It can be even worse when someone telling the joke realizes it's wrong.
Even I'm offended by this. And I'm a fat Southern sheriff.
Not a traditional subject for comedy, the holocaust, I'll give you that. Probably why Spielberg didn't put a laugh track on Schindler's List, would've ruined it.
—Ricky Gervais, Politics
Some tropes reference things that
really should not be played for laughs, but for some reason often are. One of the consequences of
comedies using schadenfreude is that they can tread on subjects that are quite serious to some people.
- Acceptable Targets: Some people are okay to mock. (The Geico Caveman commercials lampshades this by having modern-day cavemen taking offense at Geico's "So Easy a Caveman Can Do It" campaign.)
- Rape As Comedy: Rape is not okay in any situation (except when you're an acceptable target), but lack of experience and warped perspectives from people who wouldn't understand how this is a bad thing results in this being mostly a comedy trope.
- George Carlin once subverted this with his deliberateness in a comedy routine on the album "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics". "I'll prove to you that rape can be funny. I'll *prove* it. Picture Porky Pig raping Daisy Duck...Well, why do you think they call him Porky? Now I know what some of you guys are saying. I know what you guys are saying: 'Daisy had it comin'! She was comin' onto Porky! She was wearing tight feathers, he got a hard on, he got horny, he lost control, and he couldn't help himself.' A lot of guys talk like that..."
- Prison Rape: Same as above, unfortunately a reality though not as much as TVLand would have us believe.
- You sure about that?
- This is weird because it's an American phenomenon. Cases of it are highest in the USA than any other places in the world.
- Bear in mind that in the US, all prisons are required by state and federal law to report any incident of violence that occurs - prisoners may later be charged for this violence, and spend even more time in prison. This is not necessarily true in other nations. Many European prisons have a "no blood, no foul" rule (I.E. prisoners can get into minor scuffles so long as no real injury is done). Many more nations are even more lenient, simply not caring what prisoners do to each other, and prison rape is considered an ordinary part of prison life - Turkish prisons are notorious for this, and some of the old French Penal colonies were just as bad. So, yes, the statistics are higher for the US. This is because in the US, even one prisoner slapping another can earn the attacker a longer sentence.
- And the United States has the world's highest incarceration rate, and the world's largest prison population. Yes, really. Tourists these days are sometimes warned about US prisons the same way as the Turkish ones.
- Butt Monkey: The mistreatment of a character presented as a joke. See also, Chew Toy, Fall Guy, Baldrick, and Costanza.
- The old sitcom version of Domestic Abuse.
- Driven To Suicide: About 60% of suicide attempts are played for laughs (65 if you add the Flanderized Moe Szyslak), even though suicide and suicide attempts are anything but funny.
- Maximum Fun Chamber: Regular torture being used for laughs.
- No Sympathy
- Some of the more severe cases of Kafka Komedy (too much Kafka, not enough comedy).
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Child abuse, Played For Laughs. Seriously.
- Too Soon jokes.
- Insanity and Mental Illness are often played for laughs, particularly as a result of intentionally inflicted mental distress.
The academic terms "dark humor," "black humor," or "tragic farce" apply to some examples, although the exact execution is somewhat different.
Black Comedy is not about making jokes at the expense of groups but rather about using Irony and Fatalism to make them seem amusing while still showing their seriousness. A prime example is Paul Zindel's play
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, which ends with the protagonist's mother having a psychotic breakdown and killing her daughters' pet rabbit. The natural reaction to such a description is "Dude, not funny!" - but the way it's written, it is one of the funniest scenes in the entire play.
How do you know if something deserves linking to this page? Well it might be overused, funny, or nothing to most people. But if a
large number of people are
offended or
outright traumatised, well, to them it is not funny.
There is a fine line between this and
Gallows Humor.
Happens a lot in anime and manga thanks to
Values Dissonance. What Japan calls
Comedic Sociopathy, the western world tends to call child abuse and psychological (and sometimes physical) torture.
See also:
Family Unfriendly Aesop and
Dead Baby Comedy.
