Black Comedy - ABC Suspends "Chaser"

Someone who thinks a little like you caskur. An opinion about the Chasers skit I thought you might like to read.

Black humour helps
Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:24am AEST

I didn't laugh much at the Chaser's Make a Wish Foundation skit, but I wasn't offended either. I am more offended that someone should lose her job over it and the program be suspended.

Two of my sons died from an undiagnosed degenerative neurological condition, one at five-and-a-half and the other at four years. As we cared for them while attempting to find a cure, people said "I don't know how you do it".

The truth was that we plodded from day to day, with endless tests, delays and waiting rooms. Our moods were elevated by the possibilities of a new treatment and were crushed by subsequent failures, as each child deteriorated.

We were determined to fight for our children, and that occasionally lead to cranky disputes with treating doctors and anyone else who seemed to be causing our misery.

The other thing that kept us going was black humour. We discovered that we weren't the only ones and when we had time to swap notes with other suffering parents, it was restorative to laugh at how rude we could be, at the spew and the slobber.

For me, the kind of black humour attempted by the Chaser is absolutely vital, but I think that the joke didn't work probably because of the obviously weak target. I could also understand that some suffering parents may irrationally identify the Chaser's joke with the cause of their troubles. And then, of course, a feast was spotted by the usual do-gooders and shock jocks.

More Chaser, please.