

We posted it knowing it was in bad taste, but how about this, hypothetically; if we were to change the title to *Terry the 8 Year Old Mystery Solver* would that change it, because the values being mocked are really acting on no evidence to a violent degree which perpetuates a worse crime= Terry sees a dead fish and misinterprets it's natural death as a crime and goes out and beats up people out of his emotional frustration and passion. Would it suddenly be alright because the character is capable of improving and learning from his actions/mistakes?

Or better yet, if the retard part stays, but in the end he learns a lesson about acting violently out of blind emotional passion when he should be acting out of logic?
 
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i'll let others judge the morality of making fun of someone who has a disability.

what concerns me is that this video offends a much larger segment...people who enjoy laughter. it was completely unfunny.
 
I found it unfunny.

I wasn't in the least bit offended but I know a lot of people who would have been.

I don't think you could possibly re-edit the footage or change the title to make it politically correct.
 
Okay....
Just my 2 cents.
Seeing as your subject matter shows that you probably don't have many qualms about 'crossing the line' - I'm going to assume you're thick skinned and want some legit feedback, not sugar coating.
If that's not the case, I apologize in advance.


So here it is:

I realize you feel like Ugafan was just being a smartass - but honestly I think he has an incredibly valid point.

You shouldn't be concerned at all with the fact that this might be 'unethical' - you should be much more concerned with the fact that it's really not funny in the least. This has nothing to do with the fact that your main character is mentally disabled.
It has everything to do with the fact that you have no real story, structure, or jokes.

I could go into more detail on some specifics, but I'm not sure if it's really relevant.

Again, I'm not trying to be a smart ass, I'm not trying to offend you - and my reaction has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you chose to do a short about a 'retarded mystery solver.' It has everything to do with the fact that its just not funny... I mean, there is no story here, is the joke simply that he thinks the guy on the dock killed a fish? Other than that, there are no jokes I can see. And that one joke is really not something that can carry a story for nearly 4 minutes.

The fact that you're dealing with mental disability only makes it slightly worse because it leaves me thinking that because the short is entriely unfunny the people who made it must just think that mentally disabled people are funny on their own. If that were the case we'd see them in alot more comedies.

My suggestion - don't worry about offending people, worry about learning how to craft a story.
If this had a structure, a plot which unfolded to some inevitable but unforseen conclusion, and sharp witty dialogue - sure it could be funny. But it is far from that right now.
 
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