Punching up/punching down yea or nay - Genuine principle of comedy or excuse to make certain groups a protected class?

[King Ghidorah]

Although not necessarily ubiquitous a concept I seem to hear a lot when people complain about comedy is this concept referred to as punching up and punching down where a lot of the time it seems as if the general concept is that "you can't make fun of people in competition for the opression Olympics" it always gets passes off as some sort of rule of comedy where you can't make fun of "weaker groups" where "weaker groups" is some nebulous group that is arbitrarily not allowed to be made fun of for no apparent reason and that basically the only people you are allowed to make fun of are basically rich white people and those who gave been unperson'd by the collective conciousness. With my rather simplistic view and understanding of the concept how do you feel about the concept personally?

 

[Godbert Manderville]

I think what's missing from the punching down thing is the audience to which the joke is offered. A White comedian in front of a White audience making amusing observations about Black people automatically has a very sinister energy to it through the weight of history. A White comedian doing the same in front of a Black audience is less sinister and potentially not-at-all sinister depending on delivery and attitude.

 

[Orion Balls]

Punch in every direction. That's how you win. Especially against a mob.

 

[Steely Dan]

Funny is funny. Premises and ideas are merely tools for comedians/people doing comedy. It's up to the comedian to make a premise into a well executed joke, even if it's dark or mean, like making fun of children in Africa that have AIDS and are starving or something similar. As a concept, it's tragic, and awful, but can be made funny, see Sam Kinison's bit on it.

 

[DamageJoy]

To be blunt I don't think comedy necessary needs to be done at somebody else's expense, so you don't need to punch always.
Beside that, it could make sense but it's just a one sided "we can call you shit, but you can't even talk about us" kind of defense. Like most of the buzzwords being thrown around in the Mainstream.

 

[JamusActimus]

Punching down is funny.
Most threads here are punching down and that's ok

 

[Orion Balls]

No one gives an uppercut unless it's strong. Because it leaves the body exposed. And that's all I know about boxing/humour.

 

[Kosher Dill]

If all you can do about the absurdities of the world is make jokes about it, you were never really "up" to begin with.

 

[Pixy]

Why not both? Minority comedians haven't copped backlash for making fun of other ethnicities' stereotypes, so perhaps there is some discrimination at work here, but on the other hand their audiences weren't prudes.

It's all about what kind of audience you're telling jokes to. Uptight politically correct fellows will appreciate jokes made at the expense of "dumb poor racists", capitalism, and "rich" people, but the average Joe wouldn't mind some harmless banter.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Comedy is "SUPPOSED" to have no boundaries, especially stand-up comics. This "playing it safe" shit is whats been killing it for quite some time. It's why we can't have nice things anymore (I.E. offensive/racist stuff and slap-stick humor... both WITHOUT a fucking disclaimer paragraph tacked onto it). If someone is telling you that you are punching down, tell them to fuck off, cause clearly their sense of humor fucking sucks.

Or to put it in another way...

 

[KingCoelacanth]

I think people's conceptions of punching down is skewed. Making fun of blacks/muslims/trannies etc. isn't really punching "down" when they're propped up by the media, hollywood, big tech, corporations, etc.
The idea is that they're safe to attack and defenseless, but the repercussions for openly mocking them are much graver than mocking a group like poor working class whites.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

For starters, who is the arbiter of when it's punching up or punching down? Asians and Jews are statistically the most privilaged groups in the USA, but are considered "punching down", while rednecks are close to blacks in being underprivilaged but are considered "punching up". It's all bullshit newspeak to make sure you don't insult the ((( wrong ))) groups.
Besides that in comedy as long as you are funny I wouldn't give a shit if you laugh at amputated cancer sickened ugandan orphans. And even if I wouldn't have found that personally funny, I'd let other people decide if they want to listen to those jokes rather than labeling them wrongthink.

 

[Darksy DePhil]

IMO either let anyone make fun of everyone or encourage not making fun of anyone (at least in discourse). Sometimes i really wonder if the true reason behind so many people building their entire identities around being autistic/black/jewish/gay/trans/etc. is because of how invulnerable it makes them to satire, while they are pretty much allowed to mock literally any other concept.

It's okay to laugh at the poor just as long as they're not black or native, it's good to mock the weird just as long as they're not a tumblrgender or claim to have a snowflake mental disorder. Nah fuck that shit

 

[Samson Pumpkin Jr.]

I think people's conceptions of punching down is skewed. Making fun of blacks/muslims/trannies etc. isn't really punching "down" when they're propped up by the media, hollywood, big tech, corporations, etc.

I know you're right because no black people get killed by the police. Look at how many white men die from the police, it's a lot. Never mind per capita, this is institutional discrimination against white men. And don't get me started on how many people of colour there are in tech. Apple's hiring policy is biased towards blacks that's why there's so many of them in computer engineering.
They're "propped up" by the media, yeah ok.

 

[KingCoelacanth]

I know you're right because no black people get killed by the police. Look at how many white men die from the police, it's a lot. Never mind per capita, this is institutional discrimination against white men. And don't get me started on how many people of colour there are in tech. Apple's hiring policy is biased towards blacks that's why there's so many of them in computer engineering.
They're "propped up" by the media, yeah ok.

Big Tech is unironically enginereed towards trying to get as many black engineers into their companies as possible. However you can only have so many incompetent diversity hires before things fall apart.
Do a google for "black men" and see what the media wants you to see. Then do a google for "white men" and see what the media has to say about them.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

It only works when you punch in all directions as others have said. Just punching up means you're compensating for something and just punching down just makes you look like a jerk. You got to do it both ways to even it out and then some.

 

[Large]

I prefer to punch north.

 

[Blasterisk]

All I know is that the average person I've heard complain about punching up/down IRL is not physically strong enough to be taking seriously in the realm of punching anything.

Strange..

 

[Bad Gateway]

The theory that one can "punch up" or "punch down" automatically assumes that all jokes must exist inside a stratified context which pre-supposes that some people are objectively better and some people are objectively worse. It also intentionally forces the concept of "offense" or "being offended" to being not only invalid, but actually impermissible. Shut up and laugh, faggot. Or cry more and be triggered, it could not matter less to the joke.