The PC and Perpetually Offended Brigade

[Ollkiller]

The brother sent me this "article" at lunch time with the accompanying text "The fuckin' state of this!"

https://www.sundayworld.com/showbiz/irish-showbiz/tommy-tiernan-blasted-by-rte-star-for-vile-and-racist-joke-about-zoo-animals/591282688.html

My choice cut from this report is the offended person stating "My anxiety is through the roof, heart racing, feel sick, can't eat, can't sleep, go outside." after attending the Tommy Tiernan gig.

Shes not offended. Shes just using it to get her name out there. And it's a shit joke anyway.

[Carnage]

Saw that the other day, ridiculous. It's a shite joke (he's not that funny TBH) but come on. Someone wants to get her name in the headlines.

Edit: Snap!

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

It'd be good if we had the joke verbatim, cos the way it's retold there just doesn't make sense/isn't made up of proper sentences.

[StoutAndAle]

It'd be good if we had the joke verbatim, cos the way it's retold there just doesn't make sense/isn't made up of proper sentences.

Agreed.

I saw him do the gag before Xmas - it wasn't that funny (I would butcher it if I tried to retell the joke now) and it's fairly tame by most standards. It has a fairly necessary visual component to make it work it as well.

Then again after seeing hundreds of live stand-up gigs here, in the UK and in the US, I'm probably fairly battle-worn. That and being of the opinion that there's very little that a joke can't be made about.

Come to think of it - there's another joke in Tiernan's latest show that I could see might cause "outrage" more than the one in question here. That one is actually funny and had 90% of the theatre rolling in the aisles whilst the remainder were looking around to see if anyone could see how incredulous and upset they were.   

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

But like, did he make an analogy between a specific African animal and taxi drivers? Cos, if your set-up is; step 1) a zoo animal compared to a type of person; step 2) a zoo animal compared to a type of person; step 3) a type of person being exhibited in the zoo instead of an animal, then... eh... your joke format is fucked, and you've just portrayed African people as zoo exhibits, which is really not a great place to go at all at all, especially if your joke is shit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo

[StoutAndAle]

But like, did he make an analogy between a specific African animal and taxi drivers? Cos, if your set-up is; step 1) a zoo animal compared to a type of person; step 2) a zoo animal compared to a type of person; step 3) a type of person being exhibited in the zoo instead of an animal, then... eh... your joke format is fucked, and you've just portrayed African people as zoo exhibits, which is really not a great place to go at all at all, especially if your joke is shit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_zoo

From memory - the premise starts with him talking about being born in Donegal. At age three he had to movie to Zambia with his family because his father took up a teaching post there - he worked for Teagasc.

"Imagine it! Fuckin'... imagine it! Speaking in a Donegal accent. In fucking ZAMBIA!" then Tommy does the Donegal accent.

At age 7 he ends up in London where his father is posted. A posh British schoolteacher asks him to introduce himself to the class so he stands up and in very broad African accent says "Ma' name uz Tommy Tiernan. How do you do?"

"Then! My old man gets sent home to Navan! FUCKING NAVAN! I go to school and say 'Awight mate, 'ow yew doin' me old chinah?' and they kick the shite out of me while roaring 'Brits out! Brits out!"

He says that he remembers his school days as he's taking his granddaughter around Dublin Zoo. The penguins are like nuns shuffling about with rosary beads and the African wildcats are like lads that he went to school with in Zambia. He does this bit of physical acting-out - up on his haunches looking in the distance, then peeking over his shoulder, looking ahead, back over his shoulder "Tommy! Uz that you! I know you, don't I!" - like the taxi driver that brought him to the zoo.

EDIT - Like I said - I've probably butchered it.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Well, not as much as it's been butchered in the social media posts or articles! Told like that, it at least makes sense

[Ollkiller]

That puts it in a totally different light. He doesn't give a fuck anyway. He got into bother a few years back about a down syndrome joke (which again was taken totally out of context) and it didnt harm his career then and more than likely wont now.

[Eoin McLove]

These woke rejects are practitioners of hot air. You just wait five minutes and the storm of pretend outrage evaporates. It's too much work to scream and rage about nothing in more than one or two directions at any given time. Trust me, I've tried.

[StoutAndAle]

Tommy Tiernan emailed the offended party (they both work for RTÉ) and apologised for any offence caused.

She posted the email on her Instagram.

No class whatsoever.

Comedy as an art-form is fucked. 

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Won't change too much in your conclusion, but it was mainly a phone call, and she didn't post the email to her instagram, just a post about the email, nothing quoted from it.

Still haven't seen anyone who was at the actual gig recalling whether Tommy told the joke more or less as he did the night you saw him Stout, or whether he botched it on the night she was there, dropping the context that made it make sense. Certainly the one time I saw him live, he botched the entire first half of the set.

[Carnage]

She's demanding a public apology from him now. Like you said: no class. But, she's keeping her name in the papers, so job done.

[StoutAndAle]

Won't change too much in your conclusion, but it was mainly a phone call, and she didn't post the email to her instagram, just a post about the email, nothing quoted from it.

Still haven't seen anyone who was at the actual gig recalling whether Tommy told the joke more or less as he did the night you saw him Stout, or whether he botched it on the night she was there, dropping the context that made it make sense. Certainly the one time I saw him live, he botched the entire first half of the set.

Oh right - I got the impression that she had posted the email from the report that I (half) read.

The email read: "Dear Emer, I'm so sorry about the hurt that a joke I told at Vicar Street on Friday night has caused you. It was never my intention for this to happen and I take full responsibility for it. It was dropped immediately from the set.

"I'm sorry that you came along hoping for a good night out and then got shocked and upset by something that I said. If you wish to speak with me about it, please send me your phone number. You were right to call it out as offensive and I will do my level best to make sure that something like this never happens again. Yours, Tommy Tiernan."


As for the joke - I think that Tommy might be falling back into old habits - but I'm no expert.

However, I do think that I re-told his gag faithfully enough from when I saw it in Waterford late last year. Maybe he fucked it up on the night or he forgot the tags that lead up to it - a comedian of his skill can drop the ball the odd time - but I find that people, if they choose to be offended, only remember/re-tell the questionable bit.

Like when people do painfully bad versions of Billy Connolly bits back to you or like the old Eddie Murphy bit from "Raw" regarding Bill Cosby scolding him.

'What did the man say on the stage?'

'Pop, he walks out and he goes: "Hello, suck this, and MF and kiss my big black stuff. "And suck it and stick it down in your mouth and suck it, suck it."'

"You cannot say filth, flarn, filth, flarn, filth in front of people."

And I got mad. Because he thought that was my whole act. Like I just walked out on-stage and cursed and left. I manage to stick in some jokes between the curses. You couldn't give no curse show. Walk out, say, "Hey, Felt Forum, "motherfucker, dick, pussy, snot and shit. Good night. "Good night. Suck my dick. Bye-bye."

[Caomhaoin]

The apologising never works, it only encourages cunts more. I'm no fan of Jeremy Clarkson, but he's apologised twice for what he wrote about what's her face, fuckin' Megan, and he's still for the chop. Ralph Cifaretto too.

[Carnage]

Ralph Cifaretto too.

Took me a minute to make the connection. Well played, sir.