Dapper Never Made Me Laugh

The latest internet trend in the UK seems to be the axing of Dapper Laughs ITV show On the Pull. Even with the new John Lewis christmas advert released, people seem to have an opinion about Daniel O’Reilly. He has provoked discussion not only regarding sexism, but now about censorship.

His style of humour is black comedy, therefore he’s allowed to be sexist if so required.

The Tab Cardiff recently posted an article on the subject, after O’Reilly was banned from performing at their SU earlier this month. The stance was taken that banning O’Reilly as well as the recent axing of his show was a form of censorship, that should not be implemented to “mollycoddle” those that couldn’t handle the ‘humour’.

Tab legend Oli Dugmore highlighted the frequency of black comedy on the British comedic scene, making examples of Russell Brand, Micky Flanagan and Frankie Boyle, all of whom use offensive slurs in part of their humour. Measures have also been taken towards these individuals, so why do they remain respected over? Because their slurs do not focus on the same topic, time after time.

I understand that black comedy in its very nature is offensive, and the idea of preventing someone from expressing themselves is frankly, a suppressive act, but the idea of excusing O’Reilly because he has chosen to express himself through ‘black comedy’ seems ridiculous.

‘Black comedy’ does not require the comedian to circulate the entirety of their humour around the victimisation of one singular object. Daniel O’Reilly was not required to objectify and degrade women consistently, because it was so required by the nature of black comedy. O’Reilly did this because he wanted to.

The idea of skill and eloquence in comedy in the UK is something that we do really, very well. All of those named above are popular because they use black comedy as an aid, not as a crutch to justify their offence. It is used tactfully, timed well, and although will undoubtedly cause offence, is varied enough that it remains fresh and funny. O’Reilly is not funny, he is repetitive, and therefore I cannot disclose him as a ‘comedian’. Simply a sexist.

With this in mind, the idea of censorship over this kind of material is completely justified. In the same way that I would expect consistently racist material to be banned from public consumption, I expect the repetitive sexist slurs to also be re-evaluated as a form of ‘entertainment’.

The idea that those following O’Reilly’s word for gospel, are the ones with the problem, is something that is also touched on in the Cardiff article. This is true.

You only have to look at the backlash received by Abi Wilkinson to understand that this kind of ‘humour’ encourages and provides a sexist platform that is completely unjustified. After being called a “sket with nothing better to do”, it’s not hard to see what On The Pull has set in motion. What O’Reilly has done, probably without realising it, is expose the misogyny that exist in youth culture today.

As a country, we have produced so many fantastic comedians, dark humour or otherwise. It saddens me to think that one individual has the potential to completely destroy this legacy with an unoriginal and inarticulate style of humour.

If you want something funny, you’re better off with Live at The Apollo. O’Reilly is no great loss to comedy.