Shelagh Fogarty condemns Jimmy Carr's 'cruel' Gypsy Holocaust joke
5 February 2022, 16:39 | Updated: 5 February 2022, 17:10
'It adds up to cruelty': Shelagh Fogarty on Jimmy Carr's gypsy joke
Shelagh Fogarty branded comedian Jimmy Carr's joke about Travellers and the Holocaust as "brutal poor taste" that "adds up to cruelty".
Mr Carr, 49, opens his Netflix special His Dark Material – which aired on Christmas Day - with a "trigger warning" to the audience and Netflix described it as containing "career enders".
A widely-shared clip from the show shows the comedian talking about "six million Jewish lives being lost" before making a disparaging remark about the deaths of thousands of Gypsies under the Nazi regime.
Shelagh told listeners: "What's prompted this conversation is Jimmy Carr, who, much like Frankie Boyle actually, has decided that being funny - and they can both be very funny - can legitimately include brutal poor taste, which to the subject of the joke especially, adds up to cruelty.
"Jimmy Carr, in a Netflix special, has made a joke that clearly sends out a message that a Holocaust that kills millions of Jews is off-limits for jokes, a Holocaust that kills Roma people is not off-limits."
Read more: Head Gypsy: Jimmy Carr's Holocaust joke 'struck fear into my heart'
Jimmy Carr should be prosecuted for joke about Roma Genocide
Shelagh continued: "Would Jimmy Carr laugh at Pol Pot's victims in the killing fields of Cambodia? Probably not. Would he laugh at the Rohingya in Myanmar currently still being abused? The Uyghur muslims in China currently being abused and murdered? The Yazidi girls brutalised by the Islamic state? Probably not, I would hope not. Or closer to home, the old people sitting alone all day, freezing alone, some of whom have been calling our programmes this week at LBC.
"There is line, isn't there?"
Not-for-profit organisation the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust shared a statement on Twitter from their CEO Olivia Marks-Woldman who said she was "horrified" to hear "gales of laughter" following Carr's remarks.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "These comments from Jimmy Carr are beyond tasteless.
"The targeting of Roma and Sinti during the Holocaust is no laughing matter. Deeply offensive. I also don't understand how this was aired @netflix."
A representative for Carr was contacted for comment.
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