Beyond a joke: should there be limits to offensive comedy?

This session is part of Battle of Ideas Berlin 2026.

Talking on US panel show The View, comedian Ricky Gervais criticised the idea that comedy must never offend. ‘Just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re right. Offence is about feelings and feelings are subjective. Some people are offended by equality – so what?’

But it seems that view isn’t widely shared by the political and cultural elites in Germany. For example, following the Islamist attack on Berlin’s Pride event, Chancellor Merz said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is not just an attack like the one last night that threatens our freedom. Intolerance, exclusion, discrimination, stupid sayings and bad jokes are already part of such violence.’ In other words, terror attacks and jokes are simply different parts of a common spectrum – with the implication that both must be controlled.

Indeed, comedy seems to be in a parlous and sensitive state. Many comedians now seem to confuse activism with humour – it’s all part of the ‘fight against the right’. Such comics engage in self-editing, too, because of the risk of saying something that makes the ‘wrong’ people laugh. Even worse, there is increasingly a ‘closed shop’ around comedy: if you have the wrong political views you can get kicked off the bill or have your venue cancel the show, even if your comedy has little or nothing to do with politics.

Has the German comedy scene become steeped in left-wing, green ideology? Or does an obsession with offence affect comedy in general? Take, for example, El Hotzo – the comedian, satirist and online activist Sebastian Hotz – who was cancelled and prosecuted for posting about Donald Trump’s would-be assassin that he ‘unfortunately missed’.

Are the right just as likely to cry offence as anyone else? Whatever happened to using comedy to explore and challenge taboos? Should comedy be less worried about who might be offended and more worried about just being funny?