Joking VS Serious Matters

While watching The Big Bang Theory on the day before Thanksgiving, there was a scene that provoked me to think about its connections to what we learned. Specifically, the scene where Sheldon ( the main character) complains to his girlfriend that going to their friends house on thanksgiving was like being sold into slavery. Sheldon didn’t want to go, “now I know how the slaves felt,” next, Sheldon made a reference to being on a slave ship when his girlfriend said they were sailing with no traffic. When his girlfriend criticizes him for comparing himself to a slave, he responds with “ yes miss Amy” a term commonly associated with the slaves. The final comparison Sheldon makes is when he asks Howard if anybody is slaving in the kitchen. Although quite funny, when does it cross the line and become offensive to make these jokes? Slavery started becoming a main part of European life in the 1400’s. the European explorers thought they could make money off selling slaves for labor, cooking etc. Prince Henry ordered ships to start exploring the African coasts in 1415, making allies with the African Traders who would trade for European novelties such as cloth or guns for slaves. The Europeans would pack as many slaves as they could onto slave ships that were the gateway to their new life. On the ships, there was no hygiene, a bucket was passed around for excrement. People were so close together that if one person got sick, then so did most people around them. It was a living hell on the boat. Suicide was attempted from the slaves. How bad could it be on the ship that they would take there own life? With millions of casualties starting in 1500 and even more to come, will there ever be a time In which its acceptable to joke about such a tragedy? Will there ever be a time which events like slavery, or even the holocaust can be accepted as jokes? Both events are some of the most disastrous events in history of man. The producers of this show should have not done this because it is offensive and just plain immature. Also, the character who says this is usually a serious and very intelligent guy, so for him to say something like that is off character to me. In all, even in 2013 and 500 years later, with so much negative impact on today the writers shouldn’t have put that analogy in the show. link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Bhl-TCaOE