Jim Carrey Is an Insensitive Slimeball, According to Some Hindus!

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So Jim managed to piss off over a billion people with a skit mocking Lord Ganesh, an Indian deity.

I don't find such humor funny, if you want the truth. I stopped watching SNL over 10 years ago. It is insulting, ignorant, and lacking in civility for such material to be created and aired.

That said, I cannot help but point out that on a regular basis Christianity is mocked on the airwaves. If THAT is protested, then the protestors are merely dismissed out of hand as loonies. Free speech is held up as the most important principle ever. I do not see these protestors being called down and insulted the way that I've seen Christian protestors called down.

So what's LKD saying? In an ideal world, people would respect each others' religions and religious symbols. And all other symbols, too, like flags and such. Whens someone insulted ANY belief of others, there would be solidarity expressed for the target and people would then just get over it and move on without trying to stifle the free speech of others. Instead, we have all beliefs being equal, but some beliefs being more equal than others.

 

Jim Carrey absolutely kills me in films. I've not seen an unfunny comedy with him in it yet.

 

Have you seen what the muslim protestors who resented the Muhammed cariactures were called? I for one think it is more than ok to mock and belittle all deities and faiths.

To Barmy: Cable Guy

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.

 

And Orlan in Hungary has given the press strict instructions to not print anything about the entire skit... citing Hungarian media law of course.

 

Joacqin, at least you are consistent, then. We should either be consistent in allowing all faiths to be lampooned, or clamp down on it completely. The double standard I see is what really aggravates me. As it stands, the big one on the block (in N.A., anyhow) is always being demeaned, yet if the same is done to another religion there's a completely different response.

I'll say this for the Hindu complainants, though -- they are not threatening violence or assassination. Good on them there.

And lest I be misunderstood, I have no problem with people expressing the fact they are offended. I just have a problem with the response made by society in general based on who the offended party is.

EDIT:

could a mod or Tal please fix the ridiculous typo in the thread title?

 

Jim Carrey is an idiot, according to anyone with a brain.

Also:

 

What??? Blasphemers! Cable Guy was excellent. Mathew Broderick is unfunny. Jim Carey played an excellent nerdy-stalker type.

 

Cable Guy had its funny moments, but overall it was more disturbing than it was funny. Jim Carrey's character had waaay too many psychological issues, and I think people tend to get creeped out by his character more than they do laugh at it.

 

Creeped-out? His character talked with a lisp. Who would be afraid of a guy with a lisp? I loved the Medieval Times scene. It cracked me up when his character just kept singing his own background music while trying to thrash Broderick. Frigging hilarious.

 

I must agree, I thought Cable Guy was absolutely hilarious! Very strong humor in that one.

 

I spotted a typo, which means you lie.

And also: Clearly, Hungarians don't need to know that. And they have elected a party that makes those decisions for them.

 

Ok

Look here, now this is funny. This video I think is some Indian news television showing jim carrey in the background while they talk all hindu serious....

 

Thanks Tal, I tested it out, and by Ganesh, you're right!

Camel, first off, welcome (belatedly) to the boards, and secondly, thanks for the video clip. It was cool. I hadn't seen the skit, and it reinforced my conviction that such humor is in bad taste, though I can see how if it was late night Saturday I might find it sorta funny.

 

I can't really say if I thought the show itself was funny, because I've only seen these clips here. But, I thought this whole news thing was kinda funny

And I do not condone any sort of ridicule of Indian deities, which i certainly hope he wasn't doing.

 

Well, I do not believe Saturday Night Live, or Jim Carrey, meant to be mean spirited about the skit. The point of that show is to make people laugh. Personally, I think there's humor in just about everything, if we look for it, including our religions.

I'm a Christian and I don't get offended when Southpark shows Jesus Christ as an inept talk show host who can't control his audience. Everything on that show is fair game for some ribbing. It's meant to make people laugh, not to be mean. I find it's best to take it in the spirit intended. It's similar with Saturday Night Live. That show has always found humor in the worst human situations, not necessarily in a mocking way, but often in a "we need to deal with this somehow" kind of way. They made us laugh after the 9/11 attacks. They will try to make us laugh pretty much whereever and however they can. That, I applaud.

I guess that I can't expect that everyone will see the humor in what Jim Carrey did (and I didn't actually see the full skit either, so I can't comment on how funny/unfunny it was). But I don't believe any of it was intended in a mean spirited way. I doubt they will try such a trick in the future where the hindu religion is concerned, as they're not out to make people hate them (quite the contrary).

 

Despite the fact that South Park constantly harps that there should be NO barriers when it comes to comedy, I believe that some things should not be mocked in some ways. I believe there are boundaries of good taste.

However, I believe that the free market should determine where those boundaries are (when it comes to humor). That is to say, I do not think it is the place of the FCC or the CBSC or other groups to censor humorous content. However, if sufficient people are offended, they should do the following things, all of which are, I believe, legal in most Western societies:

1: Write a letter to the network outlining their feelings and why they are offended. CC the letter to the advertisers of the program and the shows producers.

2: State that the author of the letter will boycott the products of the advertisers if changes aren't made.

3: Follow through with actual boycotts, and gather with like minded people to peacefully protest the content.

If people do this, I may think they are thin skinned (depending on the content) but they aren't doing anything undemocratic, illegal, or immoral. It's when people start threatening violence that I advocate becoming even more offensive, just to show them that violence will NOT be tolerated as a means of self expression.

Part of being a good neighbour, though, IMHO is going beyond the letter of the law and trying to understand the feelings of your fellow citizens. It means showing respect for those whose opinions and beliefs differ from yours, even if you think those beliefs are ridiculous. As long as those beliefs don't entail harming others or stifling them, then it is better, I think, for people to be nice rather than cruel or condescending.

 

People don't have a right not to be offended. Carey and SNL didn't set out to insult Hindu people, they were trying to be funny to an American audience, a small portion of which is Hindu. That they did so at the expense of the Hindu faith is, sure, tasteless and insensitive, but comedy is often tasteless and insensitive, and better for it.

You have to consider the speaker as well as the audience. The West is far more tolerant of mocking directed toward our dominant faiths, Christianity and/or Judaism. This is partly because the mocking is often done by Christians and Jews themselves. Hindus and Muslims are a different story; both culturally and religiously speaking, questioning or mocking the faith or it's icons in any way is considered very offensive. But that's their culture, not ours. Had Carey and SNL performed said skit in southern Asia, where the intended audience would be majority Hindu, I could see them taking it as a direct insult. Carey and SNL were insensitive to them, certainly, but they've shown insensitivity to just about every group or ethnicity at various points in their respective history (and shown deference, too). It's our style of comedy, and at most maybe Carey and SNL should acknowledge that they understand it isn't theirs. Beyond that, they have nothing to apologize for. At the end of the day, we're talking about jokes, not deliberate provocation.