Too Soon/Playing With

• Basic Trope: A taboo against joking about (or, in some cases, discussing seriously) a recent tragic event.
• Played Straight: A plane has just crashed, killing everyone on board. A comedian makes a joke or comment about idiocy on the part of the pilot, and gets booed by the audience.
• Exaggerated: Said comedian is dragged offstage and beaten up by the audience wielding Torches and Pitchforks.
  • Alternatively, the event remarked upon happened over a century ago, and really was the result of someone holding the Idiot Ball.
  • Alternatively, someone discussing the event seriously and respectfully is booed off the stage (or worse.)
• Justified: Events that fall under this taboo typically are of the extreme tragedy variety, which no one really wants to think about. Especially if it hits really close to home for them.
• Inverted: The comedian discusses a recent (or maybe not-so-recent) event Ripped from the Headlines, and people laugh.
  • A Funny Aneurysm Moment; the joke was funny until the event happened in real life.
• Subverted: The speaker at first begins to discuss the recent plane crash rather respectfully, and the audience listens intently...
• Double Subverted: Only to put in a poorly-thought-out joke about the pilot being "busy" with a sexy flight-attendant, causing the speaker to get booed off the stage.
• Deconstructed: See "justified".
• Reconstructed: One person's Dead Baby Comedy is another person's Funny Moments. As long as the comedian (or other speaker) avoids overly-sensitive issues, or discusses the issue respectfully, there shouldn't be any major problems. Especially where it involves bringing an Elephant in the Living Room out into the open, causing people to think and/or to laugh about it.
• Parodied: A comedian discusses something that happened over a century ago, and really was the result of someone holding the Idiot Ball. The comedian is booed offstage, chased by a mob wielding Torches and Pitchforks, and pelted with rotten tomatoes. (Not necessarily in that order.)
  • The comedian just told a Knock-Knock Joke, which had nothing to do with the plane crash or any other tragic event, and someone calls him out on it.
• Exploited: A comedian cancels his concert because no one's in the mood for any of his jokes right now in light of the recent plane crash.
• Zig Zagged: Some jokes or comments about the tragedy are taboo, others are perfectly acceptable.
• Lampshaded: Someone calls out from the audience Too Soon!
• Averted: The comedian (or other speaker) does not make any commentary of any kind on the plane crash.
• Enforced: This one is pretty much self-enforcing; laughing at a tragic Real Life event is generally taboo. Also sees constant enforcement via Executive Meddling when creators and their bosses differ on the definition of Too Soon.
• Invoked: A comedian hears about the plane crash while planning out his concert, and removes all jokes about airplanes, airlines, flight, pilots, etc.
• Defied: The comedian takes a Refuge in Audacity, and does not erase any jokes upon hearing the news story. If people don't like it, that's their problem as far as he's concerned, and he chalks it up to Political Correctness Gone Mad.
• Necessary Weasel: The work in question is a piece of Satire, meant to get people thinking.
• Played For Laughs: See "Parodied"
  • The comedian has to move to a Far Side Island alone because he (and his sense of humor) is no longer welcome anywhere.
• Played For Drama: The comedian tells a poorly-timed joke about the recent plane crash, and his career is ruined. Because of this, he has to change his name, his wife or girlfriend leaves him, and he has to move to a new city.