Yeah, I'm glad Tony Harris's attitudes came to light so I can stop interacting with him or his work. I was responding to the idea that JG's post was clearly a joke.

I can't really envision a joke with rape as the punchline, let alone imagine it to be a funny. Oh well, I guess I just don't know 'funny' like Pactrice O'Neal (who I'd never heard of before).

And of course being offended is exhausting and you have things to do, that's why I advise only being offended about actual things that matter in your personal life, not knee jerk over generalizations on the internet like the Tony Harris post that have been twisted through projection. Most of the time, people get offended over the tiniest of things that have little to no bearing on them, stuff that they wouldn't even know about until someone else told them they should be offended.

I think we can all agree that it is essentially a case by case basis, and that you never know wether comedy will be either salt or salve to that wound until you've actually made the joke and put it into the ether. 

Cancer is obviously a touchy subject but man, did Tig Notaro absolutely SLAY with her 30 min set at Largo.  It was inspiring, moving, and best of all FUNNY.  Now, does that mean every attempt at humor about cancer will work like Tig's did?  No.  The alchemy that made up her set is not a recipe that can be easily replicated.  But I would rather we live in a world where people like James Gunn (who I was specifically referring to in my earlier post) are allowed to make mistakes, and own up to them, before we throw the baby out with the bathwater like Chris Braak did with his dystopian "Whatever," response.

We're all human.  We're all going to make mistakes, but lets look at patterns before we decide to just abandon someone as an artist because of one stupid fucking thing they said.

Dave, my guts lean this way.  I have to remind myself that my experiences are not everyone else's, nor there's mine.  I think a middle way of resilience for oneself, and empathy for everyone else, is a pretty good goal for society to aim for.  But whereas my father's generation (he was born in 1937) tipped the scale towards having a stiff upper lip probably a bit too much (as my father never acknowledged his PTSD from Nam), I fear this current generation leans too hard towards everyone wearing nerf armor.  I don't know where the proper balance is.  I'm still learning it myself.

You know what annoys me? And this is not in reply to anyone in particular, just thinking- I hate it when someone says something that is offensive to someone or some people but they (the offended) aren't actually allowed to say so without criticism. Sure there are those who just like to stir the shit and complain about absolutely anything regardless of how trivial but sometimes someone will say something that does hurt another's feelings. We are only human after all and it's not fair to say 'get over it' or 'man up' because I can guarantee 100% that you are not totally immune to such feelings, yourself. No matter how much you claim to be.

Again, not aimed at any one person in particular, just speaking in general