I’d say comedy is about subverting audience expectations. Either within a subject matter (coyote does this), within a sentence (Jimmy Carr’s Holocaust joke) or by being quick enough to create novel connections in the spur of the moment nobody else has considered (Chris Rock’s quipping style).

In each case the audience plays along because a linguistic or physical game is being played. I think there is a moral element but I don’t agree with the punching anywhere. For a joke to work we have to be assured there is no real victim. We’d be horrified if the roadrunner was caught, Jimmy Carr’s joke is made in the abstract - we contextually understand the time and place mean the joke is not a true reflection of his feelings. The same thing said at the Nuremberg rally would not be funny.

What we’re seeing in the world now is an insistence on creating victimhood at all costs. People weren’t laughing at Jada, they were laughing at a novel comparison being conjured out of thin air. When it was clear offence had been taken SLAP, the joke ceased to be funny.

In fact, that bit was funny… because most of us saw an unexpected subversion of norms. It was only when it became obvious there was a victim (in this case Rock) when the shouting began that the whole thing became profoundly uncomfortable.

Now, in hindsight, there’s a chance it can be funny again. Victimhood has been removed by the passage of time. That’s my wider point I guess, we need to keep imagined victimhood and it’s all encompassing narrative tenacity out of comedy.