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Ariza posted:So Doug Stanhope has gone from being one of my favorite stand-ups to just blah with his last two releases. I was hoping Oslo was just a misstep and he'd come back strong from that, but Before Turning the Gun on Himself is boring as poo poo, pretty one-note, and not very entertaining. He sounds like a bitter, jaded alcoholic (which he did before) but now he's taken that next step and it's no longer funny. Maybe I'm just growing out of that style though as I get older. I don't think it's you growing out of it, I only just got into Stanhope at christmas and after listening to everything he has done about 5 times over, his new album was definitely disappointing. I agree that it feels like it's too much complaining without enough jokes. I still have faith he'll bounce back and find some good things to talk about though.
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Apr 15, 2012 14:22
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Little Blue Couch posted:The point is that this "just comedy" defense doesn't work; comedians shouldn't have carte blanche to say literally any hosed up thing they want onstage. I think I sort of figured out why indigi and little blue couch are annoying me in this thread. They're saying rape jokes are never funny and that people shouldn't be saying them and I feel like it's my mother saying "You shouldn't do this! It's bad! Because I say so!" So subconsciously I'm thinking "I'm 22, mom, I can laugh at a rape joke if I want! You're not the boss of me, I hate you!" I know that someone saying "you shouldn't laugh at it" doesn't really matter and I can ignore it, but I still get mad at being judged and having implied that I'm terrible because I want to laugh at something (no matter how bad that something is). So basically I feel that comedians should be able to say whatever they want and people should be able to laugh at it without people judging them or telling them they shouldn't be doing it. Because I said so. Because I want it to be that way. Because I'm probably mentally 12 years old and I still don't like being told what to do.
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Jul 12, 2012 08:13
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Is there a way I can laugh at a rape joke and not be a misogynist? Maybe I can be a reasonable percentage like 5% misogynist, 95% non-misogynist, where I laugh at rape jokes but I am also not a complete rear end in a top hat who hates women? What if the rape joke is just about the subject of rape like Tosh's original one was, but I draw the line at laughing at people who have actually been raped or threatening people with rape? Am I really a misogynist if I laugh at the ironic concept that "all rape jokes are funny"? (a premise which could easily lead to great comedy if it was done by someone like Louis CK rather than Daniel Tosh, by the way).
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Jul 12, 2012 09:48
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I could understand that people making sexist or racist jokes might make some people more liable to be freely racist or sexist. However I don't think hearing a rape joke is going to make anyone but serious sociopaths more likely to rape a woman, that's a loving ridiculous notion. There's no way jokes are going to make normal people more likely to rape someone, there's not one person who isn't going to rank it up there with murder as the worst thing you can possibly do, even people who do rape and murder people (it's why they do it). It is possible for people to divorce fiction from reality. I've spent the last few days playing Saints Row 2 in which I have indiscriminately murdered hundreds upon hundreds of virtual people. I have no urge to actually murder someone in reality. In a similar way, I could laugh at hundreds upon hundreds of rape jokes and never feel the urge to rape people because I can correctly separate jokes from reality because my brain isn't broken.
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Jul 13, 2012 07:06
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Mornacale posted:Your idea that "normal people" don't rape is false. I don't want to be an rear end in a top hat here because I agree with some of what you're saying, but at no point did I say only sociopaths rape people or that "normal" people don't rape. You could interpret what I said that way but that wasn't what I was going for. What I said was that jokes about rape aren't going to make a "normal" person more likely to rape another. "Normal" seems to be a very loaded term for some reason, maybe I should have clarified it as "a male human adult who has not raped anybody". I'd be hesitant to call someone who has raped someone else "normal" but that's just my intended definition of the word. As for the prison rape thing I'm not sure making jokes about prison rape has actually softened it, it has just added another mode of thinking about it. I could probably make jokes about prison rape all day, but I can tell you that I would be scared as gently caress to go to jail because I don't want to be raped. I can laugh at prison rape but I can also be terrified of it depending on the context, without feeling some cognitive dissonance to it. You don't watch Oz and say "haha that guy is being raped" no matter how many times you've laughed at a prison rape joke, because of the context of the show and the way the material is dealt with. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that I (personally) can laugh at a rape joke, but also be horrified by the concept of rape or someone actually being raped depending on what the context is, without saying "all mentions of rape are funny" or "all mentions of rape are bad". I really do support trying to get rid of misogyny and rape and the idea that women are "lesser" than men, but I think there are (or should be) safe spaces where these ideas can be used to create humor without endorsing the ideas, and that comedy is one of them. I'm not sure if that will make sense to you or seem like hypocrisy but that's how it is sometimes I guess.
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Jul 13, 2012 09:09
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Angry Avocado posted:That's not what he was saying. Him pointing out your use of the word "normal" is only one part of the post, he didn't actually say it makes people more likely to rape, so there is no point in addressing an argument he never made. I wasn't really a fan of the article you posted which defended that idea by trying to scare me: quote:And, decent guy who would never condone rape, who would step in and stop rape if he saw it, who understands that rape is awful and wrong and bad, when you laughed? And the rapist thought you were a rapist too because you laughed at a rape joke. Because people are retarded and think when you laugh at something you agree with it. The whole concept is built on people making up ideas about how all rapists think, like they all have the same predatory rape wiring in their brains which short-circuits logic and humor. Angry Avocado posted:The context in which prison rape jokes don't have to do with a personal fear of the act itself. It's not a way for the person making the joke to deal with the discomfort of being raped. The context is overwhelmingly some form of sadism and smug self-satisfaction, that prison rape is a form of justice and the people suffering from it deserve it because they committed some petty crime (or: the people who suffer from prison rape are described as a single, violent, irredeemable monolith. Both are bad). They're not about encouraging thinking about prison rape in a different way, they firmly reinforce pre-existing notions about it. Angry Avocado posted:I'm not making that argument, but I will say context is important. It matters who makes the joke, and what the joke is, and if he has the needed perspective to deal with the subject matter in a respectful and/or thought-provoking fashion. If those things aren't the case, the joke is more likely than not going to be really bad. I can agree with this too. But I feel like the possibility people will be offended or hurt with humor is worth it for the possible great jokes and interesting insights. Daniel Tosh loving up and hurting a woman's feelings with a lovely counter-heckler riff is worth it if we also get to have Louis CK's jokes about rape. Basically I'm saying that my laughter is worth more than that woman's feelings. I can't really make that seem nice but it's how I apparently feel. The solution isn't to say "comedians shouldn't talk about rape", it's to say "Daniel Tosh was a loving unfunny idiot". Like you suggested it's really a case by case thing.
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Jul 13, 2012 13:39
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Fil5000 posted:I feel bad because this isn't a discussion that's going anywhere. No one is learning anything, no one has budged from the opinion they had when they started. Each side is locked in their own echo chamber and it's become loving tedious. I feel I've learned quite a bit from sitting here trying to come up with logic and reasons to defend comedians and people saying rape jokes. I have no echo chamber other than me sitting there trying to come up with reasoning and counter-arguments for why I should be able to laugh at lovely things (is my head an echo chamber? I clearly don't have a brain, so yes). I realised that the whole "if it was a woman saying it..." line of argument is worthless and it goes nowhere, as seen with a few posts in the thread. I learned some facts and stats about rape and actually came up with some kind of argument, which was at least a change from my initial, formless and confused knee-jerk reaction of "shut up you can't tell me what to laugh at!" By your metric, for a discussion to be good or worthwhile does someone actually have to change their opinion, does someone have to win? Because I'm pretty sure this is a topic that's a massive grey area with no clear right or wrong. Basically I think it's pretty lovely for you to jump in at the end and call us all idiots for having a discussion, there's no risk for you and you get to be the superior guy (you're probably right that the discussion stank though).
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Jul 14, 2012 10:56
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