Rape and Retards: Doug Stanhope talks Daniel Tosh

Doug Stanhope talks about rape jokes.
legacy0100says...

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.

EMPIREsays...

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.

Porksandwichsays...

Think about the stuff George Carlin used to bring up in his acts that were always funny....but could often leave you thinking about how utterly stupid the whole situation is once you thought about it.

Think about how traumatic rape has to be for someone, and then think about all the people who have fetishes built around it. It's a situation where if you can't laugh about how twisted people are when it comes to something like that....you're never going to really know someone (or yourself) because of that duality people have in regards to a whole lot of subjects.

IE The black and white idea of people being gay or straight, instead of being somewhere on the scale in grey territory and being miserable trying to conform to one side or the other.

Morality, honesty, faithfulness, etc. A different definition for each person that changes under different circumstances...like when dealing with their parents, their children, their friends, strangers, etc.

So, rape is bad, but a whole lot of people spend time romanticizing it...that in and of itself is a joke.

Paybacksays...

I have to agree with one thing Stanhope said. If you don't know the comic, be prepared for anything. If you've never heard of them, and you get disgusted, leave. Hell, demand your money back.

Blog about it to get on the news? You're an attention whore.

If he's really that bad for society, he'll take care of himself by all the people walking out and the club owner never booking him again.

Personally, I thinks he's one of those comics (in a club) that's trying to shock you, not be overly humourous. When he "cleans" his act for Tosh 2.0 etc, he's actually very witty.

bareboards2says...

Louis CK's rape joke is brilliant.

Because it is brilliant, I suspect it is going over the heads of those who could learn the lesson embedded in it.

He deconstructed rape. He described the sense of entitlement that some men feel about their penises and their desires. He shied away from blatantly naming it, but really he is describing date rape.

Men who get women drunk, or take advantage of women who are drunk, need to listen to this joke over and over, letting it seep into their consciousness.

This joke also describes the violent offender, the man who attacks women with a knife or a gun or their fists. But the heart of this brilliant, brilliant joke is the uncovering of the motivation and blindness of date rape.

Before anyone goes ballistic on me, let me say that women have got to fight back in date rape situations. Punch, hit, yell, push. Being frightened and meek when a guy is pushing his sexual desires on you is absolutely the "wrong" response. I know women have been trained differently, but we women have got to claim our voices and push the hell back. We women (rather insultingly) joke about men being "clueless" -- well, if you believe that, then accept it fully. Yelling NO, pushing him away, if you need to a nice head butt to the nose -- those actions will clue him in but FAST.

If women claimed that power for themselves, the rate of date rape would plummet.

PostalBlowfishsays...

There could be an argument that is concerned with rape jokes trivializing rape, but the fact that we're even engaged in a discussion about it now more than makes up for that. Controversial jokes can be extremely funny because they're shocking, but if you analyze them (as the above poster has done with CK's joke) there is usually a lot to learn.

Hate the rape, not the comedy. And if you can't separate the two, then I suspect stand up comedy is not for you.

Sotto_Vocesays...

>> ^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?

Sotto_Vocesays...

Here's how a comedian who is also a decent human being responds to this sort of thing:

"It can be challenging for people in comedy and art to find better ways to do what we do, and avoid hurting people who don’t deserve to be hurt. But that’s my problem to solve, not anyone else’s.

I want to make people laugh, and occasionally think, and maybe — wow! — both at once. I want to have fun doing it. It may always mean being irreverent, skeptical, absurd, even indulging quite a bit of cynicism and sarcasm. But I never want to depend on continually kicking people who are already down to do what I do. I’d rather find another line of work entirely. (Bowling alley attendant comes to mind, since that might have been my last honest job before getting all artsy-fartsy and comedyish.)

I want to stand on the side of humanity. I want to be humane, even when being a goddamned wise-ass."

kymbossays...

I think the problem was that his joke was shit. It wasn't clever, thought-provoking, intellectually challenging. It was boring and lazy and unimaginative.

After the woman interjected that rape is never funny, he asked the crowd how funny it would be if she was raped by five men right now.

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."

Also, equating rape to diabetes is just moronic.

jmzerosays...

Also, equating rape to diabetes is just moronic.


I'd put the order something like Holocaust > rape > diabetes in terms of offensiveness potential. And I think Holocaust jokes are just fine. I think that people making Holocaust, rape, pancake, diabetes, and "everything else" jokes is a positive thing for the world, even if most of those jokes have no particular insight. I don't think it matters whether a joke is good or insightful as to whether it's an "OK" thing to do.

If a comedian tells jokes I don't like, I think of that person as a bad comedian, not a bad person. Sounds like this guy did some poor material. I probably wouldn't go to his show. I don't want to hear poorly done rape jokes (as it sounds like these were). I'm 100% in favor of people sharing the type of comedy someone does - it helps people make good decisions on what they watch. But I don't think his intention was anything other than to entertain; from this I don't think we know anything about whether he's a bad person, just whether he's good at his job.

I think people should try not to be offended by things, and if they can't then they shouldn't go to comedy shows where jokes like this are likely to happen. Personally (and for personal reasons) I can't deal well with media that has violence against human infants (or even sick children). It affects me physically; I pretty much have to turn away. And I've heard arguments that movies and games and whatever shouldn't have violence against children. While I have no desire to see babies hurt in a game, I am 100% against any kind of ban (hard or otherwise). I shouldn't get to decide this for other people. Let people decide what to produce and what to watch.

We'll never agree on some set of "community standards" for what's acceptable in a comedy show - the best solution is just to publicize what kind of comedy a person does; then people can decide based on that whether it's a show they want to see and/or participate in.

Paybacksays...

>> ^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.

messengersays...

Most rape jokes wouldn't be funny if we weren't so sensitive about talking about rape. Like Tosh's joke about his sister getting raped. It was funny because he delivered it with a huge smile, and that conflicts with the RAPE IS NOT FUNNY meme, so it's funny. Like if he'd said his sister got murdered, that wouldn't have been nearly as funny.

In a recent top 15 (#1?) vid, Louis CK explained it. He said the reason he told a joke about raping a kid was because he enjoyed how angry the audience got. And that's why it's funny.

When the furore over rape jokes dies down, the rape jokes will go away too.

criticalthudsays...

>> ^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.


indeed! thinking too that it is more about the audience taking themselves too seriously than it is about the comedian.
usually the non-thought process goes something like this: "how dare you! my friend was raped 20 yrs ago, and you bastards put a pube on my coke can when i was in junior high. and i'm special"

budzossays...

This is such a load of horseshit. The truth is that Tosh was asking the audience to suggest joke topics. Someone suggested rape and that's when he made the comment that sure, because rape jokes are always funny (if it's not obviuos, he was implying that they are not always funny). Then this dimbulb broad gets up and heckles the comedian because she can't recognize sarcasm and thinks her personal experience is more important than everyone else's. I feel no pity for her. She's a narcissistic twat. I don't hope she gets raped. But I sure hope she has to endure a life full of rape jokes.

Sotto_Vocesays...

@vaire2ube, I'm glad you brought up Patrice O'Neal, because he is a perfect example of the disingenuousness of the "It's just comedy, folks" defense. There is plentyofevidence that O'Neal was a bona fide misogynist, with genuinely toxic views about women. But because he usually expressed those views humorously, any criticism was met with something like "God, can't you take a joke, you humorless feminazi?"

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Hateful views don't get a pass just because they're followed by a punchline. Good (and even some not-so-good) comedians don't just tell jokes, they convey ideas, and those ideas should be subject to scrutiny just as they would be if they came from Rachel Maddow or Charles Krauthammer. To treat comedy otherwise, to treat it as if it is just light entertainment that shouldn't be taken seriously, is to trivialize it. And the trivialization of comedy is precisely what the greats -- Bruce, Pryor, Carlin -- fought against. To anyone who loves the artform of comedy, the phrase "just a joke" should be anathema.

Patrice O'Neal was a very funny man, but he was also a bigot. His funniness does not excuse his bigotry in the slightest. And Tosh doesn't even have that figleaf. His act is shot through with causal misogyny and disregard for the valid concerns of rape victims. Look, that woman shouldn't have heckled him in the middle of the act. But his response was hugely dickish. Especially given the fact that she had just voiced strong sentiments against rape jokes, which in the mind of most considerate human beings would have triggered a little alarm to the effect of "Maybe she reacts so strongly to rape jokes because she is a rape victim."

budzossays...

For the record I think Tosh's response was dickish and given her agitation, he might have seen an opportunity to take the high road. But he never does take it. That's his act. I don't think the onus is on any comedian to do so.

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