Soapbox

Funny Guy

To 'comedian' Daniel Tosh and all the other twits and tweets defending him-

     I guess it depends on your definition of funny.

     First of all- Rape is not "getting some". Rape is not sex.
Rape is violence. It is abuse, pain, humiliation and subjugation. It is torture and  anguish. It's not fucking- it's "fuck you".
     Saying that a woman who is angry and offended by something you said  only feels that way because she needs sex– that's ignorant and creepy enough on its own.
    Saying that getting raped would satisfy her sexual needs and make her less cranky is–  well, spoken like a would-be rapist, I kinda think. Like a guy who perhaps just hasn't got the balls to go through with his secret fantasy of getting revenge for all the women who wouldn't sleep with him (women he probably labeled "dykes" because homosexuality is clearly the only reason a gal wouldn't swoon for a total package like that.)
     Rape isn't sex, and if you think it is, the cops need to have a little chat with you, you sick fuck.

    And I'm tired of all the oh-so superior defenders of the comments that started this, when Daniel Tosh said that rape jokes are inherently funny and that it would be really funny if the woman who thinks rape isn't funny was suddenly raped by 5 guys, right there,  in front of the audience. Ha ha ha.
     I'm tired of being told that I don't have a sense of humor, and that he was just being "edgy" and clearly I am one of those militant, stick-in-the-mud feminists who needs to lighten up, quit being so close-minded and realize that true arteests need to push boundaries.
Oh for Christ's sake, woman- he was just joking!
    Except he wasn't. That's my point. See, to be making a joke, there has to be something funny. Mere verbal abuse and sick revenge fantasies of unspeakable violence as payback for being heckled during yourprecious  comedy routine- nothing funny there. Unimaginative, childish and mean. Not funny. So not really a joke.

    There's nothing wrong with pushing back when a heckler challenges you. But if what you push back with isn't funny, you just made the heckler's point for them. If Statler and Waldorf shout "Hey, that joke wasn't funny last year!" it is not clever for you to say "Hey, how cool would it be if I hit your kid with a brick until his skull cracked open? How great would that be!"
    I'm not advocating censorship. Sure, you can say it. But it's just not funny.

    As to Tosh's original premise- that rape jokes are funny and so are always ok… again, it depends. Some subjects are- not taboo, but are very very thin ice. If you skate there, and the audience doesn't enjoy the ride- don't blame them.
     To me, it's like this: if you are in a wheelchair, you can make cripple jokes. They may or may not be good cripple jokes, but I think you can legitimately go there, if you want to. Ralphie May can make fat jokes. If you are fighting AIDS yourself, you can make HIV jokes. Your audience knows that you understand the dark pain that lives there, and can respect your need to find humor inside that pain. So go for it, if that's where your head is. Again, the jokes you make may or may not be funny on their own merit, but you are allowed to laugh at your own suffering. And so we can enjoy laughing with you. And perhaps you will teach us something and break down some walls, yada yada yada sunshine and rainbows. Whatever.

    Daniel Tosh joking about how hi-larious rape jokes are is like a southern white guy with a confederate flag on his truck defending lynching jokes. And I don't care what great comedian did what great routine in nineteen-when-the-hell-ever and it's a classic now and I need to uncross my legs and laugh a little. Stop being so condescending and think for a second about what you are defending, for God's sake.
    Some things just shouldn't be amusing. Laughing at someone else's suffering is not funny, and the people who join in the giggles are the same kind of people who laugh when the school bully trips the Down's Syndrome kid in the hall and calls him "dummy". Hi-larious…. not.
     Not imaginative. Not clever, not artistic, or edgy, or pushing the boundaries, or breaking down walls or any of the other bullshit excuses I've heard. And certainly NOT funny.

     Just mean.