Picture by Dead Dog Barking
I used to have no doubts. I’d quote the Roman playwright Terence: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto” – “I am human, and nothing of that which is human is alien to me.” For a writer, no area or approach to an area of human experience should be out of bounds.
Which brings us to Frankie Boyle. The comedian has been invited to appear at the Féile An Phobail this year. In fact his appearance will be one of the highlights of the Féile. One problem: Boyle has made fun of Down’s Syndrome children and a number of parents of Down’s Syndrome children are very upset.
“Féile say one of their aims is to promote social inclusion and celebrate diversity – is this booking then not contradictory?” asked Julie Farrelly. “So many parents from our group are upset by the fact Frankie Boyle has been booked by the Festival and we think it is in the poorest taste.” She says she’s always been supportive of the Feile but “the verbal equivalent of kicking a disabled child around the playground won’t do any more.”
Mmm. By and large I think we’re far too PC about a number of things. Comedians have to be daring, willing to say things that make you clutch your chest and say “OMG – that was a bit near the knuckle!” If they don’t they’re often pretty useless comedians. Just as writers who hang back from tackling an unfashionable topic will inevitably be ineffectual writers. But I can’t get that last Julie Farrelly comment out of my head: “The verbal equivalent of kicking a disabled child around the playground”.
When I was young, it was seen as just good sport to imitate the way people talked or walked or generally behaved. The most obvious targets were those who had a speech defect, or who were physically or mentally deficient. How we all laughed! Looking back, it was of course a cruel and cowardly form of bullying. Nobody can help the way s/he looks, no one can control the degree to which s/he has or has not certain physical or mental abilities. So it seems a bit callous to mock them for things which place them at a disadvantage and over which they have no control.
So is that hobbling comedians or artists? Well, it is saying that some areas of life must be protected from mockery. You could, of course, create a fictional character who mocked those weaker or different from the rest of us. But even then, such a character would have to be depicted for what s/he is: a nasty bully.
Given the wonderful variety and profusion of targets in the world, where people are responsible for what they say and do, it doesn’t seem unfair to protect the defenceless against attack.
So have the Féile organisers got it wrong? I don’t know, in that I don’t know the range of Frankie Boyle’s comic repertoire. Maybe he’s capable of setting an audience in a roar with his comments on all sorts of other aspects of life. If that’s not the case – if mocking Down’s Syndrome children is an integral part of his stage-show – then I’d say the Feile organisers were wrong to invite him, Boyle is wrong to include such elements in his stage act, and audiences are wrong to pay money to listen to such nastiness.
Even though I still think the Terence line is a very good guide as to the territory a writer should have available.
I think Frankie Boyle’s outrageous comments, and general “I don’t give a fuck what you think” attitude is what makes him hilarious as a comedian, yeah sure his comments regarding down syndrome people in particular were pretty wrong, but do think it shouldn’t effect his booking at the Feile. Though I myself am staying away from the front row lol.
Thought I had seen something on facebook indicating this comedian or another was not going to be invited to take part in Feile because of the comments with regards to disability. Did anyone else see that?
theres a better comedian on the next night,the chief constable ,
In spite of his offensiveness I like Frankie Boyle. He is articulate, clever & attacks the establishment & with it some of our own smugness using ‘humour’ in its broadest sense.
He does not cuddle up to the great & the good like so many comedians. He is his own man and in today’s culture of toadying & bland acceptance of the status quo that can only be a good thing.
Perhaps as you suggest Jude, sometimes a society’s accepted values need to be challenged so that they can be exposed & questioned. If not, perhaps gays would still be in prison & single mothers still social outcasts.
Having said that I think he may have gone too far along that road with the Downs Syndrome incident.
However he is a father himself & brings young children onto the stage in his TV show on BBC. His treatment of those children shows a sensitivity beyond the foul mouthed public persona.
We need more Frankie Boyles.
I find it particularly distasteful to laugh or make fun of people with afflictions,disabilities etc ( mental or otherwise ) or anyone who doesn’t fit into the ” norm ” I have known people with Down’s syndrome and have found them to be unselfishly loving and kind and certainly undeserving of ridicule . If Frankie Boyle cannot make comedy without insulting or debasing the ones in society that we all should , in theory , be protecting the most then I would suggest a career change .I think we can too easily let ourselves be dehumanized and forget our spiritual nature…Laughter is certainly a great medicine and is too be encouraged at every juncture ,and we can find plenty to laugh about without resorting to playground snideness.
I never heard the comments he made about Down syndrome but comedians just like eg Tommy tiernan stress beforehand before they come on stage that their act is for the thick skinned. People who go to these shows know that nothing is out of bounds, that’s their pull.
I have heard Boyle do serious interviews and he strikes me as a down to earth man. In fact he has done more than most to highlight the corrupt regimes that run these islands which can’t be a bad thing? I would guess that’s why he hasn’t been on the BBC for a long time and isn’t the darling of the media ie he has consistently mocked and highlighted the hypocrisy of politicians and their lying ways.
The same people who want him banned probably wouldn’t miss a chance to take a selfie with Barack Obama or some other more damaging politician. They fail to see far more hurtful people right under their noses.
I would rather listen to Boyle,tiernan etc than that BBC darling michael McIntyre any day. I have my tickets for the feile and am looking forward to it.
Funnily enough, none of the protestors know what exactly he said either. That has no effect on their outrage.
Its quite a simple question really should Feile, the community’s festival endorse an act that seeks to verbally attack the some of the weakest and most most vulnerable children in our community? Not if it believes its own mission statement ” to promote social inclusion and celebrate diversity” Feile is great event and good for Belfast, this act which mocks , denegrates and insults children with Down Syndrome is not and has no place at a community festival that truely seeks to include and celbrate all .
Jude,
To really have an informed discussion on the issue you should really include what exactly was said by this comedian and in what context it was said. I wasn’t at the concert to hear the comments nor was I able to view it anywhere to make a reasoned evaluation of it but I was able to read an interview on which he spoke about it – I have included his comments on it below.
Frankie Boyle –
“I did a routine about Downs Syndrome that got a lot of flack. The point was that having Downs Syndrome isn’t a big deal, it’s probably worse if you have much older parents, than if you have Downs. In a weird way, it was supposed to be an empowering routine. But this woman at a show got upset about it, partly because she wasn’t listening, she and her husband were checking their phones and I’m like ‘what are you doing?’. I guess they were just not listening. The routine was about older parents buying their Down Syndrome kids out of date presents, and they thought I was saying Down Syndrome kids all have out of date clothes or something. And a whole load other people who didn’t hear that routine have to relate to it by its status: ‘I’ve heard that you said a bad thing’ which is sort of like ‘I’ve heard that this record isn’t that good, but I’ve not listened to it’. That’s how we relate to the world; through a web of status. It’s increasingly ill informed because there’s so much information now and so little time to process it.”
I believe in making my own mind up and not having people who have put their own interpretations of an event to help make my mind up for me!
Frankie Boyle has few friends in the Murdock media who he has critiqued in his sets for their hypocrisy and for mainstream political establishment figures who has been equally outspoken on. He can hardly expect a fair hearing from them but he may get a fairer hearing from people who have tasted unbalanced reporting – say Sinn Fein and the Irish Independent!
The fact that Mr Boyle may not care what people think at present, reminds me of, who was it who wrote, “I hope I die before I get old!!” He changed his mind relatively quickly. It is better to laugh with people, not at them.
“A society which discards those who are weak and non-productive risks exaggerating the development of reason, organisation, aggression and the desire to dominate. It becomes a society without a heart, without kindness – a rational and sad society, lacking celebration, divided within itself and given to competition, rivalry and finally, violence.” Jean Vanier
Sounds like England governed by Tories and that is no laughing matter either.
Good quality comedy, in my view, should be intelligent and thought provoking. I don’t think comments about the disabled are either. They are cheap shots that amount to nothing more than bullying of the most vulnerable people in our society. Frankie Boyle does no favours to himself our his comedy which can be insightful and cutting at edge at times.There have been elements in the media that have attemtpted to villify the objectors to this act, and indeed on this blog, by using unfounded stereotypes which is unfortunate. This issue has highlighted issues relating to Féile and the monicker they have bestowed upon themselves as the “Festival of the People”. They are, in my opinion, condoning verbal attacks on the most vulnerable in society by extension. Féile would never hire the services of someone that made racist, anti-semmitic, homophobic jokes but yet it’s ok to get a few laughs at the expense of the disabled? Féile have stated that they treat all complaints seriously but as this affair has played out publicly it has become increasingly clear that they did not take this compalint seriously intitially. They released a statement that amounted to waffle in attempt to fob-off the objectors and any vestiges of sincerity that was contained within that statment were totally undermined by a tweet by a senior employee of Féile from his Féile account. Their handling of the whole affair to date has smacked of arrogance. I believe they are taking this complaint seriously now. In their quest to become bigger they have failed to become better. The pursuit of profit and prestige has left Féile out of touch with the community they claim to represent. I believe Féile are at a cross-roads, they can re-connect with the community in a real and meaningful way and return to being a true community festival or remain on their current trajectory and become just another festival in a park.
Ciarán – I accept most of what you say. What I should have stressed more in my blog was that I didn’t hear what Boyle had to say about people with Down’s Syndrome. Until that is made clear (habeas corpus?), then it’s unfair to judge him either way. And yes, tá bron orm, mea culpa, etc.
I’m an adult and more than capable of making up my own mind as to whether I attend a stand up gig or not.
Jude, a quick search online will soon resolve that for you.
Cal I know several people attending, I will be appealling to them not to. If they decide to attend I will not be falling out with them over it. As you quite rightly state, they’re adults and can make up their own minds. That does not however stop me from tryng to persuade people through, as I see it, the strength of my arguments. How others view those arguements are a matter personal to themselves and they should act according to their own conscience at all times.
Ciarán, maybe you could tell everybody what exactly he did say in context which has upset so many people because people here, I am sure, are wary of making judgements about people without hearing the full facts!
Pointis – here is a link which I’m told contain his offending piece. Whether it’s the only one I don’t know. I think if I’d a Down’s Syndrome child I’d be a bit insulted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=BL8gl_6zhI8&app=desktop
Yes Jude I think your link certainly provides clarity to the act of contention. I agree with you wholeheartedly the piece was tasteless, vulgar and abusive and I didn’t see any comedy value in it. I think some of his audience seem quite shocked by the remarks.
I don’t think it’s a good position to insult Downs Syndrome children, although from what i’ve read so far i’m not 100 percent sure that is what this comedian did.Like most of us here , we heard it as a news story some time ago…something a little sensationalist for the readers or listeners …something to get the dogs barking.As you say , Jude , we live in different times .I can remember the fat kid being badly treated …the gay fella being called “a fruit”…. the black man being referred to a “darkie”. A tightwad was called “an Ould Jew”…..Schoolboy humour at its cruellest fifty or sixty years ago. The times are supposed to be more enlightened but they’re not really.We just had a peace activist, ex-RUC policeman busted for racism on the Paris Metro….just this week.So not much really changes, does it?
For anyone with a Downs Syndrome kid ..and I personally know one good friend with her lovely son, it is an insult and it is humour taken one step too far.It’s too sensitive and it is kicking the most vulnerable if that is what is being done.Highly developed sense of humour or not , I’d find any of those kinds of jokes distasteful. Mind you , i wouldn’t ban a comedian for making his observations and “jokes”.I’d let him get on with it, but i wouldn’t be joining in the “fun”.Like banning anything, I don’t think it’s such an enlightened idea….should it be a play that mocks the Bible or a magazine that pokes fun at religion, I would rather the potential audience decided with their feet and their pockets.
You’ll never get me into a Willie Mc Crea concert, for example… but who knows , maybe that’s my loss.
Frankie Boyle is a comedian. Its important to think about what that means and what it involves. He isn’t the first, nor will he be the last, to make fun of people/topics that most people will find disgraceful, in public anyway, but yet maybe have a sneaky laugh behind closed doors. Its similar to political correctness, most people have views on certain topics that they wont air in public due to it maybe not being “politically correct”.
My mother worked with Down Syndrome children for around 5 years quite a while ago. She found the job very rewarding and the children far more intelligent than most people would give them credit for. I remember she brought me in as a child to meet them and play with them. I even have a Down Syndrome friend who lived in my grandmothers street and whom I still see every now and then when I visit my grandmother.
Despite all this, I will admit that Frankie Boyle is maybe my favourite comedian, its a choice between him and Kevin Bridges. I haven’t heard the joke Frankie made about Down Syndrome children but I did hear the joke he made about model, celebrity Jordan’s son Harvey and I will admit I laughed at it and found it very funny. I know some people will find me laughing disgraceful but my reply to that is I’m just being honest and I’m only human. Even though I haven’t heard the joke yet, I’ll be confident that I will find Frankies joke on Down Syndrome children funny, that’s despite my history of associating with Down Syndrome people. I’d like to note that im not laughing AT them, I’m just laughing at the joke, just like I have laughed at jokes from comedians about Irish people, yet I am Irish myself. Its only a joke and its important not to take things too seriously and to loosen up.
Its also important to note that Frankie Boyle is an intelligent man. He knows how to get himself noticed and to get his gigs sold out and this is how: to get people talking about him. Should Féile An Phobail have invited him? Well if you use that logic then the question should be asked if Frankie Boyle should be a comedian at all anymore and should ditch it due to a few offensive jokes? My own personal opinion is Frankie should be invited and should attend and you can be certain his gig will be packed to the limit.
Frankies parents is Irish, who were born in Donegal but moved to Scotland. So in many ways this is like Frankie coming home and i’m certain he’ll receive a very warm welcome despite his offensive jokes.
here is some of Frankies other “offensive jokes” that got him a lot of bad press and abuse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMBPVNNqVc
Perhaps the position is best summed up in Laurence Whites article in today’s Belfast Telegraph
“The Feile has always had a strong Sinn Fein influence and it is a party that is not easily swayed.It is also adept at gauging the public mood,if it is felt that Boyles appearance will not damage the party’s standing in its heartland,then he will be on the stage on August 7th”
Interesting that Cllr Tom Hartley(who has a Down’s syndrome brother) is among the protesters.
Argenta the Feile has a strong SF influence that my friend is an understatement.
Could you explain that, neill?
Ask your old friend Danny Morrison I am quite sure he will fill you in on how large SF`s role in the Feile was….
But I thought you knew – is that not your implication in that post?
Great article Jude Collins. Thank you for giving your thoughts on the subject….My little girl has Downs. Evidence of this mans material is easily found searching google news or YouTube….
My ask of Feile is based solely on his use and failure to apologise (and so stop using), material targeting Downs, or any other person incapable of changing their makeup. I’m do not judge Feiles booking of Frankie Boyle on anything else. How funny or satirical his other material, how left of centre his politics or how good a person he is, is beside the point….I don’t wish to demonise him or Feile or cast a view on any other aspect of this man…just ask him to desist from mockery of those unable to change their makeup or defend themselves….their plight is hard eno. This is not close to the bone humour or satirical …it’s bullying. These groups cannot defend themselves against the prejudice that follows such an event…..they need society to defend them….I choose to speak out and say it’s unacceptable to me and ask society to take a stand..its no joke. Stop such cowardly words being normalised. I am sure he has many great talents and gifts to offer society – this isn’t one of them….apologise, desist from revisiting and I’d willingly leave Feile to host him. Each of us has a choice, stand with the vulnerable attacked, and build a better world that wouldn’t dream of attacking these kids, stand with the man and his behaviour or look the other way…if I can’t influence Frankie Boyle, my next best option is to influence Feile, to not fund/reward him
For what its worth I agree with you Rois to attack those who are weaker than you and not able to defend themselves is beyond contempt Feile has displayed some poor taste here
All I can say is, if you have children with the syndrome, then it`s probably better you don`t go to the show. Also, don`t attend if you belong to any of the following groups in society….
Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, old, monarchist, overweight, poor, rich, celebrity…….
Where else would you see quotes from the Roman playwright Terence eh? Go on, admit it, NOWHERE.
Whatever you might think of Frankie Boyle, he’s hit the nail on the head with this piece –
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/27/labour-is-now-so-passive-it-might-as-well-be-led-by-an-out-of-office-email
Strange that there was no protests against the appearances in Belfast of Jeremy Clarkson and Prince Philip both of whom have said very offensive things on more than one occasion.