Thursday, July 19, 2012

Rape Jokes, Dark Humor, and the Sexual Double Standard

A little over a week ago, comedian Daniel Tosh caused quite a stir because of a distasteful rape joke directed at a female audience member. According to the woman's personal account, as a segue into the next part of his act, Tosh made a generalized statement about rape jokes always being funny. The woman in the audience retorted, "Actually, rape jokes are never funny!" Tosh paused and responded to her "heckling" by saying, "Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her..." The woman was so appalled and humiliated that she left the club immediately. (You can read her entire account here.) Jamie Masada, the owner of the club (The Laugh Factory in LA), had a slightly different account and has released a statement saying that, though he "couldn't really hear properly," Tosh asked the audience what they wanted to talk about, and someone said "rape." A woman in the audience said "No, rape is painful, don't talk about it." According to Masada, "Daniel came in, and he said, 'Well it sounds like she's been raped by five guys'- something like that."
My question is: does it matter? In either case, Tosh was making fun of a hypothetical gang rape, and at a single audience member's expense. And though the backlash regarding the joke has sparked outrage in other comedians, ("It was a joke! She was a heckler! He's a comedian! How dare anyone try to tell him how to be funny!") I personally believe that there is very good reason for eyebrows to be raised, and for this woman to be angry. Yes, comedy should be able to talk about terrible situations, but Tosh's attempt to do so was poorly executed, tasteless, and hurtful. What makes dark comedy (specifically rape jokes) successful is the ability to criticize the act itself, not the person victimized by it. In her article, "Anatomy of a Successful Rape Joke," Jessica Valenti speaks eloquently about how rape jokes can "subvert rather than terrify," and that they can work if they highlight the absurdity of the rationale behind rape. (Read the article here.)


The jokes that Valenti referenced as successful were only so because they were presented as blatant hyperbole. Tosh’s statements weren’t remotely funny because women deal with sexual harassment and assault every day. It’s a very real and prevalent problem, and blame is still all too often misassigned. Tosh wasn’t doing his part as a comedian to use laughter as a way to deal with or transcend a horrible issue; he was being a bully to an audience member for embarrassing him.
Perhaps the most unsettling thing about this situation is the response that it has garnered from Tosh-defenders. Some people (other comedians!) have been pitching a fit about free speech, saying that nothing should be off-limits for comedy, arguing that anyone who goes to a Daniel Tosh show should expect his brand of humor, and criticizing the woman for complaining about his response to her heckling. I think it’s important to note that many of these responses come from men. I’m certainly NOT of the school of thought that all males are misogynist pigs, but it makes me wonder about our culture’s tendency to be flippant about rape, vastly underestimate the statistics (1 in 4 women, guys!), and hold females responsible for a horrible and traumatizing crime committed against them. I think a lot of it goes back to the media’s portrayal of sex and sexual roles, especially evidenced through Kim et al.’s sexual double standards and Ward’s (1995) discussion of sexual roles. Men are expected to be sexually aggressive, and are often reduced to the sex that they have as the defining factor for their manliness. Women are expected to be alluring but passive and set limits. Meanwhile they’re judged for their sexual experience, while male sexual experience is lauded and seen as powerful. It may seem a bit of a stretch to connect these portrayals of men and women on television and movies to the current state of rape culture, but how often do we see examples of a woman being called a slut because of the way she dresses or her sexual past? How often do we see examples of a man’s decisions being driven by their penis? How often do we see one or both genders ridiculed by their peers for not being sexually assertive enough? It’s a terrible and misguided double standard that keeps making women the butt of the joke, and comments like Daniel Tosh’s are doing nothing to dissuade it.

3 comments:

  1. So glad someone blogged about this! I just wanted to share another article I came across from a friend that was a response to what's recently known as "the Tosh incident" was a pretty interesting read. The article is from another comedian's blog and is called/pretty accurately titled, "The best response we've heard to Daniel Tosh's 'misquoted' rape joke". Here's the link to it:
    http://austin.culturemap.com/newsdetail/07-12-12-14-37-the-best-response-weve-heard-to-daniel-toshs-misquoted-rape-jokes/

    While the language used in the aforementioned post can be pretty blunt/potentially shocking, the premise behind what the author is saying ties similarly into the example we discussed in class about flipping ideas about homosexuality on their head and applying them to heteronormative ideals (but in this case swapping the stereotypical victims/survivors of rape culture: women, with men). I thought this was a very interesting perspective to take on the issue, and the underlying message of what the author is trying to say is a valuable one. Loved reading your blog post by the way!

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  2. I really enjoyed this post and I'm glad you brought this to my attention because I had somehow not heard about this! Many people may have come to excuse Daniel Tosh's comments as an acceptable jokes because of stereotypes surrounding male sexuality. Men are expected to be dominant in relations between men and women (Ivory, Gibson and Ivory, 2009). In addition, the male sexual role is thought to be aggressive, view women as sexual objects and all consuming (Ward, 1995). I think that it's because society believes men's sexual urges are powerful and need satisfying, that rape gets excused or results in victim blaming. In this case, the harm is not as serious as actual rape, but a joke about such a horrible act will never be funny.

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  3. This post reminded me of a news story that I was following earlier this year. I spent the last semester studying in Sydney, and Australia has nearly identical date rape and sexual violence statistics to America. A well-known Australian singer named Brian McFadden released a single called "Just the Way You Are (Drunk at the Bar)" which not only contained extremely abrasive banjo riffs set to dance beats and the bizarre decision to use T-Pain style vocal filters, but the following chorus:

    "I like you just the way you are, drunk as shit, dancing at the bar/I like it and I can’t wait to take you home so I can do some damage/I like you just the way you are, drunk as shit dancing at the bar, I can’t wait to take you home so I can take advantage."

    Here's a link to the song (but I warn you that it's truly awful): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0K3z_efF-I

    McFadden tried to play the song off as a joke, but there was so much outrage that Australian radio stations refused to play it, and the single totally failed. McFadden later tried to explain that the song was an homage to his (now ex-) fiancee Delta Goodrem (who can best be described as an older Australian Taylor Swift who won the nation's heart by beating cancer in her 20s), who rarely drinks. However, McFadden apparently finds it "cute" when she does get hammered, and he can take her home to "do some damage." I find this upsetting quote from him to be a strong example of the double standard that exists for women that you and Kim have discussed. It is implied that Delta Goodrem is a good girlfriend for McFadden because she rarely drinks, yet it is exciting to him that she occasionally gets trashed and gets wild. She is worthy in one sense because she sets limits in terms of drinking and sex, but her wild side is in some sense more desirable. Conflicting messages indeed.

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