ThisFilmIsOn

Last week Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the irrepressible creators of South Park, did what they do best by shining a big bright light on stupidity and ignorance wherever they can find it. In the second part of their celebratory 200th episode spectacular (which once again asked who Cartman’s father was, told Tom Cruise to step out of the closet and poked fun at gingers) the comedy duo stepped back into the ultimate taboo; showing the prophet Mohammed.

Or did they? As always, whether they did or didn’t isn’t the point. What is the point is that the reaction to the cartoon was exactly as you’d expect from anyone who follows dogmatic rules to their own behest. The part of Islamic doctrine that states you shouldn’t show Mohammed is obviously more important than the stuff about tolerance and love.

As headline grabbing as the South Park episodes have been, you only need to open a newspaper, switch on a radio or watch a Miley Cyrus film to realise offensiveness, like love, actually is all around. This makes me happy, let me tell you why…

Whilst watching The Last Song recently, a disgracefully dull Miley Cyrus tear-jerker, I realised I’d become offended. I was offended at the complete inoffensiveness of this tawdry, meandering movie. It had nothing to say, nothing happened throughout its duration, it was a film of complete nothingness. This made me angry.

Kick Ass‘s 12-year old knife-wielding child didn’t make me angry, Cemetary Junction‘s supposedly thinly veiled homophobia didn’t make me angry. South Park‘s childish religious-bating didn’t make me angry. But a PG-rated, family drama did.

For those unaware of the recent cinematic controversies they range from outrage on the right The Daily Mail‘s Tookey, to outrage on the left, The Guardian‘s Ben Walters. Each writer is up in arms over fictional characters doing fictitious things. I’ve already, along with half the internet community, put my foot into Christopher Tookey but Ben Walter’s needs a good kicking too.

In his recent post entitled ‘Cemetery Junction‘s gay-baiting is not funny’ Ben attacked the homophobia on display in Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s better than average cinematic debut. His main criticism was that the main characters poke fun at homosexuals. The truth is, they don’t. The joke is never at the expense of a gay man, it’s always a reversal of someones actual sexuality. i.e. someone is called something he isn’t.

As someone whose main lexicon consists of ‘that’s shit’, ‘fuckbeans’ and ‘you’re gay’ I’ve never understood the uproar of someone being called gay when they’re not. If they were called ‘gay’ as an insult and they were, I could see the offense, but I personally see no difference (i.e. one is no ‘better’ than the other) between being gay or straight. I was just born straight, if someone calls me gay that’s funny.

Does Ben want me to believe that gay men or women can’t tease each other about being straight? I would. If I were gay I’d spend all my time telling my male gay friends how much they love pussy, how they love tatty bojangles and what a ‘straight’ they were. I’d spend evening upon evening thinking of comical ways to bait my friends into pretending they were the opposite of whatever they were. Therein lies the funny. But people have column inches to write and uproar is so en vogue.

A week ago the frankly unfunny Frankie Boyle caused an uproar over ‘jokes’ about Down’s Syndrome. As usual the argument about what was acceptable and what wasn’t reared it’s ugly head (before you write in I am not stating that people with Down’s Syndrome have ugly heads.) What angered most people on the ‘freedom of expression side’ was the line “I have a sense of humour but some things aren’t funny”.

If you know someone with Cancer, Cancer probably isn’t funny. If you know someone in a wheelchair, jokes about leg mentals aren’t funny. But like Mohammed, gays and 12-year olds ‘stabbing cunts up’ this offensiveness livens up our otherwise dull lives. It pushes boundaries. It gets us to the next step in our evolution.

But this is just me. My opinions. As yours are yours. Maybe my views offend you. I hope so. In a way I hope yours offend me too. What’s really worrying is that people are actually considering murder over a cartoon. So forgetting all the offensiveness for one second I’ll leave you with a few words on tolerance. “Anyone who saves one life, it is as if he has saved the whole of mankind and anyone who has killed another person it is as if he has killed the whole of mankind.” No it’s not from Schindler’s List, it’s from the Koran.

For a much more eloquent and wholly much, much better dissection of the ‘Offensiveness Argument’ check out Brendan Burns live stand-up DVD, “So I Suppose This Is Offensive Now?” He’s funnier than me, more articulate and he shouts more.