7:00 pm - 07/11/2012
In the wake of a female audience member accusing Daniel Tosh of making a rape joke at her expense, comedians have taken to Twitter to comment on the controversy.
While numerous comedy fans and professionals have tweeted messages condemning Tosh's response to the female heckler, some comedy figures, including Jim Norton, Louis C.K. and Opie of The Opie & Anthony Show, have expressed support for Tosh and for a comedians' right to speak uncensored.
Dane Cook, who performed at The Laugh Factory on the same night as Tosh, had a darker message: easily offended people should kill themselves.
Not familiar with Anthony Jeselnik but his tweet was the worst I've seen.
Source
Patton Oswalt (and other comedians) Defend Daniel Tosh
In the wake of a female audience member accusing Daniel Tosh of making a rape joke at her expense, comedians have taken to Twitter to comment on the controversy.
While numerous comedy fans and professionals have tweeted messages condemning Tosh's response to the female heckler, some comedy figures, including Jim Norton, Louis C.K. and Opie of The Opie & Anthony Show, have expressed support for Tosh and for a comedians' right to speak uncensored.
Dane Cook, who performed at The Laugh Factory on the same night as Tosh, had a darker message: easily offended people should kill themselves.
Not familiar with Anthony Jeselnik but his tweet was the worst I've seen.
Source
My housemate keeps trying to tell me excuses why he HAS to vote for Romney, and why he can't vote Obama, and every time I tell him he's a fucking idiot and to stop watching Faux News. I CANNOT DEAL THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY SUPPORT HIM
I can't even.
I saw some related trends on twitter, and was like "fuck it I don't even want to know"
My GOD, I fucking hate people. I knew Dane Cook was a piece of shit anyway, but Jesus Christ. Really disappointed about Patton Oswalt, and disappointed about the Michael Ian Black comment as well. I hadn't heard that he had chimed in on this yet.
also, theyre gigantic assholes.
sigh. just sigh. I'm just tired.
all I'll say is Dane is extra disappointing because he once did a good piece on why rape jokes aren't funny. the fuck happened?
perpetuating a rape apologist culture is fucking disgusting. rape jokes aren't funny or edgy.
fuck daniel tosh.
and he has a joke in the show where Mr. G is like "We used to have bushes here but a girl was raped behind them so we had...take them down, UM" and just brushes it off in this hilarious way
i HATE rape/suicide/gay jokes, but in this context I find it hysterical, like he's clearly mocking anyone who acts like this and not the victims themselves. he mocks his own characters who are true to life, not anyone else.
I love Chris Lilley but this is all making me think...
Mocking the dumbasses and dumbass mentality? Fine. Making fun of the act of rape and/or the victim? GTFO.
plus like how you said, he mocks his own characters as his comedy ploy
but his rape jokes don't mock the victims. his jokes mock how dumb and out of touch his characters are.
I'm also not ok with the "chinaman" thing.
I do believe that “nothing should be offlimits in art and comedy” but only to an extent. When it comes to darker subject matter I feel like you should be able to joke about it but there are exceptions and limitations to that idea. There needs to be insight into what you’re saying/doing/creating in art and comedy in order to for it to be worth a damn and add value to society. You can be edgy, forward thinking, and thought provoking, without being an asshole and debasing anyone. In stand up comedy especially, if something hasn’t effected or relates to you in any way and you can’t be tactful about how you talk about it you shouldn’t bother speaking about it to begin with. Comedy needs to be written and delivered with more intelligence, subtletly, and tact than fart jokes, which is exactly the manner 90% of “artists” and “comedians” operate.
That’s the larger issue with freedom of expression in comedy and art (in particular with joking about the subject of rape since rape culture is so prominent). Being vocal, and articulate, about why these jokes aren’t funny is important because it says that, as people, we want to hold our artists and comedians to a higher standard of human decency. Especially since 100 years from now, it’ll be these jokes/paintings/films/songs that will speak for us as a society and I’d rather not be remembered as the 4chan/Tosh.0 generation.
In summation:
Nailed it. As if "comedy" is an excuse to get out of basic human decency. I can't with these people.
I kind of feel that way about Margaret Cho and Amanda Palmer's Kat Perry thing. I sort of know what they were aiming for but the execution of it put me off a lot, but I chalk that up to Palmer's bad influence and previous behavior and Cho hasn't done anything that offended me yet, so maybe she learned for the blowback on that act.
I'm very conflicted and working my way through this and I hate how everyone is "Either you're with us or you're not" and shut down any dialogue. It's fustrating and I don't see it in as black and white terms as a lot of other ONTDers.
The problem is, with comedians especially, the stuff they put forth generally tends to be their own work and a reflection of their own beliefs. And especially when they are talking on a platform like Twitter, DEFINITELY not in character other than the one that they wish the public to perceive them as, there is no separation between art and artist. If Daniel Tosh or any of the others make or defend rape jokes, they're doing it because they think it's okay to make rape jokes. And no, most people aren't going to have beliefs that perfectly align with another person's all the way down, but this particular thing is a pretty big issue. It's a matter of basic respect for women and human decency, which these people are showing that they lack.
It's okay to like problematic things, but you (universal you) need to see those problems for what they are, and each individual has to reconcile whether or not they are okay with them being a part of that work or creator.
ETA: One of the huge things about comedy, of course, is the belief that no topic should be off limits. I understand where that belief comes from, but the thing is, what is it about a person's material (or lack thereof) and their intelligence that makes them think it's okay to intentionally make jokes that harm people, and even worse, to outright ENCOURAGE a room full of people to physically harm someone? If you have to resort to things like rape jokes, then you clearly aren't that clever.
Edited at 2012-07-12 04:05 am (UTC)
I was five and eleven. Two different men. One was a babysitter, the other my former stepdad.
Wishing rape on someone is a fucking awful and personal thing. It's a serious issue and one that is constantly trivialized and makes it hard for victims to speak up and out. It makes it 'okay' and 'funny' and something not to take seriously and in turn makes the act itself taken less seriously. She wanted it/she was asking for it/etc is all a part of that. He CAN joke about it, but he shouldn't because he doesn't have to live in fear of being raped like a woman does. And, yes, there are women laughing at it and they shouldn't because rape isn't funny. It's hurtful, it's traumatizing, and it changes who you are as a person. To say it would be funny if a woman got gangraped because she called you out on a joke is cold, heartless, and absolutely pointless. It hurts the people still trying to deal with it and anyone who will deal with it in the future.
It's not just this particular joke. It's the joke, it's the people defending it, it's the fact he used rape as a way to make a woman feel uncomfortable and 'put her in her place' and shut her up because that's all he was trying to do. He was mad and used a tactic to get back at her. Because she was a woman. He wouldn't have said something like that to a man.
I, personally, think anything can be made into a joke as long as it's clever, thought out, and not just for shock value. This is not that case.
rme
That could have easily have been taken as a threat. So why isn't the rape "joke" treated as such?