Is It Offensive to Joke about Bombing Iran?
By Kamangir • Apr 18th, 2008 • Category: Blogging, Features, Iran, Lead StoryAfter I published the post “Why bombing Iran is a Must” in Persian, I received a lot of angry responses. The outrage was to the extent that I deleted the Persian post and apologized from the readers. The same day, later in the evening, a group of us gathered in our apartment to talk about the piece. Here, you can hear selected parts of the discussion we had, and we included Azadeh, Mahmoud, our Canadian friend Sarah, and our friend Arman, who had found the piece offensive.
Note: The podcast starts with a short Persian introduction.
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Posted by Kamangir
Author's email address: arash@kamangir.net | All posts by Kamangir
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I’d say that by in large jokes are offensive. so to answer your question, yes its offensive. but that is the nature of comedy. wasn’t it khomeini who said there is no humor in islam? there is probably a reason for that.
I think your target audience and their emotional state” and mental frame of mind, more than anything else determine the kind of response you get to your political satire piece…Given the time and the temporal context–Your audience being Iranians who are very sensitive to the start of looming war on the horizon– could not possibly find humor in your piece unless they like what comedians call “dark humor” or “black humor”!
black comedy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_comedy
No one needs your apology buddy! The only important matter is that whether you felt ashamed of what you wrote about your OLD fellow-citizens and homeland, even for a moment, or not! If not, and If you still believe that your post was nothing to be ashamed of, I have nothing to say but “I’M SORRY FOR YOU, MYSELF, EVERY SINGLE IRANIAN AND IRAN”! Good luck with building your NEW country and serving your NEW fellow-citizens! However, I hope with all my heart that you will be more faithful this time!
What’s wrong with being offensive? Humour often serves to highlight one’s true feelings or a point of view which, without its coating of funny, would be too thorny to discuss.
I mean, your article is clearly a satirical and ironic piece. Perhaps the fuzz is there because the readers aren´t used to it?
I don´t know. But then they are to blame not you. Because it´s obvious.