Rape humor is designed to remind women that they are still not quite equal. The club's owner quarrels with the story here.)
Because if rape is funny, gang rape is funnier. There’s no better follow-up for a rape joke than a gang rape joke. During his Laugh Factory set, a young woman in the audience yelled, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny.” Tosh is said to have maturely responded, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her …” Given Tosh’s brand of humor and his general history of immature, frattish humor, I wasn’t really surprised when I heard he made inappropriate statements about rape at the Laugh Factory last Friday. You’d be amazed what people are willing to do when they are given permission, either implicitly or explicitly. Somehow, they thought this behavior was acceptable because the comic they admired told them so. (I’m also a woman - we are, from what I hear, not funny.) Nonetheless, the incident gave me pause, particularly when his ardent fans actually began filming themselves touching women softly on their stomachs and posting the videos to YouTube. I am not quite sure how this encroachment on personal space and ignorance of appropriate boundaries constitutes humor, but it takes all kinds. In April, the unapologetic misogynist encouraged his audience to film themselves touching women softly on their stomachs. The star of Comedy Central's "Tosh.0" does not possess the transformative power of his betters, so when he tries to be edgy and transgressive, it tends to fall flat. She characterized his willingness to do this by saying, “The transformative power of the ugly truth was, for O’Neal, a form of grace.” Most comedians seem to be reaching for that form of grace, trying to talk about the complexity of these lives we lead in ways that can make us laugh and think and feel.ĭaniel Tosh's humor, however, is utterly lacking in grace. In a profile of the late Patrice O’Neal for New York magazine, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc wrote about how O’Neal was deliberate and merciless in testing boundaries and saying the unspeakable.
Humor that makes us laugh and makes us uncomfortable also makes us think. Everyone has at least one joke they find funny even though they know they probably shouldn’t. Inappropriate humor is often the best kind, as Tosh knows. James suddenly became an outcast because he went too far, because it was too soon, because joking about tragedy was too much. He had finally crossed an invisible line about what one can or cannot joke about. The rest of the year was rough for James. James snickered and said, “I guess there are a lot of dead fish now.” Our science teacher lost it completely and gave James a serious dressing down. Our science teacher’s eyes reddened and he kept trying to speak but could only clear his throat. We watched on the small television screen as the shuttle burst into flames and thick, spiraled plumes of smoke filled the air. Shortly after liftoff, the Challenger exploded. The mysteries of outer space felt a little more within his reach that day. Our science teacher was particularly excited because Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire, was one of the seven astronauts onboard. 28, 1986, we watched the Challenger lift off in science class and it was a really big deal to have our traditional class activities set aside. You never wanted James to turn his humor against you, but you always wondered what he might say next. James joked about everything and we all loved him for it because his wit was so sharp, even at such a young age.
When I was in the sixth grade, there was a kid in my class, we’ll call him James, who was really funny, the class clown. The furor over Daniel Tosh's rape jokes reminded me of the morning the space shuttle Challenger exploded.