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For an industry with a very high rate of depression, and disproportionately populated by demographics where suicide is the #2 leading cause of death, it's a very inappropriate joke.

Source: Men http://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/2011/LCOD_menallages2011.pdf and women http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/2011/WomenAll_2011.pdf

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I have suffered from chronic depression for almost 20 years now, so I am sympathetic to your perspective. Most humor is "inappropriate" in my experience. So, inappropriateness seems VERY appropriate when attempting to be humorous... Hehe, go watch some stand-up by Louis CK, Richard Pryor, or George Carlin for example.

This is just a subjective feeling blending personal and second-hand experience, but it seems extremely unlikely to me that a joke in presentation context would drive someone over the edge.

Being unable to joke about it, however, is stifling. The reaction to clamp down on the joke suggests that suicide is something normal people don't do.

I feel like it's making light of it, as if suicide weren't anything serious. When Louis CK jokes about, say, racism, he's not acting like racism isn't a big deal.

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