Yep. Hours after reading it. Still mad.
We go merrily along in society, everything seems fine, and then... bam.
Some jackass opens his stupid, sexist mouth and does something like make a gang-rape "joke" about a woman in the room with him (no it wouldn't be better if she weren't in the room with him, but slugs like this usually don't have the cojones to do that).
...And then I start thinking about all of the stupid, awful, sexist things that have been said lately in the public forum, and I get really, really angry. And I want to slug anybody who says or implies that we are an equal society and we've come a long way, baby.
I don't care if you're a comedian. I don't care if you're a right-wing radio host. I don't care if you use the "get a sense of humor, shrew" defense. Shut it. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
And P.S. Real comedians don't have to stoop to shock gimmicks like rape jokes. They work at creating jokes that are actually funny. Like here (a few swear words, don't watch it at work or in front of kids). Or here. Or here (again with some swearing, but funny).
P.S. See update post...
Actually, I do think it would have been better if she were not in the room with him, it would feel like less of a direct threat. It seems like, as described, he was "putting her in her place" for daring to heckle him (telling him that rape jokes aren't funny) by having the audience imagine raping her. He was only sorry for getting called out on it afterwords. But he does seem sadly typical for modern day comics.
ReplyDeleteI think this, and the whole "women aren't funny" and "that's not funny" joke things are a stance taken aggressively by men to justify purposefully sexist jokes/behavior. It's a part of the game: say something menacing/aggressive/purposefully tasteless, then after the predicted response happens, take an equally aggressive "it's your problem, you fill-in-the-blank-female-stereotype" stance to defend your purposefully aggressive initial action.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same guy who showed a video of a kid waking up another kid with what looked like a real gun in his face. I like dark humor as much as the next guy but I really fail to find any humor in this along with rape jokes.
ReplyDeleteAlso doesn't the fact that he aired this just encourage others to do these kinds of things?
Someone else that agrees with Emily's take: http://www.salon.com/2012/07/12/daniel_tosh_and_rape_jokes_still_not_funny/
ReplyDeleteWell, and I found this interesting middle ground: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meghan-okeefe/daniel-tosh-rape-joke_b_1665121.html
ReplyDeleteI think MC is right, that there's an important difference between dark humor (say, your Heathers, for example) and rape jokes or what MC mentioned - god that is awful about the kid waking another kid with a gun thing.
See update, too :-)
ReplyDelete