when he makes a joke about it, he's also critiquing societal norms at the same time.

Yes, that's the real point of the jokes. I remember reading an askreddit thread about your favorite hidden meanings in films. Top one was Jurassic Park not being about dinosaurs, but about playing God.

OF COURSE IT FUCKING WAS YOU DOOFUS. JESUS H CHRIST IT WAS ENTIRELY ABOUT THAT. IF YOU DIDNT GET THE MEANING YOU MUST HAVE WATCHED IT ON MUTE AND STILL SKIPPED SCENES

In much the same way, Louis's routine on faggot was 100% about society. It was a discussion OF THE WORD, with funny jokes, and if some people miss it, they are very thick. It's why immediately after I mentioned it I brought up the deeper why question, because that is the natural progression from the examination of society's use of faggot. It's probably that people were missing his wider point that Louis wrote in that character in his show to make sure people got it.

Not sure if this is Cody's scene or not, but In the show he played cards with a guy who gave an erroneous etymology of faggot and told him to stop using it, with great effect. The scene was not funny, but was there to make an argument that the use of the word can be offensive, just to hammer it home.

But that's not what we're really talking about with the joke.

I don't follow you, Kermit. Explain..?

Seinfeld was right.

I don't disagree with Seinfeld (for the record I'm far beyond college-aged). Offense isn't something we should shield ourselves from. However, there is a difference between the punchline of a joke being, "Cody is a homo" where calling him a homo is the insult, versus playing on stereotypes of the LGBTQ community and making a funny comparison. Audience also matters. For instance, in a white community, its probably not okay to say "Cody is a jew/nigger." I don't think I have to explain why. Seinfeld tends to be much more nuanced and his jokes tend to get at everyday assumptions that we take for granted. I've never heard his jokes go in such a simplistic manner. In fact, some of the funniest comics I've seen go straight for the topics that are going to be offensive. It isn't about avoiding offence, it is about demanding more from the joke-makers.

What we laugh about tends to reveal a lot about our root assumptions of the world. Examining why we laugh at something gives us insight into these assumptions. At that point we can decide if it really is something we want to find funny or not. Just a thought.

I am aware of the difference between disparaging a minority and calling someone a dick. It's why they're in two separate sentences with one beginning with "that said,"

I didn't want to get into why that is insulting, and still don't. I understand your point about using words that are inclusive, but the fact is, if the anagram were "a known dick" it would still be funny. It wouldn't be AS funny because of the extra play you can get out of homo. If it worked out to be anus, I think we could still get by with just as funny as homo.

But, I now understand you were not asking the question you apparently asked.

What you were really saying is "this isn't funny."

You're right, but I did want people to name their reasoning. Once that is on the table, we can at least discuss it in context without hyperbole, etc. However I'm pretty sure you understood what I was doing in your first response, so I'm not the only one being coy. :-)

I like you Funk and I know that message boards tend to shoe us into adversarial modes of communication so this probably comes off as me being overly sensitive or something.
Look, I don't want to see this place turn into a PC hellhole where no one can communicate. However, I do think we can be thoughtful with our language and that is a bit different.

It's a difficult balance, but I think really it's about knowing your audience. If you call your friend a c**t in private and you know he won't be upset that's cool. But if you scream it at a group of elderly women someone's gonna have a bad time.

Heh... that's STILL a word I simply cannot get past the taboo of. Which is weird, because it's one of the few words that is notably more offensive in the US than in other places (we're usually at the forefront of defanging by oversaturation, just because we're crasser than the rest of the planet). It's the only one of Carlin's 7 words that I don't use regularly, and probably never will.