Who got owned? Seemed a very convenient and cheap set of gags designed to deal with a heckler who barely heckled.

>> ^Sagemind:

I am really unsure what is going on here.
What did he do?


http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/11/wow-what-a-freak-show-heckler-totally-hijacks-obama-rally-gets-dragged-out-by-police-video/

An apparent pontificus member of the 'pro-life 'persuasion with a sign at an Obama pep-rally was arrested. He is no-doubt another life-time member of the no-fly club now.

I'm just going to give my opinion here, mostly because George Carlin is my hero, and because I'm interested in the topic:

Regarding things being offensive:
There isn't any topic known anywhere to human kind that won't offend someone. Whether it's daisies or pancakes or pinwheels someone, somewhere, can be offended by it. I guarantee it. This is just my opinion, but I don't think that anyone has the right to 'not be offended.'

Regarding comedians:
People mostly don't seem to realize the importance of humor in all of our lives. Comedians play a very important role in the collective human community that cannot be replaced. They help us deal with parts of ourselves that would otherwise be unacceptable for us to even sometimes think about. Just like the court jester who might otherwise get himself beheaded if he were a normal person suggesting the king was fat. Almost all humor, successful or not, makes people feel uncomfortable. The very best humor makes people really uncomfortable. Laughter itself is a response to these same situations and events that we just have a little-bit of a hard time dealing with. I think this is why comedians, while onstage, are given a free pass. Even their televised specials get edited for content, but the only time a comedian gets kicked off stage in a club is when no one is laughing. What they're saying implies a lot more about the people laughing than it does about the comedian. Follow me?

And it's important to remember that most comedians are artists who are immersed in their material. Most have specific routines that are worked out over and over again, tweeking the tone and meter until they become almost meaningless to the comedians themselves. This is why you rarely see experienced comedians laughing at their own jokes, they've just heard them too many times. And even when they are performing improvisationally, like Tosh was during the event in question, they aren't saying things that they think are funny, specifically, they are saying things that they think the audience will find funny. It may seem like a small distinction, but it can make a big difference in understanding why some jokes are made. Some comedians have a style based on saying shocking, offensive things, and it's they're job. They are paid to make an audience laugh, and whether you like him or not, Tosh gets paid.

And the particular incident and joke:
This whole thing was brought up by a woman who was at a show and heard something she didn't like. She retorted back from the audience that rape isn't funny. To which Tosh retorted back that it would be funny if the woman was "raped by like five guys." Now, according to the woman, that made her actually fear for her safety and she got up and left. I'm not going to debate her sanity, if she really felt threatened, then that's terrible and I feel bad for her. But there are a few things that need to be pointed out here:

1: Tosh didn't threaten anyone. Had he said: "you five guys over there should rape this woman," it would not only be offensive to many people, but it also could have been perceived as a legitimate threat that, maybe, could have been pursued legally.

2: Hecklers are always dealt with harshly. And so should they be. Complain all you want about a person outside of a show but when you go to a comedy club, you have agreed that it's that person's time to talk. And so has everyone else who paid money to listen to them, not you. They're up there making a living, succeeding or failing at the expense of their own ass, not yours. It should be noted here that the woman said she left the room to the laughter of the entire audience.

3: You do not have the right to not be offended, especially if you are at a fucking comedy club. There was a pretty famous incident with Joan Rivers when she was joking about deaf people on stage, and a man in the audience stood up and started yelling at her because his daughter was deaf and he didn't find her jokes funny. Well, Joan Rivers responded that her own mother was deaf, and that she'd had to deal with that on her own terms. Comedy was something that helped her deal with that (because comedy is a useful tool) and if he didn't like it, he could go fuck himself. And that's the thing, you never know people's story. The girl at Tosh's show couldn't know Tosh's experience with rape, just like he couldn't know hers. And if you don't think people who've experienced a major tragedy can joke about the horrible events in their lives, I invite you to go watch some Bob Saget material. Humor is subjective. Saying you don't think something should be allowed because it's not funny, is exactly the same as saying something shouldn't be allowed because you don't think it's funny. Whatever it is, you can bet that someone out there finds it funny, even if it's nonsense.

Rape jokes are hardly ever funny. Even Carlin's few never got much of a laugh. But jokes are thoughts, and I'd really rather people stop trying to police thoughts. If someone finds a joke threatening, then deal with the threat, not the joke. And if someone finds a joke offensive, well...

About the Tosh incident in particular. I normally hate the defence, "You weren't there so you don't know the whole story," because it's usually used by apologists in contexts when there's plenty enough context available to make a reasonable judgement. In the case of a comedian during a show, however, it's not just applicable, it's crucial. Until we know exactly how he delivered those lines, how the audience was reacting, what the vibe was, and so on, there's nothing we can say. When I picture Tosh in my mind saying those things, I see him egging her on to make a fool out of herself so the audience will turn on her, which is what a good comedian does to hecklers. I may be wrong, but either way, we really don't know enough to condemn or defend it.

>> ^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?

Comedians always take on this unapologetic, uncompromising, take-it-or-leave-it attitude in order emit their confidence while delivering their lines. To them, showing weakness on stage means the death sentence because when the audience see your confidence dwindle, they no longer find your jokes funny.

It is a very aggressive medium. When comedians do well, they often say 'I killed it'. When they screw up, they say 'It bombed'. Everything is violent and super testosterone driven. The comedian on stage has to be in control, in domination mode, in for the kill. This is one of the reasons why there aren't that many female comics out there.

Some comedians are socially savvy enough to work in their confidence without putting down their audience too much, but for the large majority they believe in keeping the audience in check. Hence why they always would not let a heckler get away with it. It means the whole performance for them.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'standup, comedy' to 'standup, comedy, drunks, hecklers, audience' - edited by xxovercastxx

I read a recent review (on HP?) of a midnight premier of this movie in NY. The reviewer said many/most of the 50 or so people that showed up were either reviewers or hecklers. George Lucas clearly lives in a bubble, but it's difficult to believe that at least SOMEONE close to him hasn't told him that his head is up his ass. Then again, JarJar, as well as this 3D release, just may be evidence that he surrounds himself completely with unfailing, spineless sycophants.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Michael Richards (Kramer) goes nuts on hecklers. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

Wow, after writing that last night I went looking for more Bill Hader stuff and there really isnt that much on youtube....

BUT

there is this bit of stand up which I thought was hilarious. His Al Pacino is really incredible, and how he deftly deals with the heckler is nothing short of awesome.

Considering in this routine he's a guy pretending to be a guy, pretending to be other guys, it's pretty impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZLava9q_Qw

>> ^shuac:

>> ^Lann:
There was a guy in my "speech" class who did a speech about Obama being the Anti-Christ, even the rednecks in the class were like "WTF dude?"
Same guy did another speech about Jay-Z being in the Illuminati...fun class.

Which community college is that?


Hey man!...not cool :'(

>> ^Ryjkyj:

One thing I think I would really enjoy about living two-thousand years ago is that when some asshole made a claim like this, and then it turned out later to be false, you were allowed to kill them.
It makes me want to start some sort of society who's sole mission is to take people to task for this bullshit. Wait until Obama's presidency is done. Give it a little while. And then show up at this guy's house with a camera and ask him about the latest bullshit that he truly "believes" and knows to be the "truth".
Like usual though, the funny thing is that all these people who claim that Obama is the anti-Christ also claim that he's a Muslim, which clearly contradicts what the bible says about the anti-Christ being Christian.


This is basically why I want to nail down a date for the Rapture. Millions think we're living in the end times...lets call them on it. Pick a year or something...a WHOLE FUCKING YEAR. If it doesn't happen by that time we shut the fuck up about it...Oh and stop giving Israel tons of fucking money and let the Palestinians have their own state and land back.

>> ^Lann:

There was a guy in my "speech" class who did a speech about Obama being the Anti-Christ, even the rednecks in the class were like "WTF dude?"
Same guy did another speech about Jay-Z being in the Illuminati...fun class.


Which community college is that?

You've got to give Obama credit for maintaining a civil presence, in spite of hecklers like that. Certainly not a skill any of the GOP field can muster.

In the end, it's the crazies like that who will ensure Obama's second term. Many of the people in the audience probably have reservations about what he's accomplished in the first term, but one idiot shouting about how he's the anti-christ reminds them of the alternative they face. Obama may not get it all right, or move fast enough, but he's at least making some steps in the right direction, all of the GOP field would turn 180 degrees and start running the wrong direction as hard as they can.

>> ^hpqp:

Obama can't be the Antichrist, I am the Antichrist!


Pff you're not the antichrist, you're an angel-witch!