When Is a Joke “Too Soon”? — Comedians Discuss on Pretty Much Pop: A Culture Podcast #132

To hon­or the death of Gilbert Got­tfried, Pret­ty Much Pop address­es jokes like the 9–11 one he was pil­lo­ried for. Can com­e­dy real­ly be “too soon” in rela­tion to trag­ic sub­ject mat­ter? Is com­e­dy real­ly tragedy plus time, or are jokes most need­ed imme­di­ate­ly when pain and dis­com­fort are most acute?

Your host Mark Lin­se­may­er is joined by three come­di­ans: Adam Sank (of the LGBTQ-themed Adam Sank Show), Twitch-stream­ing song­ster Meri Amber, and return­ing guest Daniel Lobell (graph­ic nov­el­ist and pod­cast­er). We get into tai­lor­ing jokes for an audi­ence, cop­ing with grief, and of course some talk about trig­ger­ing, hyper-sen­si­tive audi­ences, and can­cel­la­tion (Chapelle, any­one?).

Watch Got­tfried’s infa­mous joke your­self:

A few per­spec­tives we may have reviewed before talk­ing:

• “Remem­ber­ing Gilbert Got­tfried” by Daniel Lobell
• “When is a joke too soon? A sci­en­tif­ic inquiry” by Peter McGraw and Joel Warn­er
• “When and what kind of joke is ‘too soon’?” by Mad­dy Kunz
• “When is too soon for a joke?” by Brid­get Jones
• “When is it ‘too soon’ to tell a joke?” By Peter McGraw
• “Louis C.K. Mocks Park­land School Shoot­ing Sur­vivors in Recent Set” by Sopan Deb
• “Come­di­an Han­nah Gads­by’s ‘Ten Steps to Nanette’ ” from NPR

Fol­low us @AdamSank, @meriamber, @dannylobell, and @MarkLinsenmayer.

So maybe instead of the “Mac­cabees,” my Bible cam­p’s Pol­ish jokes instead made the “Canaan­ites” the butt of their humor. (Unless that actu­al­ly again refers some mod­ern, extant peo­ple…)

Hear more Pret­ty Much Pop. Sup­port the show and hear bonus talk­ing for this and near­ly every oth­er episode at patreon.com/prettymuchpop or by choos­ing a paid sub­scrip­tion through Apple Pod­casts. This pod­cast is part of the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast net­work.

Pret­ty Much Pop: A Cul­ture Pod­cast is the first pod­cast curat­ed by Open Cul­ture. Browse all Pret­ty Much Pop posts.