British comedian
Frankie Boyle (born 16 August 1972) is a Scottish comedian and writer, known for his pessimistic and often crude sense of humour. He was a regular participant in the comedy panel show Mock the Week (2005–2009) and has made guest appearances on several other panel shows.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Birth Name:
Francis Martin Patrick Boyle
From Wikidata (CC0)
Sometimes I write stuff now and I go "am I really rebelling there, or am I just conforming?" Because our society works on conformity. People talk about racist cops; they don't select for racism. There isn't a test where they go "I'm afraid you failed; you answered several questions about the history of Motown correctly." They test you for conformity so that you'll just nod along with structural racism, and sometimes I say to myself "well, am I conforming?" So look, I compèred Live at the Apollo a couple of years ago - which is a type of conformity in itself - and at the time, you're supposed to do jokes on all these celebrities they've got down at the front and one of them was this really brilliant female boxer who I really admired and I'd followed her whole career. I had written this joke which I was really proud of which was "At the Olympics, in the women's boxing, they fought in two minute rounds which was good, because if had been three minute rounds I think I would have ejaculated my own pelvis." (laughter) And you know, I really laughed when I wrote that. I thought "that's fucking hilarious" because you'd never say that to someone's face, would you? And then as I was walking to the show I was thinking; people do say that kind of thing, people say that kind of thing in school - especially me. People say it now on social media, so am I just fucking conforming here? And what am I conforming with, a deeply sexist society?
I watched Hannah Gadsby's show Nanette. Now, it's a really great show, you should watch it if you get the chance. She talks a lot in it about comedy and her main point is that she feels that, herself as an oppressed person, she's often used her comedy to let the audience off too lightly - she makes a lot of good points. I think the problem with stand-up comedy is it simplifies stuff. It's hard to get at the truth when you've got to get a lot of regular laughs. And sometimes I think, am I trying to get to the truth here or am I just trying to tell funnier lies? So for example, I think she simplifies some stuff in her show. She says, stand-up comedy works by creating a tension in the audience, that's then punctured with a punch line. I don't think mine works like that, I think for me the tension arrives in the punchline. My uncle always said "do something you love, and you never have to work a day in your life" - he did heroin. (laughter) The tension arrives in the punchline and the setup line is almost supposed to be soothing, really. People say, don't they, that you only regret the things in your life that you don't do. I don't know who said that first, but it's someone who's never broken two corkscrews trying to get an unlubricated parsnip out of their arse. (laughter) The tension arrives... in the punchline.
(Speaking about Ricky Gervais' joke about trans women) Now, I've got nothing but love for trans women, I've got nothing but love and support for trans folk in general. But they themselves would admit it's a very contentious issue that people try not to talk about, and Ricky Gervais obviously is a very powerful guy in show business. So nobody, really, who had the best years of their careers ahead of them... would tell you what they thought of that routine. Ricky Gervais, he does maybe fifteen minutes where he goes "well if a trans woman can say that they are a woman, I can say that I'm a chimpanzee, I'm a chimpanzee!" And my genuine reaction was; it's not that much weirder than Ricky Gervais saying that he's a stand-up comedian. I mean look, we know Ricky Gervais, he's a brilliant actor, he's a brilliant writer, he's not a fucking stand-up comedian! Just because Ricky Gervais self-identifies as a stand-up comedian, am I supposed to say he is one? It's fucking political correctness gone mad! Also, loving animals - brilliant, wonderful. Going on about loving animals? Suspect.
I don't like people who lash out at jokes - at the same time, I don't like people who lash out at political correctness. I think it's lazy, and I think it sometimes encourages people to dismantle stuff that protects them. So I'll give you an example; there's a guy I talk to a lot in Glasgow, he's a homeless guy and he was an alcoholic - I suppose that's why I talk to him, because I was an alcoholic. (...) So I was talking to this guy the last time I saw him and I went "What would you say is your biggest problem in life at the minute?" and he went "Do you know what's my biggest problem, Frankie? It's all these fucking snowflakes in the media!" It can't be! It just literally fucking cannot be! You're sleeping rough in the streets of Glasgow, your biggest problem is actual flakes of fucking snow!
You get these people, and they'll probably always be with us, who get offended by comedy. And I used to not mind until it occurred to me one day; most people who get offended at jokes watch porn! Like, pretty much all of them! There's someone right now watching torture porn going (mimicking someone masturbating) "I hope nobody makes a joke about a fuckin' swimmer's nose!" And then you get these people who defend comedy and say "oh this is a free speech issue", it's not a free speech issue; it's an artistic license issue. You're allowed to talk about it because it's not real on some level, right? There will always be people who won't get it, there's always those people who go "I think you'll find that if two blokes actually took a crocodile into a pub, there would be fucking carnage." But it's not real, so we get to joke about it. I think people sometimes get confused with how they use humour in their own life with what this is. So most people use humour as a form of politeness, as an ice breaker - this isn't that. This is sentences that end in a very surprising way.
At least Theresa May went, she had to go didn't she? Towards the end she had all the authority of the "Do Not Tumble-dry" label. She always had the charm of a fucking war crime. Towards the end her body language had gone; I didn't realise it was possible to limp with both legs. So now we've got Boris Johnson; an evolutionary dead-end of the Honey Monster. A bin bag of albino body parts. A cross between the Incredible Hulk and a Haribo fried egg... is the fucking prime minister! The Prime Minister! It's not just that he's the worst person for the job, he might be the worst mammal! And let's not forget how they create these people; they're created in the public school system, that's where they lose their empathy. They're forged in the crucible of hierarchical sodomy. That's why they can't get along, the last time the cabinet saw eye-to-eye it was over the back of a weeping first year. Incidentally, I'm not one of those people who thinks there's a paedophile ring in Westminster, I think it's probably more of a queue.
(Speaking about Comic Relief and charity) Look, there's a colonial side to British charity, it's true; look at Yemen, right? We're the number one provider of weapons and bombs and expertise to Saudi Arabia that they use to bomb Yemen, to engineer a famine in Yemen. At the same time, we're the number two provide of aid to Yemen - and why not? Life gives you Yemen, you give Yemen aid.
American foreign policy is horrendous 'cause not only will America come to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse, I think, is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad. Oh, boo hoo hoo. Americans making a movie about what Vietnam did to their soldiers is like a serial killer telling you what stopping suddenly for hitchhikers did to his clutch.