Freedom of speech
Opinion
Did you hear the one about the ‘ugly’ disabled singer?
Do you think it’s OK to say someone’s ugly? Not to their face (if you could bear it), but in a context they might hear about. Or on TV, which might be saying it to their face if their face happened to be watching it on TV and the screen didn’t shatter. Some people would say it isn’t OK. Others would say it is. The rest of us would be a lot better off without either of those groups, in my opinion.
What I think the rest of us would say is, “It depends on your definition of ‘OK’.” If we take “OK” to mean “nice”, “polite”, “admirable” or “kind”, then it isn’t. But if, by OK, we simply mean “legal”, then of course it’s OK. And quite right too. It may not be a pleasant thing to do, the rest of us would say, but it should certainly be allowed.
Well, it’s not allowed in Canada. Comedian Mike Ward has just been fined $42,000 by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal for a comic riff at the expense of Jérémy Gabriel, a young disabled singer, which culminated in the line: “I didn’t know what illness he had, so I Googled it and it turns out he’s just ugly.” Ward is incensed by the ruling and has responded with an Edinburgh fringe show, entitled “Freedom of Speech Isn’t Free”. Neither is putting on an Edinburgh fringe show, if memory serves me right. If I were his bank manager, I’d text him the first rule of holes.
more laffs
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...omedian-ugly-jeremy-gabriel-freedom-of-speech
Opinion
Did you hear the one about the ‘ugly’ disabled singer?
Do you think it’s OK to say someone’s ugly? Not to their face (if you could bear it), but in a context they might hear about. Or on TV, which might be saying it to their face if their face happened to be watching it on TV and the screen didn’t shatter. Some people would say it isn’t OK. Others would say it is. The rest of us would be a lot better off without either of those groups, in my opinion.
What I think the rest of us would say is, “It depends on your definition of ‘OK’.” If we take “OK” to mean “nice”, “polite”, “admirable” or “kind”, then it isn’t. But if, by OK, we simply mean “legal”, then of course it’s OK. And quite right too. It may not be a pleasant thing to do, the rest of us would say, but it should certainly be allowed.
Well, it’s not allowed in Canada. Comedian Mike Ward has just been fined $42,000 by the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal for a comic riff at the expense of Jérémy Gabriel, a young disabled singer, which culminated in the line: “I didn’t know what illness he had, so I Googled it and it turns out he’s just ugly.” Ward is incensed by the ruling and has responded with an Edinburgh fringe show, entitled “Freedom of Speech Isn’t Free”. Neither is putting on an Edinburgh fringe show, if memory serves me right. If I were his bank manager, I’d text him the first rule of holes.
more laffs
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...omedian-ugly-jeremy-gabriel-freedom-of-speech
