Talk Elections

google search link (https://www.google.com/#q=tosh+rape+joke&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsu&source=univ&tbm=nws&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=xkEGUJSgGoWC8QSJ_uDeBw&ved=0CBsQqAI&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=ffb767421ba9ee8d&biw=1613&bih=798)

Some of you may know the story and there are several out there, but from I can gather, Tosh asked the crowd what topic they'd like to hear him make jokes about, somebody yelled "rape", tosh made a joke about rape jokes being easy, a woman in the crowd said "rape jokes aren't funny" and then Tosh said "wouldn't it be funny if that lady was gang raped by 5 guys right now, like RIGHT now?".

To me this is easy...
A.Anything can be funny...rape, pedophilia, pushing old people down stairs, circus fires, orphans
2.Getting offended at a comedy club is stupid...if you're easily offended at all, you shouldn't go to them...or watch TV...or spend time with other humans
III.you should never challenge a guy on stage with a mic unless you are also on stage with a mic (with the obvious exceptions), you ain't going to win...especially if they do this thing professionally

Tosh. People need to stop getting butthurt over everything that's even remotely off colour.

Lady in the crowd.  1) Rape jokes aren't funny.  2) Tosh isn't funny.

Tosh is a douche and not funny. But if you're going to go to his standup show and get offended at something like this, that's as stupid as some conservative going to a gay bar and getting offended at men kissing each other.

Option 3 for sure.

I can get (though I don't agree with) Tosh not being funny.  But why do we hate rape jokes?  Do we hate all "off color" jokes?  Or is rape special?

The latter.

What he said wasn't even a joke. It's just a disgusting comment.

Ok.  So are all rape jokes unfunny?  What if it's a bad person that is being joked about being raped?  What if it's so over the top it can't possibly be true, like the aristocrats joke?

Right, what Lief said. It would be one thing if it were done in the service of humor, but it wasn't even that.

Jokes like the aristocrats are categorically distinct, since it's not the material being discussed that's supposed to be funny, it's the sheer degree of impropriety (a degree that it's hard to hit correctly). Jokes in which rape qua rape is a figure of fun are unfunny and inappropriate regardless of who the purported victim is.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, comedy is subjective and all that.  I'm sure none of you want to ban jokes about rape.

Can we at least agree that heckling a comedian is in poor taste no matter what he/she has said?  Get up, walk out, complain to the management of the club if you must, but interupting their flow is just wrong.

I'm generally for all types of jokes, but that wasn't funny. As in, that's not a joke. It's just the kind of threatening comment a bully would make. It's sad when a stand-up comedian has to resort to that level to muster a comeback.

And, Dead, you can't seriously argue that an average woman should have to put up with jokes about her being raped but a professional stand-up comedian can't be expected to deal with someone not finding his jokes funny? He needs to improve his level or just take the abuse in dignified silence.

She's not an "average woman", she was a woman that went into a comedy club where Daniel Tosh was preforming and then interupted his routine.  He didn't pick a random woman off the street and suggest she be raped.  He didn't even pick a random woman out of the crowd.  She never would have had this "horrible" thing happen to her if she had kept her mouth shut and just got up and left after she found out that comedians are sometimes dirty.

And FTR, I don't think what he said was funny or a joke.  It wasn't supposed to be.  It was a verbal attack for her interupting the show.  I originally put "issue" in the title instead of joke, but figured more people would know what I was talking about this way.  I probably should at least have put quotes around "joke".

Ok, so how is that a cool attack? A comedian has to live with heckling every now and then. Suggesting a woman should be raped is not a proportional response. It could even be construed as akin to a veiled threat.

(women shouldn't bitch about sexist jokes, because then my fans will rape them)

Do you (or anybody) seriously think he wanted anybody to actually get raped?Nobody should bitch about any jokes in the middle of a set, not because they might get raped, but because it's freaking rude.

What really matters is that the woman who interrupted the set is a rude twat who came into his set misinformed as to what Tosh's act is all about. What Tosh said in response to the heckler wasn't really kosher but to be frank, I don't care. Don't heckle and attempt to ruin the show for people who find it amusing.

ITT: a bunch of people who get their panties in a bunch very easily.

edit: for the record, I don't think Tosh is funny but I prefer to leave comedy uncensored.

I think Gustaf's right on this - it's not that rape can't be approached in a blackly comedic way by a skilled comedian (not Tosh, in other words), but that this wasn't funny at all so much as creepy and upsetting.

That said, I'd like to distance myself as much as possible from people who unironically say things like "feminazis".

Rape jokes aren't funny and can be highly offensive. However, I take Tosh's side, as she shouldn't have been there, knowing him, if she gets offended by jokes, and especially for saying something to a guy with a mic.

Lief is right too. It wasn't even a joke at her expense.

But I can't have much sympathy for someone who goes to a Tosh stand-up show and is shocked to hear stuff like this.

Tosh obviously - and after all lots of rape jokes are very funny.  The Aristocrats (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aristocrats_%28joke%29) is a rape joke (at any rate it includes, normally, some raping in the joke), and it is one of the classics.  Jokes about male-on-male rape - for example prison rape - are commonplace and laughed at by all and sundry.  It is just sexism that jokes about male-on-female rapes remain taboo.

People need to stop getting so offended over shock comedians.

This is a very male forum, isn't it? Though I suppose it's nice that so many posters have just outed themselves as irredeemable cretins. Useful to know who not to take seriously about anything, right?

The opening post, plus this.


Some of the best shock jokes are rape jokes. Though obviously not suited for all (or even many) occasions but then that's part of the concept of a shock joke.
Whoever this Mr Tosh is (a relative of my beloved Pete?) or why anyone would pay to have shock jokes told professionally, I have no clue.

I think jokes that are offensive are funnier than jokes that aren't. Yes, it's unfortunate that rape occurs. It's also unfortunate that murder, burglary, racial crimes, terrorism and the like occur, but we gotta learn to laugh at them. Laughter is the only true medicine. It's how people got over 9/11 and it's how people will continue getting over serious tragedies for as long as humans exist.

Just noticed there's a poll attached and it even has an option that describes me perfectly!

Nothing is off limits when it comes to jokes.

However, some things are off limits when it comes to good jokes.

If you have to solely rely on shock value, you aren't a comedian. There was no punchline in Tosh's joke. There was no wit. It was a bad joke. I'd say the perfect rape joke wouldn't even mention rape--it would just allude to it in a cheeky way.

HagridOfTheDeep has it correct, IMO. It's okay to joke about rape, there are good rape jokes, but Tosh's comment here either was not a joke, or was a very bad joke.

It's upsetting that some people are saying things like "she brought it on herself", the same thing that is often said to rape victims. Certainly, a heckler deserves a clever riposte, even a humiliating one, but not one that is more threatening than funny, when the subject is rape.

I should clarify that I certainly think it's possible for a good joke to involve rape in some way or another, but not to be about rape in this sense. Wanda Sykes's 'detachable pussy' joke was understandably controversial but it was more about the culture surrounding sexuality being ridiculous than about the idea that rape is somehow funny.

In that sense I agree with Hagrid and Beet, although I probably have a much narrower mental category of good or acceptable jokes involving rape than they do.

No, but I don't think that's the point either.

You don't think it's rude to suggest someone should be raped?

I've happened to find some "politically incorrect" jokes funny at times, but never a rape joke. I don't know if it's because the topic creeps me out or just because it's hard to put up a funny joke about it. Regarding Tosh's, I fail to see how this could even be called a joke.

A comedian makes a gaffe when attempting to respond to a heckler - clearly he supports rape, serial killers and Pol Pot!

Anyways, it's quite likely that this story was incorrectly told by the media. The manager of the comedy club tells it in a fairly different light and according to him, the joke was actually a joke (albeit crude to the point where even I find it to be offensive). Apparently the audience found it hilarious but the blogger got her feelings hurt.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/amyodell/comedy-club-owner-says-daniel-tosh-incident-has-be (http://www.buzzfeed.com/amyodell/comedy-club-owner-says-daniel-tosh-incident-has-be)

Rape jokes are horrible because they aren't funny. The only thing worse than rape jokes in comedy is hecklers who are being serious.

The manager admits, "I really didn’t hear properly," so that doesn't really tell us anything. Plus, as the manager, he has a vested in seeing his act presented in the most positive way possible.

I agree with you.  The way she protested the segment was inappropriate.  But he took it further.  He had literally hundreds of other ways he could've dealt with her heckling, but to say what he said, wasn't one of the good ways.

Yeah, that's the point. I've no idea what kind of comedian this Tosh guy is, but anyone who claims to be a comedian should have been able to come up with something at least slightly less pathetic.

I'm not a usual listener to stand up comedy acts, but was that really heckling? I mean, when I imagine it, I picture the comedian in the middle of a monologue and someone in the audience shouting "Suck my dick, asshole" or making fart noises.

From the opening post it seems that the guy was interacting with the audience and some woman said one comment (yeah, one) and the guy threw a hissy fit. This make Tosh look like a crybaby since the comment he made wasn't even a joke (or his act is more ridiculous than I thought).

He must have the best job in the world, I only wish I could yell at people for every minor inconvenience at work.
But I sort of suck at comedy :P