Tommy Tiernan – the gombeen in the striped pyjamas
Monday, September 21st, 2009
So, Tommy Tiernan is in hot water again over one of his outbursts/jokes/random mental thoughts. This time it’s the Jews.
Irishcentral says he is facing a worldwide storm of protest over these comments :
“But these Jews, these f**king Jews come up to me. F**king Christ killing bastards. F**king six million? I would have got 10 or 12 million out of that. No f**king problem. Two at a time they would have gone. Hold hands, get in there, leave us your teeth and your glasses.”
Tiernan made them during a Q&A at Electric Picnic a few weeks ago and he prefaced the comments by saying that comedy was
“about allowing whatever lunacy is inside you to come out in a special protected environment where people know that nothing they say is being taken seriously.”
We get it Tommy. You’re an artiste – you must follow your muse, challenge perceptions, push the envelope, create etc etc. But when your utterances are not funny any more and you’re heading into Bernard Manning/Roy Chubby Brown territory maybe it’s time someone sat you down for a nice cup of tea and a chat. Whilst dipping the biccies into the tea, have a read of those Electric Picnic comments again and see how unfunny they are. Just because a half drunk audience at a music festival laughed, doesn’t make it OK.
ABOUT THIS CULCHIE
I blog at lecraic.com about random things - mostly with an Irish flavour. I Photoshop by day to make a crust, and sometimes Photoshop at night for the blog.
I am a fan of books - I love collecting and reading them with a slight preference for non fiction (business, biographies, current affairs). Some children had "blankies" as pacifiers - I had my "Billy Doran" book that went everywhere with me - even though I was too young to read at the time.
I like the rest of culchur as well as books - like films n' things.24 Comments
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This is nonsense. I say worse things every day.
I’ve always found TT funny but I kinda lost respect for him when I watched a particular dvd where most of the show was aimed at the Special Olympics and the disabled, it just left a really sour taste in my mouth. That was the straw that broke the camels back for me and I reckon this’ll do the same for others.
Then again I doubt he’ll lose any significant number of fans over it.
@emordino yes but is anyone paying good money for the privilege of listening to you?
I was a big Tommy T fan until I was at the opening night of the show where he made fun of people with down syndrome for about half an hour but apparently it was ok cos he ran a marathon for them….. His first DVD is brilliant but they go down hill from there. I wasnt bothered going to see him at EP.
I’m afraid that Tommy has turned from being a gifted comedian into just a prat.
I’ve never been a TT fan, always just seemed like he was trying too hard to be an Irish Billy Connolly, and falling rather short.
But I do have some sympathy for him on this occasion. Pretty much any comedian on the circuit today could end up having some pretty horrific accusations levelled against them if you were to quote parts of their routines out of context, too. (As happened to Richard Herring in a Guardian piece just before this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, in fact.)
By the same token, I can’t defend what TT said because I wasn’t there. But I’ve been to enough comedy gigs in my time, his and others, to be pretty certain that he didn’t just suddenly switch off his comedy persona and spontaneously go off on some vile, personal, anti-semitic rant. It may not have come out as funny as he’d hoped, but that doesn’t make him a bad person.
I’m with emordino, I say worse things myself.
I can’t believe it’s even getting talked out, it’s a non event to me.
If it wasnt for his controversial comments, I would not have heard of TT over the past couple of years. I really dont rate his material anymore. Im not offended by his comments, its just getting a bit boring and predictable at this stage.
Keep digging, Tommy. Keep digging that grave. For soon, everyone will forget you and see Dylan Moran for the genius he was all along, and then, THEN I SHALL BE VALIDATED!
Tommy Tiernan stopped being funny a long while back. Now he just shouts at the audience.
That said, his comments were part of his act. Reacting to it just gives him a platform. Let him just fall by the wayside.
Went to see Dylan Moran in Philadelphia this summer and brought the kdis because they agree he’s gas. Didn’t know Tommy Tiernan was also on the bill. He used to be very funny, but in the last few years has gotten very rough in his approach to comedy. We decided to leave before TT came on, partly because it was a school night, but mostly because we didn’t want to sit there with our kids listening to the shite he was likely to spew. Reading about this latest feat makes me feel really pleased with that choice. He’s really gone off the rails. Lost the thread of what is funny. Too into himself and his own head. Too bad!
There are funny people, they are the clever guys, they put a bit of work into it. Then there are the guys would rant, use plenty of foul language, and try to shock us into laughing by going totally off the rails. They confuse sick with funny, and sometimes sick people laugh, don’t they!
i noticed that the idiot in the crowd at EP was clad in a viva paletina T-shirt!!!!
what i thought very frightening about TT’s nazi styled antisemitism is that the crowd found his anti semitism hilariously funny.
Victor, how can someone wearing a viva palestina tee shirt be called an idot?
Any chance of an audio or full transcript of the interview. All we have is hand wringing and trotted out condemnations a la the Brass Eye Cake episode. Of course if you take his words out of context, put them in print and give them to leading members of the Jewish community for comment they have to condemn them in the strongest terms. If you don’t realise they’re taking the piss, they’re going to sound completely racist. Yer man Kramer was being racist because he wasn’t taking the piss.
Tiernan is the funniest man on the planet.
The Holocaust comment had eight aspects
1/He makes political commentary
2/He parodies extremist views including his own
3/He mentions that he finds Jews are often assertive in person and imagines an over the top response.
4/ 6 million is a massive reference point.
5/ Linking that assertiveness by parody of a rural irish male way of considering the world to one of the ultimate taboo subjects is hilarious
6/Kinky Friedman used disguised references to camps and 6 million in his cowboy songs -both Kinky and Tommy are perceptive witty and caring men.
6/He parodied a response to a question re offensiveness brilliantly by making an illogical extension.
7/He uses other sacred cows and popular liberal rallying causes as comedic grist
8/ He makes me laugh
if one wished to be offended, one could be for an hour and fifty nine minutes of a two hour tt show. sure, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but he’s a comedian; he’s not advocating anti-semitism; just as he’s not advocating anti-catholicism by his frequent rants against catholics. i can see his argument that he’s trying to shock us into thinking and talking about things in a way that we have grown to believe is unacceptable. i’m not going to defend these particular comments because i wasn’t there (and i’ll admit, in print, they certainly indicate he may have gone too far this time) but would there have been the same reaction had he gone on a rant wishing twice as many people had died in the famine, or in rwanda? i doubt it.
as for the learned contributor who thinks someone is an idiot for wearing a t-shirt in support of what is a legitimate cause in the majority of irish people’s eyes, it does give some indication of the depth of thought from some critics.
if one doesn’t wish to be offended, i’m sure there’ll be a new, hilarious brendan grace video in our shops any day now.
the only thing satirical about TT,S unbelievable ignorance was the Borat type reaction of the mob. if its funny to poke jokes about a people whom two thirds were murdered while your parent s generation looked on and did nothing .exept twiddle on their rosary beads
wasnt it possible that TT was touching on a subconscious irish racism. Most of the mob looked jarred and therefore
their critical faculties were fueled by alcohol!! i have lived in ireland since 1972 so i’m not just off the boat. i’m well aware of the cultural aspect of this country. TT for all his inane ramblings is
a wooly conservative prick. Another ten years or so will prove me right. mean while could somebody give him a good kick in the goolies!!!! just joking!!! or is that not funny!!!!!
your blog referring toTT linking his anti semitism to that of the rural irsh male just about says everything about TT’s so called comedy. Possibly he knows how to tap into the local cultural psych! but may i inform you that out side of this isle that type of bullshit is meaningless.
so poking jibes at the jewish people as he did twice before he got to the real shit…is small minded parochial idiocy.
while it might connect with your village fool outlook..in the wider world beyond these shores…its fucking meaningless.
Victor, I know you are not long enough in Ireland to know that over 100,000 Irish men fought AGAINST Nazism, and thousands died in the process. The people who were twiddling on their rosary beads were their family praying for their safe return.
You have some nerve here giving out about people making fun of the jews, whenever you yourself called someone an idiot for wearing a Viva Palestina tee shirt. You showed yourself up for been a narrow minded individual with that statement.
Plus, how do you know the crowd were drunk? Did you perform breathalizer tests?
The Holocaust was a terrible thing to happen, and no one denies that.
It is probably the only thing comedians are not alowed to touch.
Tell us this Victor, have you ever laughed at a joke about the misfortunes of another race, creed or colour ?
If everyone was honest here, we have all been guilty of that in the past.
Tell us another thing Victor, did you support Israel earlier in the year when massacred 1,400 people in 22 days?
Another thing Victor, does the permanent illegal lockup of 1.5 million people who are denied food, water, medicine, building materials, educatiion, and human rights remind you of a certain Polish city during WW11?
I
if you cant take a joke, dont go to see a comedian
is TT LABELED a comedien…in my time comediens were variety artist ie they could be sandwiched between a dancer and a singer.and the first prequesite for to be a comedien was that you had to be a funny person. TT like a lot of modern pretenders looks as if he’s releasing his mental depression. take a look on you tube at frankie howard, tony handcock, mkichael barrymore and compare them with that shit!!!!!