How Daniel Tosh’s joke and his subsequent apology are part of a much larger problem.
all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize j.mp/PJ8bNs
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012
the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them. #deadbabies
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012
by Imran Siddiquee
Supporters of Daniel Tosh and his brand of comedy will often use the defense – as the comedian himself did – that comedy provides a context in which we can joke about “awful things” without worrying about the impact these things might have if said elsewhere (these “things” being, in this case, gang-raping women). The framework provided by a comedian’s stand-up routine, the theory goes, makes any kind of humor permissible because the performer and the audience have a universal understanding that what is said on stage is not truth, but “comedy.”
Or as someone on Facebook put it: “everyone knows there are no sacred cows in comedy.”
Let’s ignore for the moment the possibility that this understanding isn’t actually universal, that all audience members are not equally adept at deciphering between meaning and meaninglessness in jokes, and that a lot of comedy is digested by people who will later quote lines out of “context.” I can accept that stand-up comedians are artists who are not forcing us to consume their material – we are paying to enter – so one can argue they are not responsible for how we use their words later.
Beyond this, though, there’s a fundamental flaw in the “context” argument. Because the fact is, comedy shows are not of an alternate universe – when you walk into a dimly-lit room with a performer on stage mumbling into a microphone, you are not stepping out of time. You are still in a city, in this country. And that’s a real live human being on stage.
Similarly, everyone else in that room is real too. They are, unfortunately for comics, not mindless robots. They are men and women who live in the real world. A world in which 1 out of 6 American women is the survivor of an attempted or completed rape. Meaning if you have 20 women in your audience, there are probably at least three or four women in the room who have first-hand experience with rape. And because of this truth, there are many more women in the room who feel unsafe walking alone at night – the real night that exists on the street outside the comedy club.
We can say comedians exist against a very specific backdrop where crossing societal taboos has the potential to expand minds, but shouldn’t we also consider the specific audience for whom these comedians are performing?
Imagine you’re in a country where people are still consistently assaulted for having dark skin. In this context you suggest that the lighter skinned people in the room whip a brown man into submission after he complains that jokes about darker people being persecuted aren’t funny. Might this make us uncomfortable? Probably, because when the brown man steps out into the real night outside the comedy club, there is a good chance he could actually get beaten and murdered. There’s also a history of this kind of violence actually happening around the world.
Does the “right” to joke about anything trump the realities of the place in which those jokes are being made?
Or imagine you are a heterosexual comedian in present-day Senegal (where being homosexual is illegal and gay men are often killed for being gay), speaking in front of an audience that includes people of various sexual preferences, and you make a joke about how killing gay people is always funny. And then a person in the audience shouts back “I’m gay and I don’t think it’s always funny.” And you proceed to say, hey, what if we beat up that gay guy right now? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?
Here in America, we live in a culture where sexual violence is a real threat. It is a part of the lives of millions of American women (and men) – whether they have been attacked themselves or not – and something that is perpetuated daily by popular culture and the media.
And, as Professor Caroline Heldman explains, “exposure to images of sexually objectified women causes male viewers to be more tolerant of sexual harassment and rape myths.” In a society where they are consistently diminished and sexually objectified, women are “dehumanized by others and seen as less competent and less worthy of empathy.”
We all live in this society that tacitly condones sexual violence through silence and silencing. Daniel Tosh’s joke exists in this same context.
This is not just a woman’s issue, yet it is significant that Tosh is a man who directed his joke at a woman.
When at a stand-up show, the comedian is without-a-doubt the most powerful person in the room. They have the spotlight and the mic in their hand, as well as a receptive audience eager to hear them speak. What he or she says, in that moment, is supremely influential.
Tosh used his power to ask his audience if they thought it would be funny if a specific woman – who was standing in the room – were to be raped at that very moment by 5 other men in the room. He repeated, for emphasis, “right now.”
So what was actually supposed to be funny here? That idea of watching a woman who complained about rape being raped herself?
Put this against the backdrop of a misogynistic society where men are still in power and women are still valued primarily as sexual objects, and the picture gets even darker.
The humor comes from the voicelessness of the woman – the absurdity of her saying “rape jokes are never funny.” Because in the context of the culture in which we live, a woman speaking out against rape jokes to a man is literally absurd. Women challenging rape at a comedy club are probably, the joke implies, more likely to be raped themselves than to be heard and respected by the male comedian. That is what Tosh finds funny. What the audience chuckles at. That is the true context of his joke.
It revels in male power and female powerlessness. Daniel Tosh – feeling threatened after a challenge from an audience member – maintains his authority through the use of violent imagery and barely-veiled threats directed at a woman.
It’s not illegal to make jokes like this (not saying it should be either), but it’s worth thinking about “context” before we go out of our way to defend Tosh’s joke. Because what you are actually defending isn’t just a comic and his right to make rape jokes – you’re indirectly defending a larger culture of inequality, violence and oppression.
Sign the petition asking Tosh to dedicate an episode to rape awareness.
Imran is the Social Media and Communications Manager at MissRepresentation.org. The opinions stated here are his own and are not necessarily those of MissRepresentation.org
Follow Imran on Twitter: @imransiddiquee
I am disgusted and dumbfounded by this incident. I signed the petition to show support. I think if you are successful in having an episode dedicated to rape awareness, sadly, I belive the people most in need of educating are the least likely to watch it.
Speaking of “out of context,” can you please post a full transcript of his remarks?
JE Smith – There are various iterations of the remarks posted around the Internet. I suggest searching Google with the keyword “Tosh.”
Exactly. Well said!
thanks Imran for this great post. comedy (and Daniel Tosh’s “joke”) doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
What is a little bit “annoying” to me, is that you would be too upset if holocaust jokes were made, say about Anne Frank, or any similar material where somewhere along the line someone has suffered. This “brand” of humor, as you put it, is not intended to hurt or defame specific groups or demographics, but to entertain. Poking fun at things that distress us as a society is a way of coping with the harsh reality of life outside, a sort of escapism from the troubles of our messed up world. Why would you not make a case for his #deadbabies tweet, or any such similar remarks from a myriad of performers? The fact you feel strongly against his bad taste is admirable, and I do not for one second condone making light of rape victims, but both sides of this argument are equally ridiculous.
Clearly you are male.
Why, because this person uses logic and comes up with a cohesive counter-argument in a non-aggressive way? Clearly anyone who speaks out against this is a male? Talk about sexist…
Just for the sake of clarity, imagine they weren’t male and respond accordingly.
So you think only a male would defend Daniel Tosh? I am a female and I agree with Confused.
Obviously, “Also a girl”, you have never been raped. However, your life isn’t over yet. Bonne chance! These words may come back to haunt you, it is a statistical possibility. You’re playing for the wrong side here.
I’m sorry about what happened to you but you should never wish for someone else to be raped no matter how much they piss you off.
Please refrain from assuming that sharing a gender and/or having been victims of similar assaults erases our personalities and unifies our opinions.
I am also a “girl,” have also been raped, and also agree with Confused.
While Tosh’s joke may have been inexcusable (don’t know yet, will look it up in a minute) the trope that any subject is NEVER funny just strikes me as thought policing, and untrue. In proper context, gallows humor can be quite therapeutic.
It’s not the same thing. Me and my friends often joke about rape because one of my friends was actually sexually assaulted. For us, it’s a way of dealing with it, making it acceptable to talk about instead of hiding it away. It’s a way of raising awareness about rape and about the identity of the rapist. But we never joke about raping someone. I never outright say to my friend “Hey, wouldn’t it be hilarious if you were raped by the same guy again? Like in that alley, right now.”
See, that’s not funny, that’s a threat. Because unlike our usual brand of jokes like stories starting with “You would never guess what happened at my party! Rape!”, that could actually happen and did indeed happen. It’s not poking fun, it’s not making light of a serious subject to better deal with it, it’s very clearly a threatening, scary scenario that is entirely within the realm of possibility. Nobody jokes about going out and killing millions of jews to a jewish person, but they might make jokes about Hitler’s moustache to the same person. I can make jokes about a hypothetical dead baby, but I can’t make a joke to a friend about killing their baby. There is a difference and the difference is that in one there is a threat and in the other there is not.
Got that?
I really like how you worded that. Making jokes about raping a specific person are never appropriate however making jokes about rape or dead babies aren’t really the issue right now… It’s about making a joke about raping a specific person in a specific context
I understand the argument you and the author are making, but I am a little perturbed that it seems he and others are missing the point of Tosh’s statement… Tosh wasn’t making a joke about rape, he was joking about irony. If the women had spoke out against a joke about, say, dog attacks (because maybe she was bit by a dog as a kid), then Tosh probably would have said practically the same statement as she left, only it would have read, “wouldn’t it be funny if a random dog came out and attacked her, right now.” No one in the audience would think it was actually funny if that happened, nor if that woman had actually been raped; but the idea of a fictional, ironic situation elicits humor.
I’ll take a whack at ignoring the suggestion that you’re a man. And I’ll start off by agreeing with you that the petition is ridiculous. That would defeat Tosh’s purpose, and I get that. However, the point you brought up about the Holocaust is flawed because we do not live in a society where Jews are at risk of a second Holocaust. The point the author was making was that we live in a society where sexual violence against women is an ever-present reality, and women are taught to protect themselves from the reality. That was the point of the author’s analogy about the black men or the homosexuals.
I think you haven’t read the article properly, the reasoning for why it is unacceptable.
Let me highlight a passage for you:
The humor comes from the voicelessness of the woman – the absurdity of her saying “rape jokes are never funny.” Because in the context of the culture in which we live, a woman speaking out against rape jokes to a man is literally absurd. Women challenging rape at a comedy club are probably, the joke implies, more likely to be raped themselves than to be heard and respected by the male comedian. That is what Tosh finds funny. What the audience chuckles at. That is the true context of his joke.
It revels in male power and female powerlessness. Daniel Tosh – feeling threatened after a challenge from an audience member – maintains his authority through the use of violent imagery and barely-veiled threats directed at a woman.
And another example from the article:
(if you’re still not getting it, I suggest you go back and try reading again – he states his case quite clearly)
Imagine you’re in a country where people are still consistently assaulted for having dark skin. In this context you suggest that the lighter skinned people in the room whip a brown man into submission after he complains that jokes about darker people being persecuted aren’t funny. Might this make us uncomfortable? Probably, because when the brown man steps out into the real night outside the comedy club, there is a good chance he could actually get beaten and murdered. There’s also a history of this kind of violence actually happening around the world.
Does the “right” to joke about anything trump the realities of the place in which those jokes are being made?
Or imagine you are a heterosexual comedian in present-day Senegal (where being homosexual is illegal and gay men are often killed for being gay), speaking in front of an audience that includes people of various sexual preferences, and you make a joke about how killing gay people is always funny. And then a person in the audience shouts back “I’m gay and I don’t think it’s always funny.” And you proceed to say, hey, what if we beat up that gay guy right now? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?
I do understand the argument the author is making, but I still disagree with it. I do not believe the audience was laughing because they find rape funny, and the fact that the author suggests that really upsets me; because in all honesty, I (a woman who has experienced sexual abuse) find his comment funny – NOT because it is about rape, but because it is IRONIC. That’s were the humor lies.
There is nothing funny about “ironically” bullying a specific individual. As much as any faceless number on the internet can say, “I have been raped” or “I have been sexually abused” in real life, surrounded by real people, laughing at you and your circumstance, joking about rape in this manor is not acceptable. Ironic or not. It basically comes down to bullying at it’s best. She was offended by the rape joke so instead of Tosh reacting like a human being surrounded by friends would and apologizing, he honed in on that fear and insecurity and exploited it. Then he lead everyone else in the audience to believe that is acceptable behavior. She we never be sensitive to how our words effect other people?
I do have a problem with holocaust jokes, with dead baby jokes, with a lot of other “humorous” things. It is possible to be a successful comedian without relying on jokes that make fun of victims.
Speaking as a woman who had been a victim of rape, I can only express my deep hatred and loathing for people like you who go through all these mental gymnastics. I HATE people who defend comedians who make cruel jokes about rape. I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you – you make me sick, because you don’t give a damn about my pain and the horrible, evil, traumatic rape I had been forced to endure from a stranger who had abducted me. You are pure evil. because you are totally insensitive towards women who have been sexually assaulted. May you never know the horrible physical and and fear of rape.
Amen, and thank you for your comment. There is no argument here as far as I see it. We’re not even talking about a joke, we’re talking about a thinly veiled threat aimed at a particular person.
This disgusting rape culture is surely the next taboo waiting to be broken. Here in the UK a footballer is currently in court on race charges – he allegedly called another footballer a ‘black [obscenity]‘. Society rightly sees racist behaviour as unacceptable. I hope that soon it will consider rape as equally serious an issue.
“all out of context misquotes aside” does not set the stage for much of an apology. It’s not an apology at all, and the fact that it’s tweeted makes it even less apologetic. A Tosh rape awareness episode seems ridiculous to me. What are the chances he would take the slightest bit of care with the topic?
If you are going into a detailed rant about how he was wrong, you should post your own transcript of his comments. Without them, I’m not sure what the heck you’re talking about. I shouldn’t have to do the work of looking it up – bad writing.
And Confused is right on.
You calling this article a “rant” is bad writing. When The New York Times publishes articles about the Irak war, it doesn’t give you the full history of it every time either… It just assumes the reader will know what they are reading about. If you don’t: it’s up to you to research it. Or be lazy but don’t complain the article is “badly written” (PS: See? THAT’S a rant.)
Here’s the original Tumblr post from which we learned about Tosh’s jokes (Tosh links to it himself in his own Tweet above): http://breakfastcookie.tumblr.com/post/26879625651/so-a-girl-walks-into-a-comedy-club
Thanks!
This doesn’t help the people who were clamoring to get the original transcript of the comments made. This is a personal blog made by someone. Now, instead of getting exactly what he said, we are getting a recounting made by someone and posted by someone else, equivalent to “my friend heard a story and now I’m going to tell it” which inevitably ends up with some of the details left behind.
Such a detail lost in your article is the fact that this person did not complain about rape, she heckled a comedian making a joke about rape. With your talk about context I figured you would have touched upon this one, but you neglected to which is really quite a shame. Tosh was heckled by someone who found his joke offensive and reacted in the same way that any other comedian would do; he drew attention to his heckler in order to get her to be quiet. THIS is context. Not that Tosh blindly picked on her in a crowd, but that he responded to a heckler in classic stand-up fashion in order to get that person to stop interrupting him and ruining the show. Were his comments a bit harsh? Yes, they were. However, that is Tosh’s comedy. You don’t go to a hardware store to buy juice, and you don’t go to see Daniel Tosh do standup thinking that he’s going to be 100% clean and inoffensive. Even if she didn’t know it was him, its comedy. Comedians pick on groups and individuals ALL THE TIME. Going to a comedy show, you will always run the risk of being offended/singled out. But you don’t take it personally because this comedian doesn’t specifically hate you, he is just using you to get a joke at your expense, and anyone who says that they have never laughed about something at someone else’s expense is either a liar or has never heard a joke before in their life.
The main point I’d like to make here is that this protest is a bit absurd. The petition that is going on, combined with this, is slightly sensationalist and in the moment. Making Tosh apologize or to do a rape awareness episode is not going to change anything, and the chances of him actually following through are slim to none. He is a comedian, a great one in fact. Ultimately, if he has any respect for the medium, and his past work has made me believe that he does, he will not give in to this petition. Because at the heart, the very fabric of this argument, this is censorship. You are offended by something someone said, and you wish for him to never be allowed to say such things on his show again. In comedy, censorship is NOT okay. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that rape is a huge crisis in America and throughout the world and something DOES need to be done, but censoring media is NOT the answer. You are allowed to have your own lines in the sand about what is okay to joke about and what isn’t okay, and go ahead and follow them, but when you start forcing others to you are setting a precedent. If rape jokes aren’t okay for Tosh to say anymore and you get his bosses to draw that line FOR him, instead of him doing it himself, what is to stop other groups from doing the same. Almost every minority could say they’ve been offended by Tosh, the mentally retarded, the fat/obese, blondes, you name it. And now that you’ve set the precedent, each other group is justified because of what you did; if you were offended and got his material pulled, why can’t they?
In summation, you can ask him to be more sensitive, and he might respond. But to ask him to censor himself, or for you to try and forcefully censor him is morally bankrupt. Your argument is inherently flawed in this regard. And the next time you talk about context, PLEASE make sure you actually do it for your argument too. There is a big difference between a complainer and a heckler.
HOW DARE YOU include obese in the retarded/blonde comparison.
Hahahaha! LMBO
Fantastic response actually. Comedy is a gift to help people stay sane in a crazy world. It can be argued that Tosh did his public service by sparking this topic.
Leave comedy alone.
I completely agree with you. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Thanks for a fantastic response!
Sorry about the lack of spacing; when I typed it out it was spaced, but now that I go back and look at it, it’s a jumbled mess. I do implore anyone who wants to hear a cohesive counter-argument to please read what I wrote. I know it is a bit long winded, but I feel that it presents a great non-aggressive counter argument to this important issue
Terrific response.
Yes it was offensive and not funny, but he is a comedian. Comedian’s speak in hyperbole to shock people in to laughter.
Magaret Cho recently made a comment, which she apologized for, about not wanting children because she didn’t want a “retard baby.” Is this different? Why is there no outrage when Sarah Silverman makes jokes about rape?
If we eliminated all jokes that offend people, then what comedians are we left with?
The full context (from the woman’s perspective) is the second link in the article.
This is not a joke. There is no set up, no punchline. This is a call to incite violence. Context be damned.
Clearly the implications behind Tosh saying that the woman who spoke against rape jokes should be raped are frightening and speak of a larger “rape culture” but the thought that Tosh should do a rape awareness show seems a little silly to me. I would rather have a rape awareness show done by someone who had been raped or respected the real life effects of having been raped than somebody like Tosh. It wouldn’t hurt for him to endorse it but he isn’t the one who should be telling that story. I don’t have a problem with Tosh but his behavior was inappropriate and the solution proposed just seems even more insensitive to me.
I don’t find dead baby jokes funny at all either. If he had been talking about dead babies on stage, and someone objected, and he were to say “What if like some guy just came in and killed your baby right now? How funny would that be?” I GUARANTEE more people would see the offense and total lack of humor.
Also, in response to the comment above, the holocaust is over. Rape goes on today. It’s not like Anne Frank was sitting there, and he was making a joke about how her family in specific was murdered. For all he knew that girl at some point WAS raped, and it’s possible to have happened by more than one guy. I would love to pay to see a comic just to have him evoke a rape flashback and mildly threaten to have me raped in that very room. I can’t believe anybody even laughed at his comments. Total insensitivity.
Thank you for your commentary. I would like to point out one myth that you continue with this statement: “And because of this truth, there are many more women in the room who feel unsafe walking alone at night – the real night that exists on the street outside the comedy club.”
Since more women are raped by someone they know than by a stranger, it is not logical to assume that any woman who had experienced rape would feel unsafe walking alone at night.
It’s not about the women who have been raped being afraid of walking alone at night, it’s the women who FEAR being raped. As a woman (with lots of friends who are women), I don’t like walking alone at night. I think it’s a pretty logical assumption.
I dont care if he realized that what he said was wrong. It still doesn’t make up for the crude joke. Besides he didn’t even state that he was fully wrong, but simply that it was “taken out of context” and that he was trying to be satirical. Well Mr.Tosh satire is a form of humor and writing used to blantantly change the act of human kind through jokes etc. What you did was state a taboo and repulisve joke to a young women whom could have been raped in her life time and even then it still isn’t right to do so if she wasn’t. The male society that thinks its right to make rape jokes or state that the women raped shouldn’t have been wearing the outfits she was makes me want to vomit. you heartless beast. your show will be canceled. Have a nice day.
ps. simply having an episode for rape awareness doesn’t fix the issue at hand.
Your words continue to generate impact even after leaving the stage. Be smart about what comes out of your mouth. Rethink your comedy.
Look. There are things that people say in this world that go against our belief. He and his followers have a darker side of humor. It’s terrible, but for you to belittle him as a person is wrong. He as a comedian, maybe. He is incredibly distasteful to what others care about, and he has he ability to laugh at himself.
With that said, the joke style was sarcasm. I understand it could upset victims of rape, however, you gotta tolerate it.
Regardless of the rightness or wrongness or right to say the jokes in question I have to point out that asking Daniel Tosh (who has a show I have watched A LOT of and whose general appreciation for and wonder at the ribald, the inappropriate, the inane and the humiliating (even his own))to do a Rape Awareness Episode might very well result in a Rape Awareness Episode the likes of which has never been seen. Yea, thinking about it fairly boggles my mind. If folks are looking for lines written on a chalkboard for his offense I cite Bart Simpson… He’s been writing in penance for two decades now. Daniel Tosh has a brand of humor that some loathe and some love but this kind-of extreme and angry nun-like need to whack him with a ruler is, to my mind, likely to just reenforce the misandry-minded and sexists thinking who are watching a “bro” make jokes about dudes getting racked and boobies and the obese in between ads for LiveLinks and Girls Gone Wild videos. Get Wanda Sykes and Amy Poehler and other hilarious women to make some jokes at his expense or make him have to buy tampons for teenage girls, but seriously, asking Daniel Tosh to do a Rape Awareness episode is like asking Easy E to be a watch salesperson- ridiculous.
Since Tosh says he was misquoted out of context, I’m interested to know what context he meant and what he actually said. One person’s context is completely different from another person’s. Seems like he was going with “There are many horrible things in this world, but hey, they can be funny, too!” I get his intention: he wants to make the horrible things seem not-as-horrible by using them in a comedic sense. I just think he went about it the wrong way. I don’t condone the way he went about it, and I certainly don’t think jokes about rape or dead babies are funny (especially since my close family has gone through the loss of a newborn). On the other hand, I don’t think what the girl did was wise, either. To me, yelling at a comedian about their comedy while that comedian is onstage is heckling, not speaking out, as she claims. There are better ways to speak out about it without heckling or simply leaving the place. I admire the fact that she went to the manager afterwards, too.
We all have to admit that we live in a society where people not only find these jokes funny, they WANT to find these jokes funny. It’s their way of dealing with the terrible stuff. It’s also why many just let it pass over them. “It’s just comedy, right? No one is really getting hurt, right? It’s just a girl being upset again, right?” American society is structured to make us think these things. A lot of modern comedy is structured to make us feel okay with these things. After all, it’s not real, right? Maybe so, but the effects it has on males and females alike are incredibly real. Making jokes about girls getting raped is not cool at all, no matter in what context it was meant to be, but because it’s “comedy” we become conditioned to be okay with these things.
Also, I don’t think making Tosh do a rape awareness episode – I’m assuming of his TV show Tosh.0 – will accomplish anything. In fact, it could hurt this whole argument by making it seem insignificant and worthy of yet more “comedy.”
If you get offended by a rude joke made by a guy who is supposed to make rude jokes, then you are an asshole.
[...] The Miss Representation blog is spot on with their post on this issue, as always. I thought this excerpt was particularly important: The humor comes from the voicelessness of the woman – the absurdity of her saying “rape jokes are never funny.” Because in the context of the culture in which we live, a woman speaking out against rape jokes to a man is literally absurd. Women challenging rape at a comedy club are probably, the joke implies, more likely to be raped themselves than to be heard and respected by the male comedian. That is what Tosh finds funny. What the audience chuckles at. That is the true context of his joke. [...]
This other D&G ad has also bothered me from the first moment I saw it because it seems like an older man about to take advantage of younger girl. Something about it brings the word “pedophile” to mind.
http://discotreats.com/wp-content/uploads/dolce_gabbana_light_blue_campaign_0710.jpg
Your probably the type who gives me dirty looks when I take my granddaughter to the park. eek! It’s an older man with a girl! Must be a pedo! Call the police! And I certainly know better than to hug her in public . That could get me arrested!
Hey Imran, wonderful piece. I just wanted to bring your awareness to this facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SayNoToRapeJokes. my students created it for our gender studies course and are still continuing to manage it. We live in Karachi, Pakistan.
The people who are defending this kind of humor are probably the same people that think a girl who dresses provocatively is just “asking” to be raped.
I liked Tosh’s joke. Lighten up, ya feminists.
I’m sure that Jerry Sandusky would agree with Tosh.
I keep finding it funny that people are willing to write out these long, boring, borderline sexist, blog posts about an event they weren’t willing to research in the slightest. You do know that he did not say “wouldn’t it be funny if she was raped by 5 guys right now?” He made a comment, regarding her aggressive heckling, questioning if she had been raped by 5 guys because she was adamant that rape could never be funny. She stayed for the rest of the show, and accepted free tickets to another show when she expressed she was offended. You don’t accept free gifts if you’re outraged. Furthermore, Sarah Silverman, the same night, was making rape jokes and saying “some women are just asking to get motorboated.” Kneejerk blog post. Isn’t the internet wonderful?
[...] more serious topics, did anyone hear about Daniel Tosh’s rape comment or the consequent response from Miss Representation? [...]
Feminism = Puritanism disgused as Progressiveness
This is a very fem view and i am a woman, who was sexually abused myself. But I am 100% sure that Tosh would not stand for an actual gang rape at his show. ITS WAS A COMEDY SHOW. his style is dark humor. her out burst was bringing down the show. it was her own damn fault for going to see a comedian who makes fun of a multitude of sensitive social subjects.
As for the rant, our society is obsessed with sex or hating on something. its really annoying. Leave it alone. Go take a walk or something people…
Tosh is a crude, mean human being as this episode underscores. But he’s been that way for years so why the dismay?
[...] THAT game (plenty of articles below!). Some guy called Daniel Tosh made rape jokes, and when he was called out on said jokes he THEN made “jokes” about that person being gang raped. Clearly he is a stellar guy. Oh, he [...]