“Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right.”
We share the planet with people who think they should never, ever be exposed to anything that’s not their taste. And they want someone to pay for having the audacity to not intimately know what that taste is and to tailor their material accordingly.
Let’s face it bad, or at least quasi-bad, taste rules right now. Seth McFarlane is one sick individual who just happens to have created one of the biggest animated comedies of all time, Family Guy. Now his movie Ted, about a teddy bear that comes to life, is offering us Seth without censors. We went on opening weekend and laughed so hard at Ted that we actually missed some of the jokes while we laughed at the previous ones. It’s not for everyone. Some of the humour verges on mean. And the rest is pretty racy. Our whole theatre was “with” the comedy, though.
Rudy Guiliani, New York’s former Mayor, was apparently appalled by a 9/11 joke in the movie Ted. He and his entourage sat stone-faced and at least one of them called the New York Post to express their outrage. Comics have been making fun of terrorists and 9/11 for years now, not laughing at those who were killed or the act itself, but the clever ones are finding humour in it or in the futility of racial profiling. So in the movie, Ted, the talking bear, is having a verbal spat with singer Norah Jones. They’re tossing barbs back and forth and he asks the exotic Jones about her nationality. Then he shoots back, “Whatever. Thanks for 9/11!”
Guiliani was one of the faces of the aftermath of 9/11. Few people who didn’t lose loved ones were as affected by it as him. It’s not surprising he wouldn’t laugh. But everyone in the theatre when we saw the movie – which was a VIP theatre full of grown-ups – laughed that laugh that says, I can’t believe I’m laughing at this. But we laughed. Poor taste? Perhaps. But as deep, stinging insults go, it was a very good one.
I used to follow Ricky Gervais on Twitter until he launched into an ongoing tirade about singer Susan Boyle. It wasn’t about her voice, but her looks. It was unnecessarily mean and it turned me off. So I exercised the power of my mouse and clicked “unfollow”. And that’s the power of the individual. I found his onslaught offensive so I opted out. But I agree with him that it doesn’t mean I’m right.