At the risk of sounding like I'm railing against Political Correctness (which is a silly concept but it's good enough shorthand for this post), I have noticed an increased tendency by people to rule various subject matter off limits for humor. I've long been a fan of dark comedy. You can, potentially, find the humor in anything. Just because an issue is serious doesn't mean it can't be mined for humor. Of course it would be disgusting to make fun of rape victims, but that doesn't mean it would be impossible to find a way to find appropriate humor in the subject of rape (This is a tough one, but I put it out there as an extreme example). Hitler and the Holocaust weren't very funny, but Mel Brooks managed.
Trying to find humor in serious subjects is hard and I wouldn't recommend that most people try to go there. They're probably going to do it badly. But that's not the same thing is declaring things "off limits." Humor is cathartic. We need that.
