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Where we see vulnerability, Frankie Boyle sees a target

Frankie Boyle passes off his jokes about rape and "retards" as satire, but it is just vile with a smile, says Nicky Clark.

By Nicky Clark Published 08 June 2012 12:55

Who's laughing? Photo: Getty Images

What has Frankie Boyle got that Jim Davidson hasn’t? Celebrity friends on Twitter, for a start. These sons of Glaswegians both like to think of themselves as edgy, opposed to political correctness and telling it like it is. If "funny for money" is a spectrum then Jim stays to the right and Frankie stays to the left, but they are in step.   They both have armies of devoted fans ready to pay for the privilege of the comedy of cruelty. They talk about free speech, but I see it as having a higher purpose than ridiculing a glamour model’s children, or making jokes about "special needs".

Whereas Davidson is overt, obvious and blatant in his bigotry, Boyle, like the teacher he wanted to be, is educating us lesser souls that he knows best and we really need to listen. Call it satire, but to me, it’s just vile with a smile.   

The BBC has hosted both of these “comics” and brought their humour to a wider audience. However, that relationship has waned and died in both cases. Boyle wrote a letter detailing how it wasn’t his fault and made a beeline for taboo-busting Channel 4. His new sketch show got several complaints for “jokes” which demonstrate both his favourite topic and some people’s tolerance for cruelty.

In a few short punchy sentences, Frankie realised his talent lay in belittling and dehumanising a blind autistic child, but he packaged this up as a comment about Katie Price's celebrity and called it satire. I’m not sure that’s exactly what people immediately think of when they hear the word satire. I think of iconoclasts, destroyers of pomposity, the pretension of politics laid bare.   Suggesting that an innocent child needs to be prevented from fucking his own mother isn’t exactly an exhaustive deconstruction of our celebrity culture. And suggesting that his mother and step-father were fighting over his custody in a divorce because neither wanted him due to his disability, doesn’t exactly address the issue of a media obsessed with reality TV shows, or the dumbing down of a ratings driven medium. But as I say, we all have our own interpretation of satire. 

 Ultimately, however it’s dressed up, the truth is that where we see vulnerability, Frankie sees a target. He likes the word “retard” which I’m sure he would like us to believe is a statement referencing linguistic oppression. I think he just likes to mock the “weak”.   If he feels oppressed by others asking him not to use it, how does he think it feels to be a learning disabled person having abuse screamed at them in the street? It’s pretty oppressive to be too scared to leave your home, because people who find “Fun Boy” Frankie and his arsenal of barbed comments “hilarious” tend to copy their heroes. School is tough enough when you have a disability. Bullies must bless the day when their scriptwriter got his own show. 

 Gemma Hayter, the woman with learning disabilities ask to drink urine and beaten to death in 2010, could tell Frankie a thing or two about hatred and oppression. I doubt it would make him cry like the documentary on Palestine which brought him to tears. Having clearly learned from the old style bigots, Frankie lets his left-leaning, caring side show so that the obviousness of his bullying gets diluted enough so as to be overlooked in favour of the “good stuff”. Gemma was learning disabled and she found some friends who liked a laugh. They liked it so much that they laughed and laughed as they tortured her to death and then dumped her naked body by a railway line.

Perhaps they didn’t call her “retard” as they tortured her. But it's likely that they did, because hate crimes, as with all bullying, often begin with a “joke” and verbal abuse. It’s unlikely Gemma would have got any of the “jokes” that preceded her murder. She wasn’t cynical or aware enough of her own vulnerability to know the difference between being a friend and being a toy to be played with and then thrown away. To her family, she was a person who mattered not a punchline to a joke. Certainly not “just a retard”.

I suppose the difference is in the detail as you exchange tweets with other celebrities, then tweet rape “jokes” followed by info on rape survivor fundraisers. Smart clever, ironic, satirical even. Bizarrely, the same stars who appear on Comic Relief to tearfully tell us about projects which help disabled children recover from bullying in school seem willing to effectively hold your coat; giving you the credibility to get TV shows commissioned where you can verbally punch disabled people in the face.

Funny ha ha.

The point is, Frankie, when I see your face, all I see is man who knows better, laughing all the way to the bank. All I think of are children, who become adults, who get beaten to death because celebrities like you normalise stigmatising attitudes through bigoted jokes.

Your way is to follow the path of "never apologise, never explain" and certainly don’t change - because just like Jim Davison, you know there’s enormous amounts of money to be made from misery.

I suppose that’s not your problem though, is it? You just make the mess. You can’t be expected to clean it up. 

Or, as the original title of Tramadol Nights put it: Deal with this, retards.

Nicky Clark tweets: @mrsnickyclark

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Tags: comedy

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32 comments

Mon, 2012-06-11 23:17 — Fraziel1

@lorna, it does not matter that you find it offensive and that his joke was aimed at a disabled child. He still has the right to say anything he likes that he thinks might be funny as long as it is not illegal, no matter how distasteful SOME people find it. I do not believe for a second that Frankie Boyle is an evil horrible guy, far from it. As he says many times,they are jokes. He is not like Jim davidson who I am pretty sure actually believes some of the distasteful stuff he says. Do I like Jim Davidson? No, but i would never in a million yrs try and stop him telling his jokes.

The PC left and the middle class daily mail brigade have no right to tell people what is and is not appropriate or what is or is not funny. This is similar to the argument about violent films making people into murdering nutters . If you go out and beat a disabled person to death you are clearly already a disturbed individual with a serious problem and a Frankie Boyle joke or a violent dvd is not to blame.

Wed, 2012-06-13 14:25 — Nicola Clark

It does matter to many learning disabled people it just doesn't matter to you. There is a clear path from laughing at people that runs all the way to hate crime. As uncomfortable as it is for many who aren't troubled by these jokes to accept they are damaging and copied and promoted by those with a very dark agenda. Your own view of free speech miss entirely the point that all tellers of bigoted jokes need to understand the part they play in hate crime. hard to see responsibility as you laugh along but by enabling it you must take your share of the responsibility of it. Hate speech and free speech are some times one and the same. Just without the legislation to prosecute. There should be it's engendering hatred whether you are comfortable with that or not.

Wed, 2012-06-13 14:24 — Nicola Clark

Mon, 2012-06-11 07:54 — Mr.Datchery (not verified)

As his Wikipedia entry states Boyle is a 'recovering alcoholic' or 'dry drunk' if you prefer. In my professional experience of dealing with such people in the past some, not all I would stress, resort to trying to upset as many people as possible as a means of relieving the stress they feel arising from their unsatisfied cravings. This does not excuse them however.

Mon, 2012-06-11 16:18 — Nicola Clark

I don't see the connection myself. Think that just creates a different stigmatising notion. I subscribe to the theory that if you've met one recovering alcoholic, you've met one recovering alcoholic.

Mon, 2012-06-11 06:56 — Colin Sloss (not verified)

I agree fully with Nicky, I wonder if Ch4 has some kind of agenda with Ricky Garvis, although I haven't seen it, strange 'comedy'.

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Sun, 2012-06-10 22:18 — Fraziel1

His jokes about the disabled are a tiny part of his act. Personally i find him extremely funny and part of the humour is that he says what many many people are thinking but are too scared to say out loud for fear of upsetting the politically correct. Katie Price is a foul individual and I won't lose any sleep over the fact that he managed to upset her, after all she does it often enough to other people. To equate Frankie Boyles offensive jokes to a bunch of low iq scum bags that beat a poor girl to death is ludicrous and as one poster said earlier shows a weak argument. Comedians should be able to joke about anything they like, provided it is not illegal. The last thing we need is the thought police telling us what we can and can't find funny.

Mon, 2012-06-11 01:30 — Lorna (not verified)

No what's a weak argument is someone saying deeply offensive comments such as those said by Frankie Boyle, and then when anyone objects to the vileness and raises concerns about potential to influence others, their defenders use the increasingly lame politically correct breaking argument. I'm not a fan of Katie Price in particular but it was her.defenceless disabled son that Frankie attacked with his "humour" how.brave of him. If he has the comic skills that you proclaim then surely they'd be better put to use against the rich & powerful, not defenceless, disabled & vulnerable children.

Sun, 2012-06-10 23:22 — Agent (not verified)

I'm afraid I think you're wrong about this. It is a classic case of deciding the answer you want to arrive at and then creating an argument that fits it, even garnishing it with a misrepresentation of the idea of thought police. Do you really think that saying this comedian should look elsewhere for his 'comic material' is the same as 'a boot stamping on a human face forever'? Nonsense, sorry, but it is.

Sun, 2012-06-10 19:37 — Agent (not verified)

I think the argument in this article is dead right. When the clever talking of edgy comedians translates onto the street it is in quite a different context. People who can hardly string two words together without an 'innit' in between them are suddenly empowered by having a pre-packaged taunt at their disposal.

Sun, 2012-06-10 17:08 — Alex Baldwin

I'm not a fan of Boyle's comedy and I don't think he would necessarily use this justification, but there is an argument to be made for his comedy having a satirical function. In that case, the targets of the satire are not the vulnerable people that he jokes about, but instead the people who write these sorts of articles.

"They talk about free speech, but I see it as having a higher purpose..."

This is the issue, there are (usually) soft constraints on freedom of speech which are usually established as protecting people from being offended (Mill himself was willing to accept cases where liberty should be restricted to avoid great offense, utilitarian as he was). As soon as you step towards having some judgement of when speech should or should not be free that (rightly or wrongly) provokes some people into wanting to lash out against it. Even though the subjects in this article are certainly vulnerable, the people who would like to be able to intervene in cases like these and limit what Frankie can say are quite powerful.

Sun, 2012-06-10 18:07 — Nicola Clark

There is nothing to satirise from "people who write these sorts of articles" in that satirising a hate crime campaigner would be a pointless pursuit unless you were in favour of hate crime ?

In that case satire is by your argument is a justification of censorship which negates free speech that is the soft constraint to which you refer I feel in making the first point. I may be wrong.

Also how does making a joke about a blind child wanting to fuck his mother negate articles referencing a comic making a joke about a blind child wanting to fuck his mother and by extension creating a culture whereby dehumanising crimes against disabled people are made easier.

I apologise but it seems that you contradict yourself in the final paragraph.

Sun, 2012-06-10 18:41 — Alex Baldwin

Thank you for your response. I'm sorry that it seems I was quite possibly being unclear.

The soft constraint is feeling like there are things that you must not say for fear of provoking a backlash of offense. What I meant was that the same (laudable) instinct that motivates you to write an article objecting to Boyle's jokes about the disabled could motivate others to say (as they have before) that he should not joke about the monarchy or the Israel/Palestine situation.

Having this moralising response be to a joke about "a blind child wanting to fuck his mother" rather than some touchy political issues serves an important function, there is no way of responding to the jokes except by repeating their content. The classic example is Boyle managing to get his jokes repeated on Newsnight. The subject matter makes the responses seem inherently ridiculous and thus self-negating. I want to clarify that I mean only the outrageous contents of the joke itself, you have tied that balloon of levity to the lead weight of tragic real events (I do not hold a stance myself on whether your linking of these two things is justified). This I believe is the satirical function.

I would point out that I intend this as a mental exercise ("how could this be satire?") rather than as a defense of Boyle himself (who I imagine would object to me doing so).

Do you feel that offensive satirical comedy can be done well? What is your opinion of Chris Morris's work?

Mon, 2012-07-09 11:27 — Justamom (not verified)

Hateful ridicule translates and permeates throughout society. So yes, tragic real events begin with the acceptance of ridicule and the demeaning of people.

Mon, 2012-07-09 11:10 — Justamom (not verified)

"Retards" are people who have been ridiculed, marginalized, institutionalized and exterminated throughout the history of mankind... you only have to look at life in the past 100 years to know this is true. We have finally come to a crossroad where people with mental disability are getting there proper placement in society, integrated with us all. It makes for a better world when we accept the differences as opposed to continue the stigma of a condition that was born with the individual. "The balloon of levity to the lead weight of tragic real events" tied to the joke itself. Wow. The history of ridicule gets justification because of the satirical function. It is just a joke! Justification for bullies across the globe...it was satire! Not when you are targeting people, young and old, that have been stigmatized throughout time. This is not satire, this is not a joke, this is ridicule of the highest order.

Sun, 2012-06-10 19:20 — Nicola Clark

I think you're attributing too many higher motives .This is the essence of the piece I wrote. His column in The Sun is another case in point where he continues his "satire' odd choice for a lefty don't you think.?

This wasn't a thesis on Satire this was saying "There's the bully don't support him, don't enable him". Excusing what he does as satire is I fear, simply polishing a turd. best Nik

Sun, 2012-06-10 13:55 — Henry Louis (not verified)

I'm not normally one to stand up for Frankie Boyle, once you get over his shock factor there's not much left, but I think you're missing a key part of that kind of humour, which is laughing at something because you're not supposed too. I don't believe that is as cruel as you are suggesting, it's acknowledging the fact that what's being said isn't ok and getting a childish kick out of it. It isn't the best form of humour by a long shot, but I don't believe it'll set people on a path to abuse and murder. Although it may certainly offend and hurt people who have been touched by the topic of the joke, which is a serious criticism.

I find your use of the Gemma Hayter example a little cheap, it could be warranted if Frankie did entire routines about disabled people, but it's a joke or two within a routine that covers the entire spectrum of offensive subjects. The repeated reference to a singular horrific act in order to strengthen your point is an emotionally manipulative tactic, which shows a weak argument.

Sun, 2012-06-10 15:48 — Nicola Clark

I think the fact that the murder of learning disabled people is routinely ignored or provokes lenient sentences and the catalogued road to discrimination via dis-association and dehumanising tactics such as the "just a joke' normalising of hate speech is reason enough to give people pause.

If you need a historical perspective I suggest you google the T4 euthanasia programme.

You may find my explanation and mentioning of Gemma Hayter a "little cheap" I find the bullying of disabled people from "jokes" to murder abhorrent.

It may not have occurred to you that making jokes at the expense of others is a sad pursuit for a grown man- I however respectfully disagree with you.

Mon, 2012-06-11 00:55 — James Rathbone (not verified)

I call Godwin's law!

Sun, 2012-06-10 11:57 — DMyers

OK, you've conflated a barbaric crime with cherry-picked parts of a comedian's material. In effect, you've merely stereotyped Boyle via the examples of his material which suit your argument. How much of his work are you familiar with, or are you the type of person who forms a view through what you read in the papers?

Yes, I think the joke about Harvey Price was out of order, and he should never have said it, but then neither should Channel 4 have broadcast it. You do not mention their responsibility as a broadcaster; and remember how much Channel 4 have done over the years (whether or not we agree with their chosen methods) in terms of championing diversity in Britain. But is such a hysterical personal attack on Boyle really necessary?

Is it really "bullying", or is it merely telling a joke? Where do we draw the line when it comes to ridicule? What are we as adults allowed to laugh at (for whatever reason)? I don't have the answers to these questions, and I don't think you do either.

Mon, 2012-06-11 16:39 — SophiaM (not verified)

Perhaps you should try to calm down before you call people "hysterical", your support of Boyle has clearly made you over-emotional and I think it's clouding your ability to be rational.

Sun, 2012-06-10 13:50 — Nicola Clark

Hysterical personal attack would be a good way of summarising Boyle's material. The attacks on disabled people are personal and his fans find it hysterical.
The wider points of the piece detail the enabling of bullying which his fans support. I think explaining this enabling and the responsibility of C4 lies in the section where I reference the commissioning of his programming.
I feel that the broadcasters of the paralympics should have been circumspect they should never have supported this or other jokes targeting disabled people.
As you agree with me about Harvey Price I think that level accusations of hysteria are unwarranted.
You have read this in an online magazine and drawn your conclusions of me without knowing me so lets tiptoe away from your deconstruction of my argument on those grounds eh? All best Nik

Sat, 2012-06-09 19:13 — Dave_nobody (not verified)

This is a great piece, Nicky. One thing that the likes of Boyle and Davidson don't seem to understand is that abusing the disadvantage for laughs isn't being "edgy," rather it's cowardly. Truly edgy comedians take on those with advantaged lives and power and don't feel the need for an ego boost of a cheap laugh.

What we really need is to get comedians like Francesca Martinez more slots on tv. Perhaps showing that people with disabilities can be funnier than the abusive cretins would go some way to breaking the cycle of prejudice that is all around at the moment.

Sat, 2012-06-09 19:22 — Nicola Clark

Thanks so much Dave Francesca Martinez was fantastic in Grange Hill and Extra's proving that there is an audience for diverse talent included in mainstream programming. Disabled performers need to be much more visible as you say. I launched my Don't play Me Pay Me campaign in 2008 calling for a far greater representation of disabled performers across the board and especially in advertising. I feel that invisible people are far harder to disenfranchise. best Nik

Sat, 2012-06-09 19:15 — Dave_nobody (not verified)

Whoops, sorry for the double post.

Sat, 2012-06-09 19:13 — Dave_nobody (not verified)

Sat, 2012-06-09 18:25 — New Statesman Lorna (not verified)

The "joke" Frankie Boyle made about Katie Prices child was one of the most vile I have ever heard. That Channel 4 allowed it and OFCOM did nothing to afterwards to censure them, is to their eternal shame. Disability hate crime makes me weep every time I hear about another case of it. Nicky is absolutely right to highlight the contribution that "comedy" such as Frankie's makes towards normalising the abuse of disabled & vulnerable people, which can then be a gateway to hate crime.
As Nicky points out, rich pickings for true satire abound; celebs, reality tv, politicians, so why why turn what comic gifts you have against vulnerable & disabled people?

Sat, 2012-06-09 18:47 — Nicola Clark

Thank you so much Lorna. It devastates me too. Fiona Pilkington's case was supposed to be a watershed in support services and in attitudes- when people like Boyle choose to deliberately make disabled children Like Harvey Price his target with the support of The broadcaster of the paralympics backing him you have to question what message they are sending to the vast majority of people and all disabled people. best Nik

Sat, 2012-06-09 17:57 — Andy Clarke (not verified)

An excellent article from Nicky, which has been a long time in coming. Far too often, comedians try to 'push the boundaries' of comedy. In order to do this, some of them find that the more offensive the better. In the case of disability jokes, it's just downright vulgar. The words 'retard', 'spastic', 'spesh' etc. really do wound the victims. Usually, a person with an intellectual disability will already have anxiety and confidence issues. When comedians such as Boyle use these words in their jokes, they undo the progress that a person and their family have made to develop them and give them as ordinary a life as possible. I'm glad that Nicky has written such an important piece!

Sat, 2012-06-09 18:43 — Nicola Clark

Thanks so much Andy the case of Gemma Hayter was one in an increasing number of Hate crime murders of learning disabled people. Sadly few people see the correlation with normalising of hate speech and reinforcing of stigmatising attitudes. It's a great shame he gets any support let alone high profile people. best Nik