Multiple Definitions?: Dead Baby Comedy

I'm with Sean Murray on this one. The basic problem with this trope is the term 'controversial', since Values Dissonance plays a huge role in that kind of ideal. Some people find everything in Black Comedy offensive, while others find nothing offensive. This really does seem like Comedic Sociopathy, Crossing the Line Twice and Dude, Not Funny! merged together with Black Comedy; and most of the examples here are tagged as all those, and then Dead Baby Comedy as well. Frankly, I don't think this trope is even necessary...unless there are enough instances of shows which include jokes about literal dead babies / children to warrant a trope exclusively for that.

And it's also something that people use to complain about jokes they personally hated, or go into long-winded descriptions about how incredibly gross some comedies are.

Agreement.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Also agreeing.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

The two best choices, I believe, over what to do with this page:

* Merge with Black Comedy entirely and make Dead Baby Comedy a redirect to that page.

* Give the namespace a new definition exclusive to "dead baby jokes" and comedy about cruelty to infants, with all current examples unrelated to the "literal dead babies" moved over to Black Comedy.

edited 12th Dec '11 7:35:54 PM by SeanMurrayI

It looks like there's enough examples of literal dead baby comedy that option two would be possible.

I made a draft for the second option.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

I'd go with redirecting Dead Baby Comedy and having the baby examples live on Literal Dead Baby Comedy.

Yeah, unwritten rule number one: follow all the unwritten procedures. - Camacan

I prefer Dead Baby Jokes myself.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

If we would rename this, I'd prefer Dead Baby Jokes.

Yeah, I say merge the two.

I also say just merge them. The phrase Dead Baby Comedy is so strongly associated with its "offensive humour" connotation here that I think even a rename of it wouldn't necessarily stop it for being mistaken for that. Besides, there's no need to give dead baby jokes their own trope page.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

Okay, where do we go from here? I can go either way, since we seem to have agreed that the true problematic trope here should be cut (what's left is what to do with the generally wrong examples).

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

There's no need to make any trope a page, but that's just what we do. Dead Baby Jokes may not give the right impression as a name, but there are certainly more than enough occurrences in fiction and media where actual dead infants or acts of cruelty/violence inflicted on babies are played up for a comedic purpose. That alone is more than enough to make the concept deserving of a page in its own right. It certainly doesn't need or merit a page (nothing on this wiki ever does), but it can definitely get a page one way or another.

Anyway, I'm trying to make a crowner right now for everyone to vote on a total merge with Black Comedy or partial merge with anything about dead babies Played for Laughs kept separately (possibly under a new name), but for some reason I can't seem to get the template to load up properly. If anyone else has better luck, this is supposed to be the link for starting Page Action Crowners.

edited 14th Dec '11 9:45:44 AM by SeanMurrayI

Nevermind that last part. Got the crowner made.

Hollering a mod to get this hooked.

I'm not saying there has to be a need for it, just that the supposed benefit of a separate page for dead baby jokes doesn't seem worth the potential for confusion in light of its association with the name's former implications.

It'd be like if we repurposed Complete Monster to be about actual physical monsters who were also morally monstrous. Its new definition would just seem like an oddly specific subcategory of the old, and the name would still be associated with its former meaning.

"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart

To be fair, there is certainly a good number of editors at present time who believe the page only covers actual dead babies, already. The existing page image, I'd argue, is a prime reason for that.

EDIT: I did, however, remove the stated "con" for a total merge, because it wasn't a reason to keep the page separate.

We've already established that offensiveness is an entirely subjective trope qualifier, a very impractical way of distinguishing examples, and a pointless way of distinguishing examples (What does anybody gain from separating "offensive" Black Comedy entries from "unoffensive" ones, anyway?). Offensiveness isn't even a detail that gets mentioned in most page examples and wicks for Dead Baby Comedy, and most examples don't even appear to be "offensive", anyway.

edited 17th Dec '11 5:41:53 PM by SeanMurrayI

Bump.

Seems that the crowd favours merging.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

That it does. A few more votes and we should be good.

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Been going quite long enough. Another day and we move them.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

As far as I'm concerned, the difference is in how the scene is set up, and how much the subject of the humor affects the one delivering it.

For instance, if a group of EM Ts responding to a horrible accident, picks up a dismembered hand/arm, with a watch on it, and says to his partner: "Look!, it takes a licking, and keeps on ticking!" - that's Black (i.e. Gallows) humor.

On the other hand, someone not affiliated with NASA in any way, telling his/her friends (after either the Challenger or Columbia disasters)that NASA stands for "Need Another Seven Astronauts" is Dead Baby Comedy.

The former is usually done as a coping mechanism, while the latter is done for pure shock value. In my mind anyway, they're two very different things, and very easy to recognize the difference.

Gallows Humor is not the same thing as Black Comedy, though. It's a subtrope, but Black Comedy isn't nearly as limited.

Yeah, it's usually like that. Based on this thread alone, for me Dead Baby Comedy is "Black Comedy that crosses the line," with different people offering many different interpretations which are, in truth, reflect our own sensibilities (how much is too much, etc.) rather than any definable quality.

In short, there's a work that makes a serious issue a subject of comedy. If I like it and think of it thoughtful, it's Black Comedy. If I get offended by it, why, it's Dead Baby Comedy.

It's a lot like the difference between "porn" and "erotica". In that respect, I agree with the crowner results.

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

Calling the crowner in favour of merging Dead Baby Comedy into Black Comedy and turning the former into a redirect.

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Time to actually do it then? What exactly to do? My understanding is, we water down every mention of Dead Baby Comedy to generic Black Comedy entries?

The words above are to be read as if they are narrated by Morgan Freeman.

What to do? Well, as the crowner states, "Merge all examples with Black Comedy and make Dead Baby Comedy a redirect to that page."

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!