Sam Fisher: Stage jokes backfire before you can say 'sick day'

The meaning of the word 'gay' has changed a lot over the past century. Photo / Thinkstock

Opinion

It must be hard being a stand-up comic. Not because it's difficult, although in my limited experience the eerie silences when I've finished are quite awkward.

The difficulty is knowing what you can poke fun at and what you can't, as social mores wax and wane. Life is moving so fast it's possible things that were funny at the start of a routine may be off limits by the finish.

Look at the evolution of the term "gay". For many generations it meant carefree, but late last century it became a term of abuse for sexual orientation, then a positive word for homosexuality, and now it seems another generation is using it to mean stupid. By next Thursday it may have come to mean enlightened, before turning into a synonym for Antichrist by Friday lunchtime.

Another example was highlighted once during a course I was on. It disintegrated when a social activist in her 50s aggressively took the facilitator to task for referring to us all as "guys". She refused to step down when the younger women insisted "guys" meant everyone, including women, leading to one of them calling her an old interfering hag. To this day I'm not sure whether "old interfering hag" was meant as a term of endearment or positive reference for a wise middle-aged woman - but it certainly wasn't taken that way.

It is probably time for some lateral thinking, maybe a weekly forecast on what you can and can't use for comedy for at least the coming week.

It could become a regular feature, like the weather.

Here's how it might look.

"You can't use racist terms this week as they make the deliverer look stupid, and comments that are anti-women are so out of favour you could lose your senior lobbying role before you can say 'sick leave'.

"Criticising religion will get you rested for several weeks - unless you're making fun of Christians, which can be used in columns with gay abandon. (You can choose the meaning you attach). Cloud banks cover a number of 'one true religions' and raise too many insurance risks for the working comic.

"By Tuesday, age will still be fair game, although if you're using this to discriminate in employment it has to be dressed up as 'won't fit into the team' or another euphemism. Baby-boomers changed our attitudes to older people in the 1970s and will get as much respect as they gave the elderly in their day.

"It will stay fine to pick on very skinny or obese people, but get in early as the study of epigenetics (how our specific genes and food types interact) may take this off limits by the weekend.

"Surprisingly, the outlook for viciously abusing people with red hair (particularly former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks) remains good. This symptom of the Celtic gene pool is fair game and use of the word ginga is only deemed hurtful to people who need to toughen up.

"Making fun of journalists who worked for News of the World is fine at any time. They've been taking the piss for years.

"The long-range forecast is positive for continuing to make snide comments about men's inability to multitask.

"Rude comments about intelligence and geekiness are expected to come into ascendancy in the future.

'The prediction for next week is the best target for jokes could be the freakishly extroverted show-offs who want to publicly make fun of others - so columnists, stand-ups and buskers wrap yourselves up well and stay indoors. It may just not be funny any more."