Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Let me get my Clit in Order

So Daniel Tosh, that beacon of hilarity and wit and perfect tone on the human condition, apparently made comments at the Laugh Factory a week or so ago. Rape is funny, what could be funnier, it's always funny...A female in the audience, according to her account (she's lying, she was totally asking for it. I heard she might have even been wearing a short skirt.) said something to the effect that rape, in fact, is not funny. Tosh responded "wouldn't it be funny if that woman got raped? By like, 5 guys? Like, right now?" More here.

And so begins the comedians (primarily male) vs. the "feminists."

Well you didn't think I was going to just lie there and take it, did you?

1. Yes, Tosh, and every other human being in the world, is entitled to Free Speech. Whether or not they get that where they live, we hold these truths to be self-evident and we should all fight for everyone to have free speech. This means that Tosh gets to say rape is always funny, and I get to say I sincerely hope you get raped someday. Like, violently. What? It's a JOKE! So, fair enough. Tosh gets his right to free speech and here is me exercising my right to free speech. Daniel Tosh? You're a fucking spoiled fucking white American male and you're a douchebag. Fair is fair.

2. He was making a joke on the sacred fucking hallowed ground of a comedy club, and if you don't like being raped, don't go to comedy clubs! Again, see item 1. Being a "comedian", being "onstage" (the fucking floor of the Laugh Factory), and holding a microphone does not make you fucking impervious. A comedian has the right to work out their material and FEEL that no subject is off-limits because if we start to "censor" (absolutely no one is getting censored here. This isn't Pinochet's rule. It's America and you can say whatever you want. Really.) You have the right to make any of these jokes, including ones about the Holocaust, and AIDS, and faggots, and lynching. But two things:

A. If you're a comedian, the GOD that you are because you've "earned" the "right" to "say whatever you want" because a comedy club is sacred fucking ground or something, then you have one job. ONE. To make people laugh. That is your entire job. It is hard and it's got to be humiliating at times and it seems to make one lose a bit of their sanity and quite a lot of their humanity, but that's your job, you chose it, and them's the rules. Your job is to make people laugh. You did not make this woman laugh, in fact, you made her feel uncomfortable, unsafe, singled out, and willfully hunted, which is a feeling that I can assure you, as a woman, is a place we have to live in DAY IN AND DAY OUT without rest no matter what. The comedian made a joke. It wasn't funny. I'd wage a bet that quite a few people, male and female, did not find that joke path funny.

B. You can say whatever you want. You can say rape is funny, you can use the N word, you can joke about Jews. But it HURTS PEOPLE. Jokes about lynching, the holocaust, AIDS, etc. Nothing should be off-limits in the realm of comedy (unless it isn't FUNNY), it is argued, because we need to be able to talk about everything and, eventually, hopefully, come together and laugh. Is, I think, I HOPE the ultimate goal of the really good ones. And they did it well. Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Betty White, Roseanne Barr, Bill Hicks...I think, ultimately, this was their desire and their deepest wish.

Tosh did not pull together humanity he said rape is funny. It isn't. It is horrifying. It is a terrible, awful, disgusting wage of war against women. I hate to use this argument because it shouldn't be a battle of who has suffered more. But if he had made a lynching or slavery joke, shit would not be ok. Blacks have suffered nearly insurmountable campaigns against them personally and as a group for about 500 years in America. Women have been raped and told to shut up for 2,000. It's horrifying, a male who has not been a victim (and, I'd argue, even if he has because he does not, then, have to continue to live in fear) has NO idea what it must be like, and...it isn't funny.

As Ice Cube says in the new 21 Jump Street, "yeah, I'm black and I'm angry. WHAT ABOUT IT."

Louis CK then went on the Daily Show to explain (lie?) that he was not defending Tosh on Twitter, but simply giving a very ill-timed shout out about how funny he is, to say this is a classic war. Feminists can't take a joke.

Saying that rape isn't funny doesn't make you a feminist. It makes you someone with an opinion. Where are the female comedians here? Where is Betty White? Where is Sarah Silverman? Where's Maria Bamford, Chelsea Handler, Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, Wanda Sykes, ELLEN DeGENERES? Hello? Ladies? Is this thing on? Because if you're a woman, and you say the joke isn't funny, then you're a feminist. You're playing RIGHT into their stereotype of "feminist" (oh, and we wouldn't want THAT god forbid, equal rights for everyone regardless of gender). But I disagree. I think it's HILARIOUS when a funny black man gets angry. I think it's funny when Will Ferrell gets angry. I think it's funny when Ellen DeGeneres does anything. I think most everything that Sarah Silverman says and does is wildly offensive and absolutely hysterical. Yes. Hysterical. Where all the (black or white) women at??

 I'm a feminist and have been told I'm funny. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Once at a comedy show in Denver, there was an openly gay bear comedian that goes by "Ursa Major". He told a joke toward the end that he assured no women would laugh at, because: vaginas. It was about a dog wearing a shock collar that ran into his lit cigarette and couldn't whine or bark because the dog collar kept shocking him. Yeah, I didn't laugh either. The bit really wasn't much more intricate or subtle than this retelling. He just acted the poor dog out more.

I didn't laugh because I'm a woman.

I didn't laugh because the joke wasn't funny.

Bill Hicks, my all time favorite, said some of the most offensive shit about women and I absolutely adore him. He would never, ever say that rape is funny, I truly don't think so. And he has a joke that goes something like this:

 "I'm dating a 16 year old and her cunt is amazing. It's like a papercut surrounded by cotton candy."

And I fucking love that joke. It is told with such desperate love and attention to detail that it sends me every time. I laugh, hysterically, every time. Rape isn't funny. But I'd love to see the women take a crack at it. And, furthermore, Tosh and the other desperately misogynistic "comedians" that get to spew ignorance and hate just because they have the mike. I don't want to take their mike away, I want to hear more people on more microphones.

And I want the fucking jokes to be funny. I'd love for rape to end. But in the meantime, let's work on the jokes.

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