I can't quite believe I'm actually posting this, many moons after the fact. But tonight's Q & A suggests that some people still have no sense of empathy when it comes to other people's sense of humour. I would have thought that people would have gotten over this sort of thing after the BEST COMEDIC MOVIE EVER MADE, 'The Life of Brian'.

But it seems it still doesn't register with the slower members of the community: what offends some tickles other.

I am a hard-core South Park addict. It is a brilliant show and sometimes it pushes the boundaries of comedy beyond my limits of good taste, but mostly it's just very smegging funny. I also like Frankie Boyle and Jim Jeffries, two comedians (Scottish and Australian and respectively) who both do an excellent line in blue, black, and generally offensive humour.

Humour doesn't have to be offensive or shocking to be effective. My favourite comdey show of all time is our very own 'Micallef P(r)ogram(me)', one of Shaun Micallef's earlier works, but my second favourite is the time-honoured classic 'Monty Python's Flying Circus'

My mother's parents forbade her from watching it, on the grounds that it was too rude. The Flying Circus? Offensive? I can see how people would object The Life of Brian, but the Flying Circus? Really?

The more things change the more they stay the same: Socrates whinged about the impoliteness of Athenian youth - if more Greek texts had survived I'm sure we'd have a record of him complaining about the rudeness of Athenian comedies.

Cheers,

Tony

As Australian blood is getting thinned more by ever increasing outside influence the sense of humour has changed also. From the outright crass & jealous sarcasm of the 80's it is now at a good stage. Micallef is cleverly funny but I believe he's not of australian background which proves my earlier observation. Mrs Brown's boys is typically silly funny irish.
Housos is funny by making truth humorous & hopefully gets a few morons thinking, if that's possible. I just find it very sad how we're not allowed to enjoy ourselves anymore at the drop of a hat. We used to sit on the beach with a few beers, a bonfire courtesy of Chep & all was good until the Goss ALP Govt put a stop to enjoying ourselves. And that wasn't funny at all.

The ABC is notorious for offensive language and poor taste and is a
result of staffing the place with teenagers.
The ABC really has a group of immature so called adults running the place.
Unfortunately the rot has spread all the way to the top of the organisation.
Programs like Rake while it would be funny without the F word every
10 to 15 seconds, loses its humour because of the language. It is just
over the top and explains why teenagers in the street are surprised to
be charged with offence.

Like the ABC management they know no better.

Which words are offensive, that is the question and to who. All words are a part of free speech, and you will not reverse that. It's a matter of what generation you are from. It's not confined to ABC or any other organisation, it's a shift in world speech.

579,
Words in themselves are not offensive. It's the insinuation & perception which are the problem. If you want to feel offended then you can at any given moment, in fact feigning indignation is the most abused factors in modern society.
Australia has a whole indignation industry & it's thriving. Of course stupidity is the required ingirdient.

What?

"...a brilliant show and sometimes it pushes the boundaries of comedy..."

and no mention of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, That Mitchell and Webb (both the Show and Sound varieties) as well as the underappreciated god that is Chris Morris he of On the Hour, Brass Eye and The Day Today as well as the amazing Blue Jam, currently getting a first repeat since its premiere in 1997...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wxwn9

And, Tony Lavis, I can't believe you didn't mention_