Update 6/12/13. I guess it's a sign of the times that I'll always remember what I was doing online when I heard that Nelson Mandela had died. I was on a train last night checking my google stats and noticed that there was a surge in people coming to my website because they were searching for the phrase "Nelson Mandela jokes". A quick check of Twitter and I understood why. I wrote this piece below a few months ago reflecting on the immediate flurry of gags following the death of Margaret Thatcher and wondered, among other things, whether the same would happen with other important figures. Sure enough a few Mandela jokes have been popping out, from Frankie Boyle, among others, but the overall mood is one of reverence. For now anyway.
"Too soon?" It is a two-word phrase that has almost become the ultimate pithy in-joke in stand-up circles. When a comedian cracks a gag about a recent tragedy and fails to get the expected laugh he/she can be fairly sure of a bit of a back-up giggle by following through with the mock question "too soon?"
The funny thing is that I haven't come across the phrase at all over the last couple of days. That may be something to do with the papers I read and the people I follow on Twitter (i.e. the correct papers, the correct people). If there is any kind of consensus over the death of Margaret Thatcher it is the fact that she was such a divisive figure that there has to be a balance, it can't all be nice. It cannot all be eulogies and tributes. There had to be jokes.
On Monday afternoon social media was very swiftly a blur of anti-Thatcher one-liners. I'm not saying the quips shouldn't have been made so quickly, but Thatcher was a human being (or at least we have to assume that until the post-mortem results) and she has a family in mourning and the speed of the open season on her must have broken all records. The Huffington Post has already run a round-up of Thatcher Twitter jokes. I doubt if they will do that as quickly when the Nelson Mandela gags starting reaching the Smartphones when the beloved South African leader dies.
In some ways the Twitterati operate their own intuitive moral code. When Jimmy Savile died Twitter was quickly awash with jokes about rumours about his lifestyle and despite the fact that respectful tributes were simultaneously flooding in I don't recall anyone saying that the jokes were in bad taste or too soon or rushing to his defence. I suspect there was an instinctive feeling that he was a wrong 'un and thus fair game.
I think the "too soon" phrase originated with the death of Princess Diana. There was barely any internet back then so it was more something that people said in comedy clubs. I went to see Lee Hurst the night Diana died and while there was a strange atmosphere in the audience there were no topical gags from the stage. They soon followed though and have been coming ever since.
Sometimes a rapid response riff is just too irresistible. When stand-up Norman Collier died recently the announcement had barely been made when Twitter was ringing out with variants of "R P Nor an Col i r". Nobody would say that was too soon as there was affection to it. It was also very funny. Well, the first twenty times I saw it anyway. It is clearly never too soon for a tasteful, affectionate joke. And yes, there is such a thing. Just because you don't read Sickipedia every day does not mean you have to treat death with stoney-faced reverence. If you google the phrase "sick jokes about Margaret Thatcher" 90,100 results pop up, which might be a bit over the top, but I imagine the number will increase over the next week.
A joke can be fired off quickly if it is not in bad taste and the manner of death is not too shocking. Monday afternoon must have been one of the rare times that Frankie Boyle had competition when it came to spewing out the most bile. Boyle got in first by default though – he had delivered his thoughts on Thatcher's funeral a few years ago when he was on Mock The Week. It's a funny clip. Russell Howard doesn't know whether to laugh or hide under the desk. In the same way that the newspapers all had their obituaries of Thatcher ready to run before she died I presume there are impatient, itchy trigger fingered amateur comedians all over the country with jokes about Prince Phillip just waiting to hit the "send" button.
I guess it depends on how beloved a figure is. Some scientist somewhere is probably able to calculate the formula for how quickly a joke can be told. We all know Tragedy + Time = Comedy but it is a bit more complicated then that. Maybe something like: Number of People They Annoyed x How Rich They Were x Whether They Died in Bed or a Car Crash ÷ Number of Wrinkles + BAFTA Awards/Seniority in the Royal Family. The difficulty with the Thatcher gags is that they feel heartfelt, whereas most sick jokes straight after someone's death have just been told because they are funny. They also work as a potential escape valve for grief, though again, if it is too soon and too vitriolic it might have the opposite effect.
So let's finish with a tasteful joke about death, told by someone about themselves. 18th Century US President Benjamin Franklin said that the first thing he did every morning was read the obituaries column and "If my name is not on it, then I get up." I guess if he was around today he'd check Twitter first to see if there were any sick jokes about him before getting up. Franklin eventually died in 1788 without ever reading his obituary. I bet he was well-cheesed off. Too soon?
