A Spectre is haunting comedy...

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

 > ... while comedy is definitely a shared, group experience, it is not 
100 percent “inclusive”. It almost always requires an Other, an "out" 
group for those who "get it" to reflexively position themselves against.<


In this country the old rule that you are allowed to tell jokes in 
public only about your own group/s is still largely valid. You realize 
this when you watch ethnic comedy on TV. The Persian woman makes jokes 
about Persian women, the Turkish man about Turkish men. Of course, the 
audience is mixed, and you can often see ethnic Germans laughing about, 
for example, a comedian with Turkish roots while he's playing with 
anti-Turkish stereotypes. Is that laughter innocent? Hardly. Is any 
laughter innocent? I don't know. Am I, as a (non-Jewish) German, allowed 
to enjoy "Curb your Enthusiasm?" Well, I watch it anyway ...


Here's Oliver Polak, a Jewish German making jokes about Jews in Germany:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8tH-0kfEU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXhHowcoyOE

http://heebmagazine.com/oliver-polak-germanyae%E2%84%A2s-only-living-jewish-comedian/4504

 >Although Polak has since left his hometown for the more eclectic 
climes of Berlin, Papenburg and his solitary religious identity remain a 
touchstone in the act of Germany’s only living Jewish comedian. While 
Polak bristles at the religiously specific label, he knows that it is 
intrinsically part of his routine. “Whenever I say I’m Jewish, I feel a 
certain discomfort in the audience. Like,˜Oh, are they allowed to 
perform again?'” Polak says. “So basically people feel uncomfortable 
with the fact that there’s a Jew confronting them with humor. And, of 
course, I’d be rather stupid not to exploit that.” Because there are so 
few Jews living in Germany, most of the country’s residents are not used 
such topics integrated into humor. Political correctness has established 
an attitude that if you joke about the Holocaust, you’re either a 
neo-Nazi or you’re crazy—or you’re Jewish.

One of Polak’s most popular stunts is the “Who’s Jewish and Who’s Not” 
game (“Das Judenspiel”). “I yell some names of German celebs and the 
audience has to decide spontaneously and shout  ˜Normal,’ or ˜Jewish,'” 
Polak says. “With some names they’re pretty sure, others trouble them, 
like ALF.” The game always ends the same way. “I say ˜Oliver Polak’—the 
crowd answers, ˜Jew!’ Then I reply, ˜No, I’m normal, I’m just doing it 
for money.'”

But sometimes the audience just doesn’t get it. During a recent show, 
half the audience left and the other half accused the comedian of either 
fueling anti-Semitism or having a superiority complex about his Judaism. 
“I tell you, that was real comedy!” Polak says.

Despite Polak’s readiness to tackle heavy topics with humor, he doesn’t 
endorse non-Jews making light of the Holocaust. “Sometimes people really 
don’t get it,” Polak says. “When you tell them, ˜My father was in a 
concentration camp,'”—Polak’s own father survived the camps in Riga— 
“They think it’s funny to answer: ˜Well, mine was too. He was drunk and 
fell off the watchtower.’ That’s something no Jew can possibly laugh 
about. That’s the borderline you should never cross.”

According to the comedian, Jews are allowed to make jokes about the 
Shoah or other Nazi-related horrors because such subject matter is a 
part of their culture. <



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