About that whole Daniel Tosh ‘rape joke’ controversy this pretty much sums up exactly what I am finding frustrating about the debate.
Especially:
I’m not against any kind of joke on principle. A good comic can make anything funny. But if you’re going to make jokes about rape, your excuse has to be something more than “it’s okay to hurt people because the bit landed, it was funny.” If you’re going to make jokes about potentially offensive topics, there’s an easy way and a hard way. The easy way is to just shout out offensive things in the name of free speech and “pushing people out of their comfort zones.” The hard way is to provide an unflinching, in-depth analysis of the way that people deal with these painful topics, to really explore them, in order to make some kind of profound point about them (and be funny).
Most people who make rape jokes (or gay jokes, or racist jokes, or whatever) aren’t smart enough to have anything worthwhile to add to the conversation. They’re hacks. It’s like a little kid shouting “poop!” in the grocery store and then grinning. Truly edgy writing pushes people out of their comfort zones, sure. But it pushes them toward something, some deeper truth or observation about humanity.
I don’t like rules about which topics you’re allowed to make jokes or art about and which are off-limits.. and I, personally, believe it is possible to make a funny ‘rape joke’ but it depends on the context and also, most importantly, upon what you are targetting in your joke – like, is it making fun of rapists and rape apology or is it trivialising and normalising rape? Contrary to what anti-feminists think, you will probably find that a lot of other humorless feminists agree with me.
@scATX Does your joke empower rapists? NOT OKAY. Does your joke expose rape culture? OKAY.
But some feminists disagree with me and they will have a good point. They will say that rape jokes are never ok, because thinking you’re going to hear something funny and then having really confronting memories brought up is not fun. And the fact that other people’s right to laugh overrides your right to feel safe is kind of a stark reminder of the very one-sided abuse of power that rape represents in the first place.
Here is comedian, Rob Delaney saying something similar to me when asked if there is any topic too taboo for jokes:
Not really. Let’s take rape for example. It’s not funny. End of discussion. But you can do a funny joke about how people talk about rape, or you can juxtapose it against something else in a way that will evoke laughter and a “new” way of thinking in people who aren’t monsters and/or rapists. So it’s all about the way the joke is done. Is your motivation/volition to help or shed light in a way that will (if taken to its maximum/mega-extreme) result in LESS rape in the world? Then please, talk and joke about it.
And here’s Tig Notaro showing you an excellent example of someone making a funny ‘rape joke’ and note the targets, which are mansplaining and rape culture, not women.
(I have it on good authority we’re about to see a whole post from a prominent feminist writer on ‘rape jokes’ by well-known comedians that successfully made fun of rape apology/rape culture rather than rape victims in the very near future. I’ll link to that when it is up - as promised, here it is from Kate Harding).
[...] Comments « You can tell a funny rape joke, that just wasn’t one of them [...]
There is of course a huge difference between joking about a serious topic by trivialising it and by pointing out how bad it is that these things exist. That is also the difference between Tosh’s “joke” and other examples.
You linked to Rob Delaney, so I watched the clip. I think he is on the right side of that divide, but I still don’t find that form of humour funny. I smiled a couple of times, but there was nothing there that made me laugh.
What I find funny is absurdities, not walking the line of hurting people. On the other hand, I don’t think there should be topics that aren’t allowed to joke about, at least potentially, but when people cross the line, expect to be challenged about it.
That is exactly what has happened here. I watched a number of clips of Tosh. He’s infantile and obnoxious. I struggle to find anything funny about him at all.
What makes a good joke is the element of surprise. It’s the slap you get from taking it where the comedian knows you are going to take it as the comedian takes it and puts it on its head.
You’re laughing on the outside and embarrassed on the inside because, at that moment, you are exactly the same as everyone else. The comedian tells the audience there is a chicken and a the road, so in our minds, we begin to watch the chicken cross the road. Instead, the chicken opens a tourist-trap roadside stand selling 25 dollar trinkets and 25 cent zipline trips across the road.
What makes a great joke are the thoughts provoked long after split sides are stitched. It’s realizing we’ve been called out on something and then figuring out what it was. If we call our entrepreneurial chicken Donald Trump, it’s one thing; Jose or Pepe, it’s another.
What makes a good rape joke isn’t that the joke is about rape, but how acceptable it is in our society to make rape a joke. Tosh wasn’t making a joke. He wasn’t trying to examine society. He invited a crowd of people to gang rape a woman in public as an act of comedy. Not. Funny. At. All.
From the Kate Harding link: I thought the bit of the Wanda Sykes joke that was about a detachable vagina and an imagined conversation with a rapist funny because the joke was about a situation she could theoretically be in, but the joke was on the theoretical rapist. Also joke 2, 3, 4 for the same reason. I like the description of Dane Cook’s video (haven’t watched it, just the description above it) because it shows empathy. The ones talking about the rape of others I don’t find funny at all. Maybe the Woody Allen one has a cultural significance that I’m missing I don’t know.
When it comes to what the Onion said about Daniel Tosh my take is – if what you say is indistinguishable from what the haters say, then you are doin it rong. The Onion stuff is distinguishable, but only just and I think trying to make a joke about anyone actually being raped in the joke is reprehensible. I understand what they were trying to do, I just don’t call it humour. /humourless feminist rant
Of course everyone has a different sense of what is funny and I’m sure many of the things I find hilarious would have people scratching their heads or thinking less of me. Just so long as they realise I reserve the same right to think that about them.
I love Tig Notaro! But yep, I like a good black humour joke when I hear it, but there’s no way I’d pull one out myself as I’m just not a good joke teller… some people are just clever enough to twist a rape joke and yep, make us really think about things and laugh at the same time.
[...] Everyone is now weighing in, mostly with things that I agree with like this article from Blue Milk. [...]
Thanks for this – I meant to comment last week but missed the iboat.
I don’t have much to add except well done.
Thanks tigtog.
[...] You can tell a funny rape joke, that just wasn’t one of them – blue milk Share this:ShareFacebookRedditDiggStumbleUponEmail [...]
[...] know, I know, it’s only a joke. If you’re making a political point with ironic insults, I’ll laugh at your joke (if [...]