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The prophet margin gag was good, but context is important with the offence part and as depictions of that particular prophet would piss off a lot of people, most of which are quite nice, it seems a shame to say something that is, to some people, likely very offensive, when it's just a little word play thing, rather than something where the offence is part of the joke. I think it's just the throw away nature of it in a wordplay thing that grates, like I said, it seems insensitive or ignorant more than anything else. My favourite jokes are generally the really, purposefully offensive ones, whereas yours seemed more like your gran talking about that lovely new coloured family that moved in down the street.
snottyotter-
Yup, I get that. If you knew me it probably wouldn’t be an issue as I’m neither insensitive nor ignorant, and as far removed from your (admittedly excellent) gran analogy as you could imagine, but I get your point.
My little sis is a proper militant hardcore animal rights vegan type, and I feel guilty about doing gags about that kind of thing, but I do it anyway. I know it pisses her off but she takes it with good grace, because I’m not being offensive for the sake of offence; there always has to be a big element of humour about it, else you just end up being Jim Davidson or Andrew Clay.
Anyway, on with the show
jj72
The issue is that humour, like so much else, is entirely subjective. I’ve done stand up, as has my kid, and I really don’t think anything should off-limits. There’s a massive difference between being funny and being offensive, inasmuch as some humour relies on shock tactics (see Sadowitz etc), or saying something shocking that you might think but wouldn’t dare say (Jim Jeffries doing the most offensive joke I’ve ever heard, which almost made my kid bite the top of his beer bottle), for example.
Anyone can be offensive, but it takes skill to be offensive and funny. I’m not claiming to be skilled, my prophet margin gag was based purely on wordplay and I just happened to use the best-known prophet of all as the punchline. That wasn’t crass or lazy; I mean, if I’d put Ezekiel or whatever, would it have worked as well? I dunno.
Anyway, it’s kinda the holiday season, and I’ll shortly be repeating the best gag I’ve ever come up with. It’ll be worth the wait, and it doesn’t involve a single non-existent deity. I promise.