More and more comedians are coming out of the woodwork to defend their colleague Daniel Tosh for his defense of rape jokes. For those of you who missed the controversy, a woman who saw Tosh at the Laugh Factory reported that the comedian made “some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc.”She yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!” So, Tosh responded by saying, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…?”
From here.
The media reports regarding Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulting boys at Penn State would have been *hilarious* if not for all those kill-joy feminists who don't get the point of rape jokes, right?
Here's a powerful account from one Sports Illustrated reporter who gets it.
4 comments:
I've never heard of this Tosh fellow or any of his comedy friends who twittered in his defence. He sounds like a total ar*se to me. Is any form of extreme violence a suitable topic for comedy? Only when a very brilliant wit comes up with an absurdist approach to make a point that actually condemns the violence (e.g., Swift's "Modest Proposal"). Tosh is definitely not that kind of comedian - from what I've been reading, he's the kind that likes to flaunt his hatred behind comedy and defend it as freedom of expression. Here's a good one from Gawker:
http://gawker.com/5924948/comedy-central-host-daniel-tosh-should-not-tell-people-how-funny-it-would-be-if-they-were-raped?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
BY's suggested, as a clickable link.
I really liked Lindy West's commentary about it at Jezebel.
Then again, I really like Lindy West's commentary about pretty much everything! :-)
I've been arguing pretty hard with a Canadian comedian about this. He simply cannot fathom that what Tosh said was an implicit threat and that the woman in the club might have actually been quite scared at that point. He actually flat out told me I don't understand comedy and that I'm uptight and could stand to get high. Interestingly, two other male Canadian comedians are on my side in the argument if the "like" button means anything.
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