"I'm Offended": The Tragedy of Comedy

Photo: pelicandebrief.com 

This is one of my longer posts, but the time has come for me to say what I have been observing, thinking & feeling for quite a while. I’ve just recently seen an opportunity to address it, motivated by a post I saw on a social site last week:

"Most comedy is based on getting a laugh at somebody else's expense and I find that's just a form of bullying. I want to be an example that you can be funny and be kind and make people laugh without hurting somebody else's feelings." ~Ellen Degeneres

It has been re-posted more than 150 times. Obviously, and for a number of reasons that are personal to each of us, bullying is an issue that we feel passionate about.

I have always loved Ellen Degeneres, and have respect for her and her work with the many charities that she supports.  I have always perceived her to be an intelligent, kind and funny woman. I am curious to see how she will pull this one off, but I have to tell you that I don't agree with her and think that she should not change a single thing about her comedy.

What I personally love about Ellen is that she comes across as such a genuine, warm, compassionate person.She has made a living through her insights and humor. She has empowered, uplifted and educated people for many years THROUGH her humor-not in spite of it.  I find her declaration that humor is the same as bullying, off the mark and wonder if she is not also giving in to manipulation & pressure? I feel as though she too has been ‘bullied’ into a position where she can no longer feel comfortable doing what she does best: making us laugh at our common, uncommon, and very human flaws.  

While I admire Ellen's sensitivity to the feelings of others, I think that people who become offended at a comedian's jokes are reacting from a wounded sense of  self-comfort and self-esteem - and their wounds are not about others or bullying at all. They are about themselves.

The very reason that something is a comedy is because it points out and exposes the flaws & absurdity of persons, characteristics or situations. We do this dozens of times a day, whether out loud or in our own heads; whether professional comedians or not. Comedy-humor- is a coping technique - a survival mechanism-and the way we celebrate and observe in a non-threatening way, our flaws, our differences, our similarities, and make more sense of an increasingly volatile (and apparently cranky) world.

While I don't think anyone should ever be purposefully cruel, or hurtful, I DO think we need to grow a backbone, stop looking for excuses for who we are and are not, and understand that humor is NOT the same as bullying. By equating the two, we have not only declared that NOTHING at all is funny, but we have also watered down actual & serious aggression & bullying, and have further strained human interaction by making people feel as if they cannot joke with each other for fear of offending someone. Is this the kind of dry, tense world we really want to live in?

There has been an over-focus on bullying, for too long, and for the wrong reasons. Yes, we have a "respect" problem in general - we have for hundreds of years, and on many levels we are still fighting bias & prejudice. But by paying the wrong kind of attention to the problem, we have simultaneously undermined its significance and made it more prevalent. By over-focusing on it in the wrong way, we have taught children that bullying is the worst of tragedies. We are unintentionally encouraging kids to over-identify with being a "victim" and as awful and painful as it is in extreme cases, in general, I can think of about half a dozen things that are worse than being "picked on" or someone making jokes about me at my own expense.

One of my yoga teachers taught me that when you pay too much attention to something you give it more power. I have found that to be true over and over again in my personal and professional life, and in this case as well.

I see well-meaning organizations giving out medals and other goodies to "victims", in effect, rewarding them for getting picked on. What behaviors and characteristics are we trying to encourage here? Instead of actively giving kids - both victims and aggressors- the specific (and individualized) tools they need to go about developing themselves as better people, we are encouraging them to remain in and fill those "character roles" of victim or an aggressor. We are not giving children any other "character" options- or any functional and realistic coping or self-empowerment strategies, nor teaching them about respecting themselves as well as each other. By over-reacting by trying to remove & censor everyday language and normal human behaviors of the people around us, most of which are quite innocent and benign, and by comparing something as natural as breathing (comedy) to bullying, we have re-enforced the wrong message-the opposite one than what was intended.

In my many years of working with people of all kinds, I have observed that there are really only two emotions: Fear and Love. Being offended stems from fear, and is a learned response. Kids learn and mimic "offended" behavior very quickly by observing the adults in their lives. Declaring that you are offended is one of the most selfish & manipulative statements one can make. Its designed to silence and impose guilt as it elicits sympathy. It gives you a wound to show everyone and implies that now you are entitled to rights and privileges that the 'offender' is not. It also illustrates an inability to control emotions & responses to other people and it comes with the full expectation that everyone else is expected to control theirs. Being offended is a response that harms relationships and prevents us from learning, as it weakens everyone involved.  In fact, I will go so far as to say that the phrase "I'm Offended" is really its own special form of bullying.

Comedy, when observed with a mature ego, a healthy attitude and an open mind, can gently guide us to really take a hard look at ourselves and others and accept, work with (and even embrace) all characteristics- the good, the bad and the ugly. (Or, it can cause us to whine that we are 'offended' so others feel bad for being “so mean”.) We need to guide our kids through this process of finding more healthy ways to respond to joking, bullying, and just plain, ignorant people.

There was a commenter under the post who said: "... I much prefer self-deprecating humor or jokes about the powerful, to the more "bullying" type of comedy making fun of the little guy..."

Why are jokes about the "Powerful" OK?  What defines a "Powerful" target from a "little guy"? Why the double standard? And why would any grown person think that self-deprecation okay? Is that really what we want to teach our kids? Children cannot learn to be kind to others if they are taught to be unkind to themselves. In fact, being unkind to oneself is the ultimate form of bullying. We can't have it both ways-either we don't make (potentially offensive) jokes about anyone at all-including ourselves, because it is bullying...OR we INCLUDE everyone in on the joking, stop being offended, laugh along WITH each other and learn something positive in the process.

Another commenter noted:  I love the sentiment..til I remember that on one of her shows she spent a very long time showing humiliating photos of unsuspecting studio guests, that had been found on Social Networks..."

Yes. I remember that-and the crazy prom photos- and have seen Ellen take on the 1 Million Mom's when they wanted her removed as the JC Penny Spokesperson...and her recent "Fitch PLEEZE!!" response to Abercrombie & Fitch deciding to not sell clothes bigger than a size 10. All of it was funny - and spot on! It would only be offensive to those who those who were not acting right or not so sure of themselves in the first place. 

Anyone who feels offended because of their own flaws does so due to their own filter and not necessarily because of something Ellen, or anyone else said or did. How can Ellen, or anyone else continue to serve as a positive role model for youth and truly embrace and be themselves if we feel so pressured to change the methods (music, art, comedy) we use to express ourselves for fear of offending?

Instead of constantly censoring, we should instead be teaching our children, and youth, characteristics of empowerment & respect - beginning with SELF: self-respect, self-reliance self-control, (especially of our emotions) and self-actualization, rather than teaching them to look for and focus on somebody else's 'bullying ' and/or joke-telling behavior. When we are truly comfortable with who and how we are, we no longer care what other people say, think or make jokes about and we certainly don't expect others to change and adapt to our own level of dis-comfort.  This starts in childhood and needs to be facilitated appropriately.

We do ourselves and everyone around us a huge dis-service by over reacting to issues that are NOT really issues, and by addressing a perceived problem by changing who we already are. We need to stop allowing ourselves to be pressured and 'bullied', into modifying our speech and actions only to empower those who need to manipulate. This does not encourage acceptance, inclusion nor diversity, but only serves to divide us, even if it is a division within ourselves. This is a terrible lesson to teach kids & teens and an unfair burden to place on mature adults.

We will never entirely stop those individuals who feel the need to harass, torment & intimidate others. By being forever "offended" by people, songs, words, differences, etc. we weaken ourselves, our relationships and our support systems. By backing down and changing OUR (non-aggressive) behavior and acting in a manner that is not in alignment with who we really are, only for the sake of political correctness, we give aggressive, manipulative people more power over us than they deserve.

Let's teach our kids how to be truly powerful by not enabling them to actively create more fake crisis & manufactured tragedy in their own lives. Let’s embrace comedy as a universal language-laugh at AND with each other, and come to a better understanding of who we really are and who we want to be. Let's stop the current tragedy of over-identification before it gets worse.

I welcome your comments and observations below.

~Barbara

Contact: bodylogique@yahoo.com