Two programs: Está passant (TV3) and El hormiguero (Antena 3). Two comedians: Toni Soler and Pablo Motos. Two gags: that of the Virgen del Rocío and that of the lesbian and deaf candidate (this is how Irene Montero presented her) from Podemos to the mayor's office of Valencia, Pilar Lima. Two plaintiffs: Abogados Cristianos and the aspiring mayor of the Túria capital. Two reasons: offenses to the Virgin and to the disabled and collective LGTBIQ.
The British superstar of humor and black beast of the jailers of laughter, Ricky Gervais, would respond to the complainants with some of his most celebrated quotes. I would remind the warders of the cross that, without sinners, Jesus would have died for nothing. And to the Valencian podemites, being offended is not the same as being right. Of course, as Gervais himself would add, trying to convince someone who despises it of the benefits of humor has the same effect as threatening an atheist with hell: none.
The gag about the Virgen del Rocío on TV3 undoubtedly offended many Christians. And the joke about deafness, lesbianism and a limp on Antena 3 could hurt the sensitivity of many people, whether or not they belong to any of these three groups. Now, from there to demand that justice intervene to send the comedian on duty to the galleys, be his name Toni Soler or Pablo Motos, there is an abyss. The one that goes from the legitimate feeling of being offended to the miserable aspiration of becoming a censor to order others about what they can joke and laugh about. That the justice process these types of complaints, as has already happened with the one referring to the Virgen del Rocío, even if they later end in nothing, is terrible news. The collapsed Spanish judicial system should not waste a minute on childishness.
Even so, the most interesting thing about the coincidence in time of both complaints is not in the debate on the limits of humor and freedom of expression. What the simultaneity of both cases offers is the possibility of noticing the absolute discretion and hypocrisy with which many opponents of the censor attempt to address these issues. They share the objective of establishing limits for scriptwriters and arrogating the right to judge what can and cannot be said on television. The world has to adjust to your own experience and your particular prejudices and beliefs. But the curious thing is that to achieve this they claim themselves as champions of freedom of speech. Although, and therein lies the catch, only in the event that what they have to hear is fully satisfactory to them.
In other words, these days there are those who defend Toni Soler tooth and nail and who, on the contrary, would cut out Pablo Motos's tongue. And backwards. Freedom of expression? Yes, all. But as long as the joke offends others and not me. Each ideological neighborhood raises its pyres and aspires to burn in them the comedian who is annoying. Meanwhile, in parallel, he builds altars to extol the one who, yes, makes him laugh. To those who act like this, laughter, their own and that of others, is actually brought to the heave. Because his being in the world does not admit a second of relaxation. The joke is no longer a joke. He is a fellow revolutionist or a dangerous reactionary. He is convinced that every word, expressed or silenced, jokingly or seriously, points to the most transcendent. In short, he takes himself so seriously that the joke ends up being himself. A joke, this one, of the heaviest.
In the Sensitive test. On modern sensibility and the limits of what is tolerable (Herder, 2023), the German philosopher Svenja Flasspöhler dives into the complex reality of the democratic culture of discourse today. It is a lucid text that tries to clear up how far it is reasonable for the demand for respect for others to prevail from our own sensibility. She probes the difficult balance between the necessary empathy towards others in order not to hurt them and the also required resilience of each individual to withstand a discursive reality that will not always be to her liking. And she warns: "The ignorant and reactionary polemicist of political correctness corresponds, on the other side, a sensitive self that expects all the protection from the world, while it expects nothing from itself."
With the castration of humor in its most varied forms, from the lightest to the most sarcastic, we come dangerously close to expecting nothing from ourselves and trusting everything to the vow of silence imposed on others. Voluntarily fragile. Like a glass that a simple and natural laugh can break.
