Frankie Boyle. Just a laugh?

I hope to write a discursive essay for my english folio on Frankie Boyle and was wondering what peoples opinions of his jokes were, whether they were funny or just offensive?

He used to be really funny but now all he relies on "shock humour" too much and it generally isn't that funny. That's not to say he doesn't make me laugh sometimes, just that there are much better comedians.

freedom of speech, dont like his style dont watch him

He is literally one of the least funny comedians this country has to offer. His style of comedy is nothing more than *Make offensive observation, wait for laughs*

Got to disagree with you there, his comedy is a lot more than making offensive observations and waiting for the laughter.

Fair enough, humour is of course subjective and I respect the fact that you feel differently. But what on earth is funny about him? Literally, his entire formula can be summed up as:

take public figure or otherwise seemingly innocent person/thing (eg. children, princess Dianna, the mentally ill >>

take tragic or otherwise unsavoury topic e.g. aids, cancer, pedophilia >>

mash the two together in the pathetic hope that someone will find it hilarious and pure genius.

Essentially, I think a lot of his material is aimed at showing how vacuous the celebrity culture that saturates the media actually is but in a very shock-and-awe manner. I mean TV generally is very mundane, obvious predictable and as a result just becomes so mind-numbing. It is good therefore to have someone who pushes the boundaries of what is and isn't acceptable.

Also, I tend to find that people only find his material offensive because he strays from the kind of generally acceptable list of people you can take the piss out of.

If you want to talk about using comedic satire to make a statement about the state of our media, you need to be looking at Chris Morris. That's how it's done correctly. Boyle on the other hand is nauseatingly repetitive. He's not making any sort of 'clever satire about media', he's just repeatedly using crude humour and names like Kerry Katona to score cheap shock laughter. Brass Eye with a piece of comedic genius, using shock and black humour to make an incredibly bold statement about the nature of our media. Boyle however, is a washed up former panel-show comedian who relies on the same old tired "shock" one-liners to get a mere chuckle.



And there are comedians out there who do a much, much better job of it. Even Jimmy Carr does it far, far better.

I do like Chris Morris too and as you said before it is just a matter of opinion. I prefer Frankie over Morris but then I prefer Hicks, Carlin and Stanhope over Frankie.

I can understand that people don't find him funny but less understanding of people who get offended by him.

I'm not 'offended' by him in the slightest. My contention is that his use of 'offensive humour' is banal and unfunny. It's insultingly childish and reeks of lazy comedy. There are ways of using black-humour in order to make a satirical statement and in my view he's doing it all wrong.

Of course, I understand that you feel differently and are entitled to. I'm not trying to tell you what comedians are and aren't acceptable as others are. Just that he's well...pretty naff in all fairness.