Comedy is a tricky thing. The line between bad taste and hilarity can be thin sometimes, and it takes a very sharp person to pull it off successfully.
Comedy gets especially dicey when you get into the realms of parody and satire. Those two are often used to address some of the most complex and volatile issues.
Comedy legends like the great Mel Brooks and the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, are masters of parody and satire. They're able to take on some of the most offensive subjects and still make them funny.
I mention Mel, Trey and Matt specifically because over the years they have created situations involving touchy subjects like racism, class warfare, terrorism — and even vulgar toilet humour — and managed to make them funny rather than overtly offensive. Even these greats offend people sometimes, but that usually says more about the person who takes offence than it does about the people making the joke.
These guys have even managed to take one of the un-funniest groups in all of human history — the Nazis — and create some of the most thought-provokingly hilarious comedy ever. Brooks is a master at taking the piss out of the Nazis in general and Adolf Hitler in particular. His movies The Producers, History of the World Part I and To Be or Not to Be are classics that use Hitler and his minions as comedic fodder to hilarious effect.
South Park has also featured stories in which Nazism plays a key roll — usually with Eric Cartman's rabid racism taking centre stage.
The reasons these fellows can use some of the most horrifying, monstrous human beings who have ever lived and still make great satire is that Mel and the South Park guys are comedic geniuses who know how to contextualise their characters and create scenarios in which those monsters become the subjects of ridicule and derision that they deserve to be.
They get away with using Nazi imagery and characters to be funny because they are smart. People who use Nazi imagery, costumes and characters without being as smart, satirical and funny as these guys are just stupid. Not only that, they are an offense to and spit in the faces of the more than 10 million people — Jews, Poles, disabled people, Romany and gays to mention just a few — who were viciously murdered by the Nazis.
Unless you're a comedic genius who knows just how to do everything right, things like wearing a Nazi uniform, displaying swastikas on your motorbike or T-shirt, or doing the Nazi salute are nothing but sheer idiocy. It should offend everybody.
If it doesn't offend you, you need to take a good long look at yourself — and a history book or two — and ask yourself what's wrong with you.
Sean Vale
Editor
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