Leon Hunt

Near the knuckle? It nearly took my arm off! British comedy and the ‘new offensiveness’

ABSTRACT This essay examines the politics of ‘offensive’ comedy both in the aftermath of ‘Sachsgate’ and in the light of what Brian Logan called a ‘new offensiveness’ in which ‘all the bigotries and the misogyny you thought had been banished forever from mainstream entertainment have made a startling comeback’. The essay argues that there needs to be a critical position that avoids both Daily Mail-style outrage and the unreflexive assumption that ‘edgy’ comedy is by definition subversive, particularly during a period that seemed to invite a taking of sides. It looks at the new sensitivity created by ‘Sachsgate’, with particular reference to some of the controversial jokes told by Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle during this period. Given that some of these jokes, far from being subversive, ‘kicked down’ (to use Pickering and Littlewoods phrase), it asks: what is the difference between an ‘offensive’ comedy that can be recuperated as edgy or challenging and the kind of humour that is dismissed as simply reactionary and lowest common denominator?