if you can't laugh at the horrible things people do to each other, i don't know how you can live with them.

Better to expose them in public than hide them away.

Spoken by a person who probably isn't a victim of rape...

Trooth, orathaic was gang raped with a ten-foot pole by all the members of his family as a child of four, so shut up and show some compassion, moron.

i dunno...

I've made my share of Holocaust/Hitler/Jew jokes before...

But I don't think I could bring myself to joke about rape...especially as a male...and I know males can be raped to, but still, it's such a horrifying thing for those that go through it...I don't think I could look myself in the face making a rape joke.

Thanks Trooth, you clearly didn't read the link i posted. But i'm glad you feel entitled to comment without listening to what i'm sharing. Well done for judging without first thinking.

You make the world a better place, at least for advertisers.

Also, orathaic:

I stopped reading about halfway through that article...

-_____-

You know, I might write shit--and you can easily find quite a few people here who will more than eagerly agree with that--but...

I seriously doubt anyone here couldn't write a better and more maturely-written article.

...

Given the amount of vitriol we have sometimes around here...that's saying something.

(Out of curiosity, why were you on jezebel, anyway?)

I was not, this was linked to me by an intelligent friends of mine on facebook.

My comment was based solely on your comment:

"if you can't laugh at the horrible things people do to each other, i don't know how you can live with them."

I went and read about half of the article you posted (way too long) and I repeat:

Spoken by a person who probably isn't a victim of rape...

The world is filled with people that think everything that doesn't affect them is funny. I am not telling people what they can feel is funny, but if you say/post stuff like that, be prepared for feedback. My point is that if you had been raped, you would not find the subject funny. I stand by that opinion.

Trooth stands by his opinions.

"Trooth stands by his opinions."

quoted for Trooth

Opinions, at some point, require truth. This sounds about right, Mr T.

The guy said the equivalent of "I hope you have a deformed baby", "I hope you get testicular/cervical cancer", "I hope you never get an erection/orgasm ever again". Funny yeah?? Funny no!!!
If he can't field a simple heckle from a member of the audience who paid to see him perform professionally, he's in the wrong job. Back to KFC, buddy.
The trouble is that he's probably going to get rich from the infamy. Just ignore the assh*le.

First of all, I think it's unfair to read halfway through the article and say it is absurd, because halfway through she (the author is female) is talking about how bad rape is.

Secondly, the author is female. I am still processing the article and opinions in my own mind, but this is being factored in to my eventual judgment. Along with this, the first (?) comment is from a rape victim saying she enjoyed the article (I'll grant she could be lying, but that's a fairly lame accusation to ignore the post from deciding how to judge the article).

Third, while I do not agree that Tosh handled the heckler well, I can appreciate how he screwed up. If you've never been in the heat of the moment, getting positive feedback from a line of jokes, escalating, thinking off the cuff, I'm not sure you can appreciate how quickly and easily it can get out of hand. Again, he should not have told the woman it would be funny if she got raped herself, but I can appreciate how it could have happened.

I don't know what I think about this article yet, but be a little more respectful to orathaic, Lindy West (author of the article), and Daniel Tosh. I think at least Ora has earned respect as a community contributor and should be treated as such. (I feel like I posted that before, except in regards to abgemacht...)

Good article. Dude pretty clearly crossed a line. Yes, it's a line that he's "allowed" to cross, but people are allowed to criticize him for it too.

@tooth: Pity you still missed the point of the article then.

I didn't make a rape joke, i may have been victim of other horrible things and joking about them is a way to deal. I don't need to deal with being raped, but the article is about how and how not.

The article is pointing out how unfunny comedians who ignore their audience's objections will lose their audiences and likely jobs. Which means you should feel free to criticise the way they exercise freedom of speech; and this does not violate their's.

It's not a simple issue. That doesn't mean we can't adress it. Try to finish the article before putting words in my mouth. I never said "i hope anyone gets cancer", this comedian may or may not be funny, i can't judge because i haven't seen the 'comedian' in question.

The guy displayed signs of being an idiot, however that doesn't mean that there aren't decent jokes to be made about the subject. The objection is that what he said was just abuse, rather than a joke.


@obiwan

"I've made my share of Holocaust/Hitler/Jew jokes before...

But I don't think I could bring myself to joke about rape...especially as a male...and I know males can be raped to, but still, it's such a horrifying thing for those that go through it...I don't think I could look myself in the face making a rape joke."

Sorry, you objected to making a rape joke because its a horrifying thing, but apparently the holocaust /isn't/ a horrifying thing?

If this is about the Daniel Tosh thing, I'd like to offer up two points for general consideration...

1. Tosh is not very funny.

2. EVERYTHING is fodder for jokes. If we as a culture decide that certain things are just too terrible to be joked about, that's an awfully slippery slope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FsfLPohZ_c

As for Tosh specifically, everyone seems to forget that he was responding to a heckler. She didn't like his original, intentionally absurd declaration that rape jokes are always funny. Instead of getting up and leaving she felt the need to interrupt his act. He responded brutally. If she didn't want to get smashed in a vicious way she shouldn't have interrupted his act. Would someone do that at a play? A concert? I too don't think Tosh is all that funny, but if the woman didn't like his rape joke she should have just left.

So I was wandering by and had a few thoughts....

Firstly, the plaintive cry that wicked feminists are disrupting free speech or is absurd. "Free speech" never entails the right to say anything without being criticized for it. Go ahead and contribute to rape culture, just don't get all upset when someone identifies the harm that your speech is doing. That's basically the extent of what's happening here.

Secondly, to believe that limiting humour in any situation for any reason is inherently bad just doesn't square up to reality. Do comics really say anything in the humour? No, they censor themselves all the time because a ton of things are not funny. Maybe they aren't funny because their banal, or because they are incoherent, or maybe because they glorify harm in a way that dehumanizes other people. And trust me, it's quite hard to humour in something if it seems to be justifying looking at you as an object to be used instead of a person to entertain. The same principle that guides comics to craft racial jokes in ways that are legitimately funny ought to also guide male comics approaches to sensitive topics like rape.

The slippery slope rejoinder only makes sense if one cannot craft a clear distinction between what makes something funny and what makes so oppressive to be unfunny. I think that distinction has been clearly made.

Third, the notion that heckling a comic somehow justifies anything said to the heckler is also absurd. She was not being 'ultra-sensitive' by heckling something she found extremely unfunny. It's actually an important element of most stand-up comedy to have an interactive experience. Didn't the topic of rape come up because someone in the audience had requested it? Invictus' attempted parallels to plays or concerts just do not apply.


Rape jokes become much less funny when you realize that by making it, you are making the rapist (an average of 1 in 10 in a college group of males) a whole lot more comfortable with the sexual assault they've committed and may be planning to commit again.

How disappointing! I thought I would find a lot of jokes in this thread...

If this woman didn't like the joke she should have left. Period. What gives her the right to dictate what is funny and what isn't? The proper way to have responded to the original rape joke was to get up and leave, not be a wet blanket and try and turn a night out at a comedy club into a humanities lecture.

Obiwan, I personally have to agree. I used to like Jezebel but of late their writing style is... juvenile at best, asinine at worst.

This desperate defense of a comedy club as a sacred place where criticism of comedy is some sort of horrible act is baffling to me. Are you suggesting that people who express their displeasure with a bad joke are somehow ruining the process? Booing a bad joke and applauding a good joke lead to better jokes. Feedback is an incredibly important part of a comic figuring out their audience.

Furthermore, your criticism assumes this woman was alone in her displeasure. Obviously we can't know for sure, but based on the audiences reaction,
I think it is entirely likely many people found it objectionable but were too nervous to do so, especially since a loud minority were in vocal support of rape as a funny subject. I think it is laudable that she heckled her opinion. Remember, this isn't simply something she 'didn't like'. Congratulatory-framed rape jokes (in her opinion and mine) contribute (perhaps inadvertently) to a culture where the dehumanization and objectification of woman is accepted and even praised.

To oppose it, standing up and saying something is the only option.

Friendly Sword: A+

You obviously don't really know much about comedy. Heckling is universally thought of as improper. Largely unavoidable, but improper. Club owners kick out hecklers. That wouldn't happen if it were part of the creative process. And to the extent that it does "lead to better jokes" it's almost entirely at the expense of the heckler by embarrassing them. That what Tosh did, albeit crudely. If she didn't like the rape joke she should have left. Interrupting the show and trying to teach everyone a lesson is an absurd waste of time.

I know everyone has their battles to fight but I wonder how many black, gay, asian, fat, etc. jokes she sat through and laughed at.

Yes, the promotion of rape culture is dangerous for our culture but why go to a shock comic and then be shocked when he finally makes a joke that you find in bad taste?

Once again, my George Carlin ink. He explains the issue better than I ever could. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FsfLPohZ_c

Right on, Yonni.