>> ^kymbos:

I think The Onion responded best:
"Embroiled in controversy following comments he made during a recent performance at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, comedian Daniel Tosh chuckled this afternoon while being violently raped by a group of men in a Hollywood alley. “You have to admit, this is pretty hilarious,” said the teary-eyed 37-year-old, his bloodied face slamming against a brick wall as he was brutally and repeatedly penetrated against his will for the 53rd straight minute. “Sure, I’ll be forever tormented by images of my attackers tearing off my pants and holding a knife against my throat as they viciously tear into my rectum, but c’mon, you gotta have a sense of humor about this sort of thing.” As of press time, sources said a disheveled Tosh checked into a nearby treatment center, where he quietly smirked after being diagnosed with HIV."



Now THAT is a funny rape joke.

>> ^EMPIRE:

I hate this whole rape-is-terrible-so-let-make-no-jokes-about-it. It's really annoying, insulting, and fucking stupid.
Yes, rape is terrible. So are many other things used for comedic effect: murder, racism, etc.
No one is allowed to demand SHIT from comedy. Take it or leave it.
Making a joke about something bad does not mean you condone it, in the slightest.


Two big differences between rape and murder: First, the victims of murder are usually dead, so they're unlikely to be sitting in your audience when you make a murder joke. Second, murder rates (in the United States, at least) are much lower than rape rates.

About 18% of American women have been raped. If you're a comedian performing in front of a large audience, realize that it is highly likely there are members of your audience who have experienced rape. And for many people, that shit is seriously traumatic. Does this mean comedians should avoid rape jokes? No. It's possible to tell rape jokes that aren't re-traumatizing to victims. Louis CK's joke about how there are no good reasons to rape someone except really wanting to have sex with them is clearly not a joke mocking rape victims (or potential rape victims). The humor comes from the ridiculousness of Louis's on-stage persona: Here's a guy saying something that starts out sounding reasonable but then qualifies it with something obviously ridiculous. It is the rapist's sense of entitlement, rather than the rape victim, being mocked.

This is not what Tosh's "joke" was like. Besides being infinitely less funny, it was targeted at the woman in the audience. Most of the people laughing weren't thinking "Ha ha, Tosh is saying something so obviously stupid." They were thinking "Ha ha, that bitch just got told." Tosh was asserting his dominance over this silly humorless heckler. That kind of rape joke -- where the premise of the joke is "Isn't it funny when bitchy women get raped?" -- is seriously re-traumatizing to a lot of victims.

Comedians have mastered this bullshit where telling offensive jokes and not backing down is a badge of pride. That shit was brave when Lenny Bruce was doing it, because he was purposefully challenging the ridiculousness of obscenity laws. Comedians aren't being thrown in jail for telling offensive jokes anymore. If your joke is offensive in the service of making a serious point, or even if it's just really really funny, I think you have a license to be somewhat offensive. But lionizing offensiveness for its own sake is nonsense. Tosh's joke wasn't funny and it didn't make any useful point. Obviously I'm not suggesting (nor is anyone as far as I'm aware) that he should be legally punished somehow for making the joke. His critics are just saying he's an inconsiderate asshole for making it. Why are people so upset about that?

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http://videosift.com/video/Doug-Stanhope-on-Nationalism

which is funny because it's still my highest rated video. I peaked early.

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*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Doug-Stanhope-Why-I-dont-Believe

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

That said, can America still be considered a democracy at this point?


Last time I checked you still had mostly free and fair elections. There are some idiosyncrasies in your electoral system that aren't great*, and there's a definite problem of way too much corporate lobbying, but I think, on balance, you're still a democracy.

I give you a C-. must try harder

* you should really fix that shit. It lead to dubya being elected and that clearly didn't end well.

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