Frankie Boyle, the definition of a cowardly, conformist comedian who pretends to be edgy by being nasty to vulnerable targets.

There was a time when comedians were genuinely counter culture and willing to say things that nobody else had the guts to say.

The likes of Lenny Bruce, Monty Python, Richard Pryor, and Rik Mayall, all broke new ground and were genuinely brave in some of the targets they went after. Sadly however since at least the early 2000s, most modern comedians, not all, but certainly most modern comedians in the English speaking world will only go after a target if it has been deemed acceptable to hate by the mainstream media.

Celebrities that the papparazi despise, political figures that are unpopular, religious groups that are easy meat etc. These make up all of the majority of comedians favourite targets, but they are often able to project a false idea that they are edgy by being ridiculously nasty to these easy targets.

The truth is however that the average modern comedian is a coward too afraid to go after the wrong person or group. Their opinions aren’t their own, and they are in essence, bullies who kick people when they are down.

In some ways comedians are as bad as the papparazi themselves in terms of putting pressure on vulnerable celebrities, feeding people false narratives and reinforcing an unfair status quo. It’s high time that they were being viewed with as much contempt in my opinion.

In this article I have decided to compile all of the worst examples of comedians conforming to the status quo and being total hypocrites and bullies in the targets they go after. Hopefully by the end you will agree with me that this generation of comedians are the most conformist generation, and that will be their legacy.

Amy Winehouse and phony feminism

Too ugly for those big hunks Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle apparently.

A personal example for me, since I’m such a huge fan of Amy, but still valid.

When she was alive, though she was hugely successful, Amy Winehouse was frequently made fun of on panel shows by comedians such as Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr.

When I was younger I hated seeing Amy get made fun of, but for many years after her death, I assumed it was just because I was a teenager with a crush on Amy. Looking back on it now however, I feel these comedians shameful treatment of Amy was as bad as the papparazi’s. Unlike the press however they are almost never called out on it.

This is made even worse by the fact that many of the comedians involved in kicking Amy in the teeth when she was at her lowest eb, like Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Carr and Katy Brand are now trying to reinvent themselves as feminists, lecturing the plebs about how to be more tolerant.

Most of the jokes made about Amy when she was alive focused on her looks in the most disgusting, misogynistic and personal ways. Now fair enough comedians, even talented ones have always made remarks about people’s looks. I personally have never liked jokes about people’s looks. I think they are nasty, childish and lazy.

Still with Amy it reached a whole new level for a number of reasons. The comments about her looks, weren’t simply gags or jokes. They were often deeply personal and even sexual in nature. Added to that I think this was the first time comedians and the press worked together to demonise someone quite so much.

Janis Joplin had to endure horrendous abuse from the papers about her looks for instance, but the comedians of the time didn’t all dogpile on her just because the press did.

Can you imagine the likes of say Lenny Bruce making jokes about he hopes Jim Morrison dies, or attacking Janis Joplin as a filthy crack whore just because the papers were against both?

Lenny Bruce was too busy attacking genuine prejudice and the catholic church (back when it was actually brave to do so.) To reinforce the opinions of the moral guardians who wanted to ban the likes of the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix for being a bad influence.

Other comedians meanwhile actually went after the press and the moral guardians who were attacking rock stars. The Goodies for instance, though ironically often dismissed as twee and silly by modern “edgy” comedians; nevertheless went after Mary Whitehouse, a conservative busy body, who tried to get The Rolling Stones music banned, censored Doctor Who for being too violent, and tried and succeeded in getting various horror films such as The Evil Dead banned.

With poor Amy meanwhile not only did she have the papers following her everywhere she went, taking pictures of her when she was in distress and plastering them all over the papers, and magazines such as FHM and Maxim regularly voting her ugliest woman of the year. (There were even whole websites devoted to ridiculing her appearance.) She also had hundreds of comedians joining in, posting awful pictures of her from the papers for a laugh and ridiculing her in arguably more vicious ways than even the papers.

Jimmy Carr, the host of 8 Out Of 10 Cats for instance joked that any man who slept with Amy, would have to strap something over his dick to stop diseases and smells from Amy’s disgusting, rotten vagina getting over it. He also called her an ugly, worthless, horse faced freak, and said that he hoped she would die soon. He even made jokes about her tits being shrivelled up and saggy.

Katy Brand another British comedian regularly mocked Amy’s mental health struggles, called her self obsessed and did sketches where Amy was depicted as an ugly freak, throwing herself at men who would try and kill themselves rather than kiss her.

Zoe Lyons meanwhile made a joke about Amy cutting herself (which was awarded by the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.)

Irish comedian Ed Byrne also made a joke about Amy being a good date because she was anorexic. He said you could take her out, not have to buy her anything and then pick your teeth with her legs.

Eminem famously did a video where Amy was not only depicted as repulsive, but people were vomiting at the sight of her kissing people.

Now fair enough I’m not saying that you can never make jokes about people like Winehouse. There have always been plenty of jokes about rock stars and hellraisers like Keith Richards, and Oliver Reed’s wild behaviour. Jokes specifically about Amy drinking, or taking drugs will undoubtedly seem insensitive in hindsight after her death, but at the time I don’t think they were particularly nasty, or at least worse than anyone else got.

However again these comedians didn’t simply just joke about her lifestyle. They jumped on an incredibly vicious media bandwagon that focused almost exclusively on Amy’s looks, the very thing she was most insecure about.

Amy Winehouse suffered from many mental health issues related to her appearance. She was anorexic, bullimic, had manic depression and she self harmed (even before she became famous.) There are interviews from the Frank era where she comments on how ugly she thinks she is. Her famous beehive even came about because of her insecurities about her looks. She said she put her hair up to draw attention away from her face.

In the later years of her life, Amy even had some plastic surgery work done to fix her “ugly face”. Of course the papers just continued to make fun of her looks anyway, even saying that she looked like more of a freak after her plastic surgery.

In 2008, Amy apparently refused to attend her 25th birthday party as she felt she was so ugly, she didn’t want to be seen out in the streets and made fun of.

Her boyfriend for the last few years of her life, Reg Travis also mentions that she went out less and less in the last few years of her life, as she was afraid of the paps snapping bad pictures of her. Most heartbreaking of all, Amy’s bodyguard claimed that on the night before her death she said she would give up all of her musical accomplishments, and talent in a heartbeat, just to walk down the street with no bother.

With all of this in mind I do hold these comedians partially responsible for her tragic death.

Imagine what it must have been like for Amy to constantly see all the very worst things she thought about herself being reinforced on television shows and the media in general. It has to have had an effect, and the fact that she became more of a recluse, her self harming became worse (in one incident she stumped a cigarette out on her face) and her weight dropped to catastrophic levels in the last few years of her life, only reinforces this.

Obviously Amy Winehouse had many other problems, and I’m not saying these comedians actually killed her, but they certainly made her depression worse and reinforced her worst, most destructive insecurities.

I honestly could not imagine previous generations of comedians doing the same thing to Amy. The likes of Monty Python, Rik Mayall, Lenny Bruce, and even the Goodies, all preferred to punch up instead of down, and wouldn’t have relentlessly attacked someone in such obvious distress. They also generally hated the mainstream media rather than pandered to it..

Picture of Bill Oddie, one of the Goodies on stage with Jon Pertwee and Keith Moon, the drummer from The Who. The Goodies are often dismissed by modern comedians and critics as being too twee and safe. Ironically however it was Bill Oddie that got on stage with a famous rock star, and criticised the moral busy bodies like Mary Whitehouse, whilst our modern “edgy” comedians like Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle joined in with the conservative media and busy body’s relentless attack on rock stars like Amy for being bad role models. Had Amy been around in the 70s, I don’t think she would have had as bad a time.

For what they did to Amy alone, I’ll never forgive this generation of comedians, but what makes their treatment of her even worse is the fact that so many of them are now trying to reimagine themselves as feminists.

Back in the 00s during Amy’s heyday it was trendy for comedians to be nasty. The likes of South Park and Family Guy had made this type of humour popular, though don’t think that means I am lumping South Park and Family Guy in with the likes of Jimmy Carr.

South Park and Family Guy can be very funny and intelligent, though it can’t be denied that they both frequently let themselves down with pathetic, nasty jokes that are more needlessly cruel than funny. A prime example of this can be seen in the entire episode South Park devoted to Barbara Streisand of all people. The jokes in that episode all seemed to centre on Streisand’s looks, (particularly her unconventional big nose) which just came across as shallow bullying rather than making any clever point or criticism.

Still I wouldn’t ever call South Park or Family Guy cowards, as at the very least South Park and Family Guy are willing to attack targets that other comedians, and even the media will not such as Islam and identity politics. (Also neither Seth McFarlane or Matt Stone and Trey Parker have tried to reimagine themselves as feminists or Social Justice Warriors either. Both have at least stuck to their guns about being equal opportunity offenders.)

Still South Park and Family Guy definitely pioneered the much more outrageous, yet personal type of humour, and so the talentless sheep like Jimmy Carr, Eminem and Frankie Boyle followed suit.

Sadly however they lacked South Park or Family Guy’s wit or willingness to genuinely push the boundaries, and so all we got was essentially the worst of South Park’s humour, like the Barbara Streisand episode being parroted by these hacks.

Amy sadly was an easy target, as the comedians could say she deserved this treatment by stigmatizing both addiction and mental illness (as people who suffer from those afflictions clearly didn’t deserve sympathy according to the media.) Added to that the mainstream media would back them up by printing nothing but negative stories about her too.

Flash forward to the 2010s however and it’s now trendy to be a social justice warrior, championing women’s rights and gay rights, and all of these same brave comedians who helped to bully an anorexic, bullimic, manic depressive woman into an early grave, are now promoting themselves as SJWs.

Here is Jimmy Carr smearing former Doctor Who star Peter Davison as sexist, because Davison said that he doesn’t think a woman should play Doctor Who

JimmyCarr/status

It’s hilarious that Jimmy Carr would try and smear anyone as a misogynist after his borderline Jack the Ripper comments about Amy and her dirty vagina. What’s even worse is the fact that his comments about Davison could have negatively affected his career too.

All Peter Davison said about a female Doctor was that he thinks it’s a shame that little boys lost a positive role model, which is fair enough. You can’t say that a female Doctor should be a role model to little boys, but in order for the Doctor to be a role model to little girls, the character has to be a woman.

For Jimmy Carr to deliberately misinterpret that as Davison saying that no women should be allowed to be medical Doctors in real life is ridiculous. (Someone should tell Jimmy that William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Matt Smith didn’t actually have medical degrees.) Still this type of mud could have easily stuck to Davison and ended up becoming received wisdom, causing people to not want to work with him and his reputation to suffer.

Well looks like that female Doctor you were so desperate to see didn’t work out so well Jimmy. Who would have thought? Meanwhile how is that worthless horseface you dismissed as an ugly freak and bad role model to women’s music doing after 10 years?

Back to Black Among Top 5 Best Selling Vinyl Albums of the 21st Century

Katy Brand meanwhile in recent years has regularly spoken about misogyny in comedy. Look at these recent comments from her about how hard it is for female comedians because they are always judged so harshly for their looks.

“It’s not fair, but currently, it’s still part of the package. We live in a world where women are routinely judged on their appearance far more than men, and we also live in a world where some people still don’t like to be confronted by a woman with a brain and a mouth and a direct connection between the two. And the most useful weapon in these people’s arsenal is to try to shut you up by saying you are ugly.

Luckily, these antediluvian morons are slowly dying out or being loudly told to go away, but it still happens all the time. Remember: you are not ugly, they are just trying to make you be quiet. Don’t be quiet. Ever. Unless you are at a funeral or near a baby that has just gone to sleep.”

Here’s a sketch Katy Brand made back in 2008 about Amy, when her mental health problems were spiraling out of control.

Yep, its wrong to call people ugly Katy. (When it suits your career.)

Zoey Lyons meanwhile after winning a trophy for mocking Amy’s mental health problems, actually had the cheek to now promote mental health awareness. She even appeared at an event called standupfordepression.

See here.

Zoe Lyons on Podcast to Destigmatize Mental Health Awareness

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival that awarded her that trophy, (and therefore made a statement that Amy’s mental health problems were to be laughed at,) have recently begun to promote mental health awareness too.

Mental Health Fringe Awareness Awards

Finally Frankie Boyle who had a history of not just attacking Amy for her looks, but other famous, vulnerable women like Kerry Katona, has also recently tried to reinvent himself as an SJW. He hosts a show called Frankie Boyle’s New World Order, where he regularly criticises other people in the media’s misogyny.

Recently on twitter Boyle even retweeted a post slating Lawrence Fox as a misogynist, after the actors public criticism of the phrase “White Male Privilege.” Much like with Peter Davison, the current smearing of Fox as a sexist by hack comedians could end up having a disastrous effect on Fox’s career and reputation. The fact that it’s the same people more or less blacklisting Fox who just ten years earlier had attempted to make Amy Winehouse, an anorexic woman’s name synonmous with “ugly” just makes you want to be sick.

Boyle also called for Jeremy Clarkson to be fired from hosting Top Gear in 2015 after the latter made what Boyle deemed a racist joke.

It’s worth noting that Jeremy Clarkson however makes jokes about all races. In this respect his comments aren’t racist, as he treats everybody the same way. Frankie Boyle however does create an unfair pecking order, where certain groups are not allowed to be ridiculed, but others are. Anorexics, victims of child abduction, cancer patients all of which Boyle has ridiculed deserve it apparently, but heaven forbid anyone get offended at Clarkson making a cheap joke about race.

This article I think sums up Frankie Boyle’s hypocrisy and cowardice perfectly.

Frankie Boyle Is a Cowardly Bully

Now fair enough we all change our opinions as we go through life. There are posts of mine from 2016, that I cringe over now. For instance I used to enjoy some of Paul Joseph Watson’s videos, but now I regard him as an utter joke.

This was one of the first videos that made me see what a tit Paul Joseph Watson is. His comments about Milo being a rock star haven’t aged well, though to be fair they were cringey at the time too.

Still if your opinions have changed dramatically, at least admit it. The likes of Jimmy Carr, Katy Brand, and Frankie Boyle however will never admit to having made those disgusting remarks about Amy Winehouse, and other famous, vulnerable women throughout the 00s. What’s worse is that when the pendulum swings backwards and there is a backlash against SJWs and woke culture, Frankie Boyle, Katy Brand and Jimmy Carr will go back to insulting famous women in nasty and misogynistic ways.

They are all the epitome of the old Groucho Marx joke “these are my principles if you don’t like them I’ve got others.”

That’s why its important to call these frauds out, both for Amy’s sake so that what she went through isn’t forgotten, and so that the likes of Boyle, Carr and Brand aren’t able to do the same to anybody else in the future without being seen as the hypocritical bullies they are.

Peter Davison and Lawrence Fox, the true faces of misogyny. At least according to Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr. Sure, Boyle and Carr may have taken part in a vile, misogynistic backlash towards a truly talented and inspirational woman, solely for her looks, and mental health problems like anorexia. Boyle may also have made jokes about Kerry Katona (a woman with an eating disorder) being fat, and made jokes about Jordan wanting to rape her blind son. Still at least they didn’t say that a woman can’t play Doctor Who, or criticise the ignorant and racist phrase White Male Privilege.

Donald Trump, Barack Obama and faux anti establishment.

Many modern comedians such as Frankie Boyle and Jimmy Carr will often make out they are anti establishment by criticising powerful political figures such as Donald Trump, or George W Bush.

Now unlike with Amy, I certainly have no problems with criticising the likes of Trump. Whilst I think he was less of a war monger than Hillary Clinton (at least in 2016.) He is still opposed to many things I believe in, such as free healthcare and he is also a flip flopper who has gone back on many of his election promises.

Still whilst Trump may be the President, criticising him is not a brave thing to do. The media despises Trump. It was completely biased against him during the 2016 election, and openly admitted to it.

See here 92 percent of coverage of Trump is negative

Attacking Trump is therefore not the same thing as Monty Python going after religion in the 70s, when it was more of a taboo subject and they actually faced repercussions, (with Life of Brian being banned in certain areas.)

Slating Trump is an easy, obvious thing to do, hence why every cowardly comedian will fill their act with nothing but Trump jokes. They’re not really being anti establishment. They are just attacking an easy figure head.

In contrast look at how few jokes there were against Barack Obama from comedians. Obama was every bit as bad as Trump for the most part. That’s the point, the President isn’t actually that important. It’s the entire system around them that is corrupt, hence why nothing much has changed whether its Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump. They are all guilty of war crimes, launching regime change wars (apart from Trump ironically) and imposing sanctions on other countries. Trump so far ironically has probably done the least on an international level, but that could of course change as he has already launched several reckless attacks against other countries such as Iran and Syria.

Still in the grand scheme of things Obama was certainly not any better than either his republican predecessor or successor.

Obama helped to destabilize Libya, which not only threw the country into anarchy, but led to a rise in Isis. He also deported far more people than Trump and ramped up the use of drone strikes from Bush.

See here.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/libya/2019-02-18/obamas-libya-debacle

Barack Obama Drone Strikes

Obama the war criminal, and butcher of women and children

Yet all of these edgy comedians were as silent as ghosts when it was Obama committing the exact same, or worse war crimes than Trump saying stupid things on Twitter, simply because the media loved Obama.

With this in mind far from being satirists, I think that modern comedians with their over the top hatred of Trump actually end up supporting the corrupt system they claim to rally against.

Trump in the grand scheme of things is not important. He is just another puppet leader for the war hawks around him. Ironically the only reason he became such a hate figure in the first place was because he challenged the war hawks narrative during his 2016 election campaign, and challenged their preferred candidate, the biggest war hawk in American politics, Hillary Clinton.

Trump actually promised to end regime change wars, improve relations with Russia and pull out of the middle east. Of course he has since gone back on most of these promises, which is a genuine reason to hate him. Still even then that just makes him the same as his predecessors.

Making out that Trump is some evil dictator and that all that matters is getting rid of him however, lets the war hawks behind the scenes away with it. Now they can dupe the public that everything will be okay, just as long as Trump is gone, and we get a more presentable President. We saw exactly this with Bush and Obama. Both supported illegal wars, but nobody cared when Obama did it, because he was handsome, the first black President etc.

The majority of Western comedians support and love for Hillary Clinton alone proves the dangers of their Trump hatred.

Comedians on series such as Saturday Night Live actually tried to paint Hillary’s loss as a bad thing. Fair enough you might think she was the lesser of two evils, (I don’t) but to try and create a positive cult of personality around this war hawk, just because she wasn’t Trump was shameful.

Meanwhile this is what Hillary Clinton actually represents.

Hillary the Hawk: A History

Hillary Clinton Has No Regrets About Libya

With this in mind it’s a good thing Trump won, not only because of how dangerous Hillary was, but also because if Hillary had won, then the media would have been on her side and so would the edgy satirists. We would have been told how she is a step forward, even as she was continuing the same hawkish policies as Bush and Obama, simply because she was the first female President.

The comedians endorsement of Hillary and other establishment figures in some ways is actually worse than the papers, as everybody expects the papers to not be impartial. Comedians however like Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle will always try and justify their vile remarks about easy targets like Amy Winehouse with “no one is safe.” Turns out they are if they are in with the media like Hillary, which just helps to legitimise Hillary to the general public.

Finally as if that wasn’t enough, most modern comedians don’t even hate Trump for the right reasons.

Ian Hislop, a popular British satirist criticises Trump for his supposed sexism and bigotry. Not once has Hislop mentioned Trump’s spinelessness in standing up for Julian Assange., whose arrest is a threat against free speech, and whistleblowers everywhere. What’s worse is that Trump had previously supported Assange when it benefited him in 2016, outright stating “I love Wikileaks.” Now however he is happy to see Assange tortured and imprisoned, stating recently that he doesn’t know much about Assange.

Yet Hislop, a journalist focuses instead on the fact that Trump said pussy 15 years ago.

Eminem meanwhile, whilst not a comedian, still has the same mindset as most modern comics. He also shot to fame for making humorous and supposedly outrageous statements in his songs so I feel its important to mention him.

Eminem is a total coward who like most comedians, only goes after people if its trendy or safe.

Want proof? Just look at his diss track against Trump, where he ranted about how intolerant and bigoted Trump is.

See here

I’ma walk inside a mosque on Ramadan
And say a prayer that every time Melania talks

Racism’s the only thing he’s fantastic for
‘Cause that’s how he gets his f*cking rocks off and he’s orange!

Same sh*t that he tormented Hillary for and he slandered
Then does it more
From his endorsement of Bannon
Support from the Klansmen
Tiki torches in hand for the soldier that’s black
And comes home from Iraq
And is still told to go back to Africa
Fork and a dagger in this racist 94-year-old grandpa

The great irony of all this is that Eminem is far more bigoted than Trump. Eminem’s early songs included lyrics about gay people being creepy predators, and torturing gay people.

Again whilst people’s opinions do change, Eminem has tried to justify these vile lyrics by saying that he wasn’t really being homophobic, as he just uses fag as a general insult. It’s true that fag was used as a general insult in the 2000s, but when you look at the context of Eminem’s lyrics its very clear the context he was using fag in.

“My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge
That’ll stab you in the head, whether you’re a fag or lez
Or a homosex, hermaph or a trans-a-vest
Pants or dress, hate fags? The answer’s yes
Homophobic? Nah, you’re just heterophobic
Staring at my jeans, watching my genitals bulgin’
That’s my motherfuckin’ balls, you’d better let go of ’em
They belong in my scrotum, you’ll never get hold of ’em!”

See what I mean? This isn’t like Spike from Buffy calling Xander a poof without thinking. This is a very specific rant about gay men wanting what’s in his balls, and an outright admission of hating not just gay men, but all LGBT people. It was done at a time when people were less accepting of gays, and Eminem was clearly trying to cash in on a particular audience.

Here are also some of the lovely things he’s said about women.

I told this bitch in gym class
That she was too fat to swim laps, she need a Slim Fast
(Who? Me?) Yeah, bitch, you so big
You walked into Vic Tanny’s and stepped on Jenny Craig
She picked me up to snap me like a skinny twig
Put me in a headlock, then I thought of my guinea pig
I felt the evilness and started transformin’
It began stormin’, I heard a bunch of cheering fans swarmin’
Grabbed that bitch by her hair, drug her across the ground
And took her up to the highest diving board
And tossed her down
Sorry coach, it’s too late to tell me stop
While I drop this bitch face down and watch her belly flop”

To think with lyrics like these, it was Amy Winehouse that comedians dog piled on.

With this in mind how can Eminem possibly have any moral high ground when it comes to Trump’s bigotry? How can he possibly claim that Trump is trying to divide us?

It’s Eminem, not Trump whose been spewing hateful, violent rhetoric against gay people for over 20 years. Furthermore Eminem claims to hate Trump for picking on and slandering Hillary, a woman, yet he kicked Amy Winehouse into the dirt when she was in a vulnerable position in terms of her personal life and career in 2009.

Tell me Em what was more sexist, and more of a case of punching down? Attacking an anorexic, bullimic woman for her looks in a video watched by millions of people, or attacking a rival Presidential candidate using her own history of destroying other countries and launching illegal wars?

Eminem doesn’t have a leg to stand on against Trump. When it comes to hatred of women, Trump is a novice compared to Eminem.

Eminem may have had a point against Trump if he was going to attack him for his foreign policy. The problem however is Eminem is too stupid and lazy to analyse Trump’s foreign policy blunders.

He does mention that Trump will kill us all in a nuclear holocaust, but he doesn’t provide any reason for thinking that other than ORANGE MAN BAD! Furthermore he then goes on to praise Obama and later white knights for Hillary, both of whom helped to tear Libya apart.

Libya is a failed state

With all of this in mind its obvious that Eminem’s hatred of Trump is just because it’s trendy to hate Trump. He literally has no other reason. It’s certainly not because Trump is so bigoted, as Eminem when it suits him is partial to a bit of bigotry. It’s also not for anything political as Eminem probably couldn’t even name the countries Trump has genuinely antagonised. Much like his bullying of Amy Winehouse and gay people, Eminem’s diss track to Trump is entirely because the media says it’s trendy to hate Trump.

Islam vs Christianity

Probably the worst example of the modern day comedians cowardice is their refusal to attack Islam.

Now I am not advocating for Muslims to be stigmatized, or for Islam to be attacked more than any other religion. There are specific problems with Islam yes, but that is besides the point.

If comedians do genuinely believe that no target should be off limits, why are there so few jokes about Islam compared to other religions (particularly Christianity and Scientology.)

Well first of all there is the fear of violent retaliation from Islamic extremists, such as the attack on Charlie Hebdo in 2015, though I feel this is somewhat exaggerated.

If every comedian regularly made jokes about Islam, or if they had all retweeted the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, or the Danish cartoons, then Islamic extremists would lose their power. They couldn’t kill every single comedian in the country could they? When its an isolated, small paper, then it’s obviously easy to target them. In this respect the Jimmy Carr’s of this world leave the truly brave comedians out in the cold.

Furthermore I think that many comedians are actually more scared of being smeared as racists if they go after Islam. It’s not racist to criticise Islam, as Islam is a religion, not a race. Sadly however shallow people in the media will conflate criticism of Islam with racism, simply because many Muslims are dark skinned. Ironically however Muhammed was actually white.

Check out these quotes from the Hadith.

Narrated ‘Abdullah bin Malik: Ibn Buhaina, “When the Prophet prayed, he used to separate his arms from his body so widely that the whiteness of his armpits was visible.“

‘Amir b. Sa’d reported: I saw the Messenger of Allah (may peace be open him) pronouncing taslim on his right and on his left till I saw the whiteness of his cheek.

Jurairi reported: I said to Abu Tufail: Did you see Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him)? He said: Yes, he had a white handsome face. Muslim b. Hajjaj said: Abu Tufail who died in 100 Hijra was the last of the Companions of Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him).

Still Islam is seen as the “dark people’s” religion by the media and so it has become immune to criticism.

Ultimately however all these brave and edgy comedians do is stigmatize Muslims. The majority of Muslims in the west are not fanatics, and so whilst they might not like their religion being criticised, they are not going to react with violence. By making out that all criticism of Islam is off limits however, whilst going after other religions, comedians end up creating a myth that all Muslims can’t take a joke, which creates a greater resentment towards the Muslim community from the general public, particularly other religious groups.

How are Christians supposed to feel when they see comedians mocking their holy figure, calling all Christians stupid (which they frequently do) and paint Christians as bigots, only to then see the exact same comedians write articles for the Guardian about Islamopobia?

See these quotes from Frankie Boyle.

“People seem concerned to make sure that Islam gets its full share of the blame, so we get the unedifying circus of neocons invoking God as much as the killers. “Well, Isis say they’re motivated by God.” Yes, and people who have sex with their pets say they’re motivated by love, but most of us don’t really believe them.”

“Isis want to destroy the knowledge that Islam is a beautiful, scientific and intelligent culture.”

“The U.S attacking Islam is like a serial killer being annoyed when the people locked in his basement start praying.”

As you can see, Frankie Boyle tries to sever any link between Islam and terrorist groups such as Isis, which is not completely true. There are verses in the Quran which command its followers to attack and subjugate all non Muslims.

Here are some quotes from the Quran that have directly inspired Isis.

“When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”

“The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement,”

“The Prophet said if you anyone doing as Lots People did, kill the one doing it and the one to whom it is done.”

Remind me what is it that Isis do to their enemies and gay men again Frankie?

ISIS release video of beheading

ISIS chop hands off

ISIS Continue To Murder Gay Men

I don’t know, looks like they are chopping people’s heads and hands off just like Muhammed ordered Frankie.

Again this is not to say that all Muslims follow these violent verses, or that there are no violent passages in other holy books like the Old Testament. The difference is Frankie Boyle doesn’t try and cover these passages up and gush about how beautiful and intelligent these others religions are.

For contrast here are Frankie Boyle’s comments on Catholicism.

“You’d think the Catholic Church would be in favour of using condoms as it would mean less priests being caught using DNA tests.”

“The Pope must have done something that even the Catholic Church found unacceptable. My theory is he fucked an adult woman.”

Comedians try and get round this double standard through various lame excuses, such as Dara O’Brien claiming that comedians can’t make jokes about Islam because they don’t know enough about it.

Funny I don’t recall Dara O’Brien extending that same privilege to other groups. Again what about Amy Winehouse? When he let Frankie Boyle call her an ugly, junkie, horse face on his show Mock the Week, did Dara O’Brien pull him up and say “we don’t know enough about addiction, or anorexia, or depression to joke about it.” No he didn’t and I wonder why?

Could it be because again he didn’t have to worry about violent retaliation or social stigma from his London bubble friends?

At the end of the day these cowardly comedians have ironically turned Islam into what Christianity was for the right back in the day.

It’s hilarious (far more so than anything Frankie Boyle has ever said in his career) the way that almost all modern comedians will express admiration for Monty Python and Life of Brian and what it did for free speech.

Back in the 70s it was genuinely brave to attack the Christian faith to the extent that Monty Python did. They were smeared as heretics, Life of Brian was banned in certain areas of the UK as a result.

At the same time however, Life of Brian wasn’t just nasty for no reason. It made valid points about religious dogma, and the hypocrisy of certain groups who claim to follow Christ’s teachings yet carry out acts that would be completely abhorrent to him, (such as the famous scene were Brian’s followers murder a helpless old man whilst he begs them not to.)

Unlike Frankie Boyle, Monty Python didn’t need to overcompensate and be nasty because they’d picked a good target. Still whilst Frankie Boyle may feel he is carrying on Monty Python’s legacy, in truth he and other cowards like him are carrying on the legacy of those who would have censored the Python’s jokes about Christianity with their craven cowtowing to Islam.

Kicking people when they are down

Eminem a brave funny man who called Michael Jackson a pedo when he was alive, only to praise him as a misunderstood genius after his death.

Its not just a question of modern comedians are too shit scared to go after targets like Islam, or Barack Obama, or identity politics, or even that they only go after safe targets. They will often go after a target when they are at their most vulnerable.

We’ve already seen how they may very well have helped to drive Amy Winehouse to an early grave, but there are many more examples of comedians kicking someone when they are down.

Kerry Katona, a popular British pop star who suffered from body issues and severe depression was a frequent target of Frankie Boyle’s back in the day. He would regularly ridicule her weight problems and her looks on almost every episode of the dire panel show, Mock the Week.

What increase in population will Kerry Katona be responsible for by the time her womb finally succumbs to the ravages of  time and chicken drumsticks?’…..

Similarly Britney Spears much like Amy Winehouse suffered from severe mental health problems and was routinely ridiculed in nasty ways by the mainstream media and comedians for those problems and her looks.

Comedians would always argue that the likes of Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, and Kerry Katona were fair game because of their mental health problems, which not only stigmatises mental health, but also doesn’t hold up under much scrutiny either.

None of these comedians ever went after Kate Moss in the same way. Kate Moss also had problems with drugs and alcohol and an on again, off again relationship with Pete Doherty, yet there were never anywhere near as many vicious remarks about her. There were plenty of jokes about her drug taking, but never horrible drawn out remarks about her looks in quite the same way.

The reason for that was because to start with Kate Moss was more conventional looking. Whilst Amy Winehouse was strikingly beautiful when she was healthy, (far more beautiful than Kate Moss in my opinion) she was still always unconventional with her darker looks, long nose and face, and tatoos.

You can see how of the two of them, Kate Moss has the more conventional looks. Similarly Kerry Katona whilst again not ugly by any stretch of the imagination, was somewhat curvier than most modern pop stars. Britney Spears meanwhile when suffering her breakdown did things like shave her head which obviously made her appear more unconventional than Kate Moss.

Furthermore Kate Moss never looked as though she was in severe distress either. Whilst she may have had a wild lifestyle, we never saw her break down in tears, be rushed to hospital for a suicide attempt, or even publicly mention that she had bullimia.

Moss therefore was not a vulnerable target that the media and comedians together could really upset and bully in quite the same way. Kate Moss also wasn’t frequently voted ugliest woman of the year by the papers, and magazines like FHM and Maxim like Amy Winehouse was, so again that made Amy a much better target than Kate Moss.

It’s not just individuals however that comedians will kick when they are down. The classic British sci fi series Doctor Who was another prime example during the 90s and the 00s.

Doctor Who was the worlds longest running sci fi series. It lasted from 1963-1989 originally. During its heyday, Doctor Who was arguably the most popular British series in the world.

Sadly however it suffered a fall from grace in the mid to late 80s. Whilst there were some problems with the production team, ultimately the real reason Doctor Who came to an end in the 80s was because the heads of the BBC at that time, Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell despised the show and sabotaged it.

Both cancelled the show in 1985 out of pure dislike. Contrary to popular belief Doctor Who’s viewers were nowhere near low enough for cancellation at that point in its history.

Furthermore far from being a show that the public were tired of, there was a national outrage after it was taken off in 1985. (It made the front page of the papers, and there were hundreds of thousands of complaints to Michael Grade.)

Grade and Powell were forced to simply put Doctor Who on hiatus, the backlash was so strong, and as a result, the two would be forced to try more underhanded means to undermine the series over the next few years so they could axe it without any trouble.

After putting it on hiatus, Powell and Grade slashed its already low budget and ridiculed the series in the media. They also ensured that it had no publicity on its return after 18 months, and moved it opposite the A-Team (which saw the first major ratings drop off in the 80s.) They then fired its leading man Colin Baker (and in doing so not only went against his contract, but left producer John Nathan Turner with just a few months to get the new series made with a new Doctor.)

Grade also forced JNT and the production team to make the show lighter and sillier in 7th Doctor, Sylvester McCoy’s first year. Grade said this was to counteract claims from Mary Whitehouse that the show had become too violent, but it was really just to undermine Doctor Who’s credibility. After Grade left at the end of McCoy’s first series, the production team used a much darker characterisation for the 7th Doctor, that they had wanted to use from the start. Sadly by then the pantomimish first McCoy series had caused the show to lose support among the fans and general public.

Powell also told producer John Nathan Turner not to pursue legal proceedings against former script editor, Eric Saward after the latter had slandered him and the show in the press. Powell openly admitted that this was terrible advice and only advised JNT against pursuing legal action because “I hoped it would be another nail in his coffin.” Powell was even on record as stating “I hoped John Nathan Turner would fuck off and die.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Grade and Powell also during the McCoy era placed the show on at the same time as Coronation Street (which was getting over 30 million viewers at that time. In one instance they placed Doctor Who opposite both Coronation Street and an England qualifier for the World Cup, which not surprisingly saw Doctor Who’s viewers drop to the lowest they had ever been.)

Finally Powell and Grade also raised the prices of the 7th Doctors stories to the highest they had ever been, which effectively killed the massive overseas following the show had developed over the years.

People forget that during the 80s, Doctor Who was far more popular in America than it was in the UK.

In America Doctor Who on average pulled in over 9 million viewers, whilst in the UK at that point they were on average over 7 million. Furthermore the Doctor Who fan club in America was the largest in the world, whilst the show had also managed to win round a young student fanbase (it was hugely popular on Universities. It had also won round a huge female following too, with over 80 percent of its fans in America being women.)

See here.

So what did Grade and Powell do in response to this?

With all of this in mind, Doctor Who in the 80s really didn’t have a chance, regardless of the quality of the show. It’s worth noting that whilst the 80s does contain some weak seasons (the worst of which are the two Grade and Powell sabotaged) towards the end, it is generally agreed that the show saw a marked improvement.

Many stories from the last two seasons such as Remembrance of the Daleks, Curse of Fenric and Survival have proven to be hugely popular in the decades since. Both Remembrance and Curse were voted among the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time in the 00s. Remembrance has also proven to be one of the best selling stories on video and later DVD.

Still thanks to the smear campaign, the shows viewers tanked and finally in 1989 the BBC were able to cancel Doctor Who without too much fanfare.

Throughout the next decade or so whilst the show still remained hugely popular on video and later DVD, the media would regularly slate it as an embarrassment that deserved to be cancelled. Comedians on panel shows would of course join in and regularly show clips from the very worst episodes to humiliate the series. You could make any series including the revival look terrible by just showing clips from the worst episodes, the only reason they did it to Classic Who was because it was a vulnerable target.

Without doubt the worst example of comedians kicking the classic series when it was was down, was when Paul Merton, a popular British comedian put Doctor Who into Room 101 at the behest of Michael Grade himself.

You can see how this isn’t just a case of a comedian makes a cheap joke about Doctor Who and fans of the show can’t take it. This is the man who did everything he could to kill the show, and acted in the most unprofessional manner when doing so, being allowed to present a totally one sided case and gloat to its fans.

Far from being a comedian challenging someone in power, like The Goodies or Monty Python used to do, here we have a comedian attacking a show that hasn’t been on the air for over a decade, using all of the most cliched and nasty insults against its fans because the media say Doctor Who is a joke and so he has to back them up.

After Doctor Who returned to television in 2005, and became a media darling once again. Paul Merton would later praise it. He even appeared in a Doctor Who themed advert for Have I Got News For You. It’s not as though the New Series hasn’t had its share of ludicrous monsters and bad special effects. If you wanted you could present a compilation of crappy moments from the revival, but Paul Merton would never do that, because New Who wasn’t a vulnerable target, because its makers past and present, like Russell T Davies and Chris Chibnall are in with the mainstream media.

Conclusion

As you can see modern comedians love to punch down, and are really bullies whose idea of being edgy is just to be nasty to acceptable targets.

Their opinions always have to be sanctioned by the majority and they have been responsible for reinforcing nasty opinions and untruths to the general public.

I think its high time these comedians were called out regularly for their spinelessness. It annoys me the way people will always go on about hating the press, yet modern comedians who are just an extension of the press are always let off.