Scottish comedians Count Dankula and Leo Kearse have defended 8 Out Of 10 Cats star Jimmy Carr’s right to be offensive amid calls for the comedian to be canceled over a joke about the persecution of the Gypsies during the Holocaust.
According to a report from the British Comedy Guide, Jimmy Carr’s aptly named comedy special, His Dark Materials, was the most-streamed stand-up set in the UK in 2021, despite being released on Christmas day, raking in over 1.7 million views on Netflix in the six-day period.
Yet, a particular joke from the edgy special has drawn the ire of the cancel culture crowd in Britain.
Carr joked: “When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of six million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine.
“But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis. No one ever wants to talk about that, because no one ever wants to talk about the positives.”
While the special has been public for over a month, following the Holocaust Memorial Day last week, social media users, activists and groups have called for Carr’s special to be removed and for the comedian to be canceled.
An organisation representing Roma and Gypsy people — known as “travellers” in the UK — The Traveller Movement launched a petition for Netflix to remove the special. “This is truly disturbing and goes way beyond humour. We need all your support in calling this out,” the group wrote.
The British government has even got into the censorious act, with Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries describing Carr’s joke as “shocking”. Dorries told Sky News that the government will look to punish streaming platforms like Netflix for hosting such material.
However, speaking exclusively to Breitbart London, comedians Count Dankula and Leo Kearse have defended Carr’s right to be offensive in the pursuit of humour.
Scottish comedian and Youtuber Count Dankula, real name Mark Meechan, said: “I personally found Jimmy Carr’s joke funny, and I understand that because he is a comedian that he didn’t actually mean what he said, it was a joke.
“That is how stand-up comedy works, but that basic understanding of comedy is something that society seems to have lost over the past 5 years.”
Meechan rose to international attention after he was found guilty in 2018 for committing the “hate crime” of filming his girlfriend’s pug dog doing a Nazi salute in order to annoy her.
Despite his claim that the video was merely a “shitpost” and a “joke video for a laugh”, a Scottish court ruled that the video was “grossly offensive” — a charge with the possibility of prison time — and ultimately levied a fine against the comedian.
On Friday, he wrote a post “dripping with sarcasm” on social media, saying that Jimmy Carr “should receive the same treatment as me, by being arrested and charged under Section 127 of the Communications Act, be condemned by almost all of the comedy establishment and have his career blacklisted.”
Section 127, which makes it illegal to intentionally “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another”, has been used to arrest thousands of Britons for their posts on the internet.
Dankula noted that even though his post was clearly mocking the state of free speech in Britain, “people were actually retweeting it in agreement and supporting the complete nonsense I wrote, which is further proof of how much society is losing touch with comedy.”
Comedian Leo Kearse, who has also faced cancel culture attacks, told Breitbart London: “Jimmy’s joke doesn’t diminish the Holocaust. It relies on the absolute horror of the Holocaust for its impact, and in doing so, reinforces it.”
Count Dankula went on to malign the fact that people are trying to cancel Carr “all because he said something that made people feel a little bit upset for 45 seconds.”
“I would even say that 99 per cent of the people who are offended are not even travellers and are just feigning offense on their behalf to score some internet ‘I’m a good person’ points,” he added.
“I don’t have the time to listen to people bitch and moan because they watched a comedy show and saw something offensive.
“Just like Jimmy Carr is free to make his jokes, you are also free to not watch it, and if something as basic bitch as a Gypsy joke makes you piss your frillies then maybe you shouldn’t be watching any comedy at all.”
In true comedic spirit, Leo Kearse offered up a revision of the Jimmy Carr joke that would be “acceptable to woke people”:
When people talk about the Holocaust, they talk about the tragedy and horror of 6 million Jewish lives being lost to the Nazi war machine. But they never mention the thousands of Gypsies that were killed by the Nazis.
This is because of systemic prejudice against Roma people and the travelling community, and longstanding inequities which have minimised the voices of the Roma people.
I’m here all week folks, please try the veal (it’s vegan).
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka
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