Prince Philip Dies

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah well when you own golden jewelry blinged out with gems stolen from the people your empire oppresses for your benefit, maybe "Friendly ragging" is a little outside the range of appropriate behavior. If my employer tried that I'd want to kick him in the goolies, and the power discrepancy here is off the flipping charts.

[Muzer]

To be honest I suspect that was probably a failed attempt at a joke, rather than him actually wishing death on large numbers of people.

I think the think about Prince Philip is that a lot of people saw him as like your granddad who constantly makes jokes but just doesn't realise (or, if you want to be cynical, is willingly ignorant to) how hurtful it is to some people to say the sorts of things he does. I think because so many people know someone like that a lot of people were more willing to cut him slack even for his worse blunders.

He's just a Brit. You have to understand the acerbic culture to get it just like with Far Eastern politeness and face saving. Take a look at British comedies and how everyone is antagonistic towards one another right down to families in a way America comedies aren't. About the closest America came to was Frasier with how he and his circle are always trading barbs at one another.

So long as you know he didn't mean any harm willfully, you can laugh at his boldness. An example of that was a friend my mom made years ago. After sitting silently as his own friend chatted with her for the better part of an hour, he finally said "You've got a nice pair of tits!", to which my mom laughed at. She knew it was in jest and respected his boldness which made them fast friends.

Take the "eating dogs for the anorexic" joke. Philip made it at a blindness research fund raiser or something he'd attended specifically because he himself dealt with his own diminishing vision problems. If he was making fun of the blind, he was joking about himself as well.

I'm a Brit myself. British comedy is more about self-deprecation I find; putting down others is mostly done when they know you're kidding. Of course this is why it works with comedians on TV and radio, because they know the other is only doing it for the laugh. And I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the shouting matches between Lee Mack and David Mitchell on WILTY for example — but that's exactly my point, they give as good as they get and both know it's ultimately all done for laughs. It's somewhat different when your target is someone who might be more inclined to be genuinely hurt by it.

Not saying I don't find some of Prince Philip's remarks funny either, btw; I just think sometimes they are genuinely insensitive and the potential for harm outweighs the mild amount of humour, especially for someone in such a position that he should really know better. Often if I find them funny it's more in a cringe humour sort of way, and I'm not normally one for cringe humour...

Self-depreciation is there, but the friendly bits at people are too. Often I find, at least in my family, that they're there as a sign to show that you're one of us. We don't rag on strangers, that would be rude, but doing it to each other shows we know and trust each other to be sarcastic or blunt.

That's precisely my point. Prince Phillip's "friendly ragging" was usually against strangers or at least people he only knows professionally. Or just against whole groups of people. This is why I had him pegged much more as a "racist granddad" type than a "just a guy with a quick wit" type.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Reminds me of Churchill saying, "if I was your husband, I'd drink it."