Humourless In Tehran?

Those Who Cannot Take It, Probably Shouldn't Be Dishing It Out


Lately, in this part of history, Iranians on the whole are not funny. I can't think of the last home-grown Persian to set the world alight with their wit and humour. Maybe the last one was Darius?
So it comes as no surprise that the Iran Cartoon Organisation 'Hamshari' has organised a (drum roll...) 'Holocaust Cartoon Competition'. I'm actually laughing that they can have such an organisation in a theocratic society. Either the Theocrats aren't doing their jobs properly, or we're talking about a bunch of very unfunny people calling themselves funny. Which is much funnier than the comp itself:

More than 200 Holocaust cartoons from around the world are on display at a museum in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Organisers of the exhibition say they are testing the West's commitment to freedom of speech.

A competition to choose the drawings was announced in February, in response caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by European newspapers.

Israel's Holocaust authority, Yad Vashem, criticised the exhibition, calling it a "flashing red light".

The drawings were chosen from nearly 1,200 entries received from various countries including the United States, Indonesia and Turkey.

One of the cartoons shows the Statue of Liberty holding a book on the Holocaust in one hand and giving a Nazi salute with the other.

Cartoon controversy

The Iran Cartoon Organisation and Hamshahri newspaper are putting on the exhibition.

Organiser Masoud Shojai said: "You see they allow the Prophet to be insulted. But when we talk about the Holocaust, they consider it so holy that they punish people for questioning it."

The publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked protests around the world earlier this year.

Nice. You gotta laugh at the petty tit-for-tat mentality, proivided you still have a sense of humour intact. When you think bout it, I can't see the West getting too hot under the collar about the holocaust given how there has been such a long tradition of anti-semitism there. I think hypocrisy is such a refined art in the West, they will simply shrug this off with a smile.

In that sense the 'Holocaust Cartoon Competition' misses the mark; it merely hits the Jews. What they should have organised was a cartoon competition lampooning Jesus and Christianity; except there's a very long tradition of that in the West already.
Either way what is not funny, is not funny; it doesn't necessarily mean we can't take a joke. It would've been so good if they could have come up with something funny.

Freedom of Speech is a rather big tree to try and cut down with a theocratically-sponsored cartoon organization.

Laughing Off The Holocaust

The cutting edge of comedy is elsewhere.

LONDON (Reuters) - Two stand-up comics accused of making light of the Holocaust at the Edinburgh Fringe festival hit back at their critics on Tuesday, igniting a debate about where, if anywhere, to draw the line in comedy.

The famously irreverent Fringe is renowned for over-the-top humour, and this year religion has been a popular target of ridicule in a trend welcomed by commentators arguing for freedom of speech over religious sensitivity.

But Jamie Glassman, a Jewish comedy writer who has worked on the often outrageous "Da Ali G Show", said at least two comedians had gone too far and reflected broader anti-Jewish sentiment at the festival which he called "shocking".

"Stand-up comedy is as good a prism as any through which to look at the changing attitudes in our society," Glassman wrote in the Times newspaper on Tuesday.

"If my past few days are anything to go by then it is becoming increasingly acceptable to hate the Jews. Again."

One Edinburgh comedian singled out in the article was Reginald D. Hunter, an African-American with a show called "Pride and Prejudice and Niggas".

At one point Hunter says he should go to Austria, where it is illegal to deny the Holocaust, get arrested for saying Germany's genocide against Jews did not happen, and tell the judge he was talking about the Rwandan holocaust all along.

"The joke isn't about the Jews, it is about freedom of thought and freedom of expression," Hunter told Reuters.

He referred to the Holocaust as "one of those things considered to be off-limits; that's what I'm poking fun at.

"There have been loads of holocausts. Jews have the honour of having their Holocaust known as the Holocaust and that's fine. That's the way the world works."

Hunter said he found it "amazing" Glassman could extract anti-Semitism from his act.

Also criticised was Australian Steve Hughes, whose show "Storm" includes a gag that indirectly equates playing cowboys and Indians to playing Nazis and Jews.

Glassman recounted how at the show he attended audience members shouted "Throw them in the oven" in response to the joke, but Hughes defended his routine and said his remarks were taken out of context. He said the actual joke was:

"I grew up playing cowboys and Indians, which as an adult I can see is very strange; that you market the genocide of an indigenous people as a game for kids.

"Australians are far from perfect - I've never played Cops and Aboriginals, and you wouldn't play Nazis and Jews!"

Hughes added that he was not responsible for what hecklers shouted during his act.

But he did apologise for describing Richard Perle, formerly chairman of the Defence Policy Board Advisory Committee under George W. Bush's administration, as "that fucking Jew".

They should be inviting the Iranians just to show them where the Western comic sensibility is actually at right now.