5 comedians whose 'insult humour' will roast you alive

Humiliated Maharashtrians and MNS cadres may be burning Tanmay Bhat’s effigy for daring to lampoon the God and Nightingale of India, but "insult comedy" wasn’t invented by the AIB hunk, er, hulk. The stand-up comic and his fiery band of tradition slayer, wielding the great sword of humour, must actually be credited for assuming that Indians can and should be able to stomach the new scorching hot genre of divine comedy currently being perfected in West.

There are comedians for whom nothing is sacred. Not for them the mealymouthed political correctness that actually fixes nothing, leaves the stereotypes happily in their stupid little boxes, and goes about this world being oh-so-propah.

For serious comics, comedy is a serious business which spares nothing. Be it rape jokes or Holocaust humour – there, there, did you just jump out of your couch and drop that latest smartphone that burnt a hole in your pocket? – they have poked fun at everything, bringing them out of their rusty shells of “never-to-be-discussed-disparagingly”.

The whole point of “insult humour”, or of its slightly more hardcore cousin – “the roast” – is liberation through exaggeration. Yes, that is a thing. You exaggerate the numbskull stereotypes so much that people actually start dealing with the slurs head-on, rather than skirting them effectively, or using them to lay a piss on the nearest vulnerable candidate. 

Here are five comics who would make you cringe and roll on the floor with disgust: only you would laughing so hard that the comedy will sink in exactly where it needs to – the freaking brain of yours. 

Wanda Sykes

She often wishes if women had “detachable puss” which could be left at home in case it got dark and the woman had to run an errand or even go for that idiotic job. Wanda Sykes – arch dame of black stand-up comedy, a peculiarly self-flagellating version of that – will leave you in tears with her blazing hot, roaring lines.

She’s a monster-slayer that one, quipping that a detachable vagina would be the top-notch solution that biotechnology could goodheartedly gift the women to end rape. You know because a vagina-less woman is so utterly worthless to a amn that she can actually go about doing her job, without being bothered, or even noticed. To hell with her talent as umm, er, a “professional”? Shush, shush – dirty word that one!

Jim Jefferies

This Australian stand-up comic is famous for his curious neologisms – “alcoholocaust”, “Blasphemia” , “Jesus the Psychopath” – and yes many more. Controversy follows him like the Vodafone pug. Yet his forthright and opinionated shows have left the less irreverent panting for a breath. The Jews, for example, think Jefferies simply doesn’t get the enormity of the Nazi cruelty, while his followers can’t stop raving about how their Jimbo has brought out a stuffy, unwieldy subject from the musty confines of buried history and let it breathe.

Jefferies is scathing on Iraq, religious laws on blasphemy, gun lobby, fake etiquette and all that the genteel society wouldn’t want to be poked around much. But Jimbo is quite the Kangaroo with his one-liners, and yes he does it all for the money!

George Carlin

Who can forget what George Carlin – the great Zeus of high comedy – said: “When comes to bullshit, the clergyman can hold a candle to the businessman.” This feisty American, long deceased now – perhaps he choked on his own brilliance – gave us the most startling lines on the god business which no new atheist such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or even a Chris Hitchens, could give. And he made us laugh so hard, our belly hurt.

Often called the “great dean of countercultural comedians” – perhaps for his white-as-snow beard and sweet, academic demeanour (he only needed to open his mouth to puncture that misc nception), Carlin was posthumously awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. To quote Carlin, “You can joke about everything if you can construct it. Every joke needs one exaggeration.”

Point taken!

Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat

Ethnicity jokes were the in thing, until they became a complete no-no, even though the stereotypes had a field day. The “civilised world” slunk into a corner, until Sacha Baron Cohen as “Borat from Kazakhstan” made them see the light again.

Borat not only channeled every possible labels and tags about Eastern Europeans, he blew them up to such an extent that Americans and Brits and Germans and even the French were forced to acknowledge that the stereotypes were utterly bogus. The sight of Borat prancing about in a weird loincloth and giving/receiving dating tips to/from the uncouth American is a sight to behold.

Louis CK

So he said hi to you. "Hey faggot!" You have to give it to Louis CK – this American smuggled a little bird in his backpack to some wasteland of a military base in Iraq (or was it Afghanistan?), and he kept it alive, only to address you as a faggot. Obviously, he is a comic. He has leeway. The Louis-way. But listen to him, and he deconstructs faggot for you in such a way that you can’t help but thank him.

If you haven’t heard him explaining "white people" to, mostly white people, you haven’t known what heavenly relish is there in getting fried in the oil of your own privileges. Let Louis CK do that to you. It’s the spa for your brain, buddy!