If you were to ask stand up comedians whether there is any subject that is too taboo to make jokes about, I suspect that many (most?) would say that there wasn’t, and that provided the gag is actually funny, what the joke makes fun of is irrelevant.
Whether you agree with that viewpoint will probably depend on where your own personal predilections lie. But should comics always be true to their standpoint on what is suitable for comedy, or are the potential sensibilities of the audience more important? There’s a time and a place for a no-holds-barred act, but the village church summer garden party probably isn’t it!
Magic acts have the same decisions to make about the patter and possibly the stage personality that they use as a backdrop to their illusions. In the same way that it would make no sense to try and use the Impaled illusion to entertain toddlers at a pre-school group, so adult show patter surely has to be at least in part regulated by the intended audience, doesn’t it?
Now it has to be said that in the UK at times we are guilty of taking political correctness to ridiculous levels. Like the Welsh Male Voice Choir who were accused of being sexist because they didn’t have women in their ranks. Hmmm, the clue’s in the title, isn’t it?
But the trouble is, minority groups sometimes make the most noise, and often as a result the majority are forced to comply to rules that pander to a very small sub-section of society. It’s not that these groups should be ignored, but surely there has to be a common sense balance when it comes to compliance with some of their more radical demands.
However, if as a magic act we want to be acceptable to the majority of people we entertain, I think we do need to try to avoid the more obvious verbal gaffs. Even though it may go against the grain at times, riding roughshod over every element of political correctness might soon reduce the appeal of our act down to a small percentage of the population.
But how far do you take it? Should Jeff Hobson drop the ‘camp’ persona he has used successfully for decades in order to avoid potentially upsetting the gay community? Should card magicians refrain from referring to some cards as ‘black’ cards? Is the suit of Spades a hidden insult? Is it unwise for kid show workers to refer to Mummies and Daddies since some of the children will come from one / same sex parent families?
Language is constantly changing, of course, and words that were once completely normal and without any inferred prejudice may now be considered totally off limits. Ignoring some of the more obvious examples of this can at best make you look out of touch, and at worst appear deliberately insulting. Some of the patter lines I used back in the 70s and 80s make me cringe now, so things do need to move on.
But the issue perhaps for all performers here is in deciding how much of our desire to get a laugh we are prepared to repress in order not to fall foul of the PC brigade? The answer probably lies in who is normally in your audiences. Is it a young, trendy crowd who are up for being shocked and who delight in all matters non-PC, or is it a traditional group with more delicate attitudes? It’s your call.