Some Jokes Are Funnier Than Others
When I was in the sixth grade, a kid in my class—we’ll call him James— was really funny, the class clown. James joked about everything and we all loved him for it because his wit was so sharp, even at such a young age.
You never wanted James to turn his humor against you, but you always wondered what he might say next. You always laughed.
On January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off at 10:38 in the morning. We were watching television in science class and it was a big deal to have our traditional class activities set aside to watch the launch.
Our science teacher was particularly excited. He loved anything science- related and was a deeply engaged teacher. He was also personally invested because Christa McAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire, was one of the seven astronauts hurtling toward space. The mysteries of outer space felt a little more within his reach that day. He was the kind of man who wanted to touch the stars.
Shortly after liftoff, the Challenger exploded. We watched on the small television screen as the shuttle burst into flames and thick, spiraled plumes of smoke filled the air. Debris began falling into the ocean. It did not seem real. The classroom was silent. We were stunned. Our science teacher’s eyes reddened, and he kept trying to speak but could only clear his throat.
My classmates and I stared at one another uncomfortably. The newscasters began to report what few facts they knew. 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. The rest of the year was rough for James. He had finally crossed an invisible line about what one can or cannot joke about. I’ve never forgotten that day or how James suddenly became an outcast because he went too far, because it was too soon, because joking about a tragedy was too much.
Inappropriate humor is often the best kind. Everyone knows at least one joke she finds funny even though she shouldn’t. I am not always proud of the things that make me laugh, but I genuinely admire a comedian who can both make me laugh and make me uncomfortable. Such contradictions are thought provoking. 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. 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.
Many of O’Neal’s fans said they laughed with him even when they disagreed. They said he could joke about anything because of how he did it.
For O’Neal and many comics, there are no lines they are unwilling to cross, no subjects that are taboo, and they get away with these transgressions because they know how to walk that very fine, always moving line.
I am not a fan of Daniel Tosh and his comedy, but I’m not his target demographic. I don’t spend a great deal of time thinking about his existence or brand of humor because I don’t need to. He is an unapologetic misogynist but many people find him funny so there must be something there. However funny he may be, though, his humor is utterly lacking in grace. He does not possess the transformative power of his betters, so when he tries to be edgy and transgressive, it tends to fall flat.
During one episode of his television show on Comedy Central, Tosh.0, Tosh encouraged his audience to film themselves touching women softly on their stomachs. I am not quite sure how this encroachment on personal space and ignorance of appropriate boundaries constitutes humor, but it takes all kinds. I’m also a woman, and 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. Somehow, these fans thought this behavior was acceptable because the comic they admired told them so.
You’d be amazed what people are willing to do when they are given permission, either implicitly or explicitly.
Given Tosh’s general history of immature, frattish humor, I wasn’t surprised when he made inappropriate statements about rape humor during a set at the Laugh Factory. Rape jokes are part of his shtick. During that set, a young woman in the audience yelled, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny.” Tosh 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 . . .”
What if, indeed. There’s no better follow-up for a rape joke than a gang rape joke because if rape is funny, gang rape is funnier.
Rape humor is designed to remind women that they are still not quite equal. Just as their bodies and reproductive freedom are open to legislation and public discourse, so are their other issues. When women respond negatively to misogynistic or rape humor, they are “sensitive” and branded as “feminist,” a word that has, as of late, become a catchall term for “woman who does not tolerate bullshit.”
Perhaps rape jokes are funny, but I cannot fathom how. Humor is subjective, but is it that subjective? I don’t have it in me to find rape jokes funny or to tolerate them in any way. It’s too close a topic. Rape is many things—humiliating, degrading, physically and emotionally painful, exhausting, irritating, and sometimes, it is even banal. It is rarely funny for most women. There are not enough years in this lifetime to create the kind of distance where I could laugh and say, “That one time when I was gang- raped was totally hilarious, a real laugh riot.”
Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.
The woman who called Tosh out on his comments walked out of the club, and a friend posted about it on Tumblr. The Internet picked up her story. Tosh has since offered a small act of contrition qualified by his assertion that his comments were shared out of context; he was heckled. He clearly doesn’t think he has done anything wrong. His half-assed apology is the kind where he is merely sorry someone has taken offense rather than
taking responsibility for his actions. He will never think it is wrong to joke about rape. Like I said—it takes all kinds.
Many comedians are very proud of themselves for saying the things others are supposedly afraid to say. They are at the forefront of this culture of entitlement where we get to do anything, think anything, and say anything.
Those who refrain from using humor to comment on the “awful things in the world” don’t abstain because they are afraid. Maybe, just maybe, they have common sense; they have conscience. Sometimes, saying what others are afraid or unwilling to say is just being an asshole. We are all free to be assholes, but we are not free to do so without consequence.
What Tosh calls heckling, I’d call taking a stand. All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That’s terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier.
Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for “Silence gives consent.” When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us.
When that woman stood up and said, “No, rape is not funny,” she did not consent to participating in a culture that encourages lax attitudes toward sexual violence and the concerns of women. Rape humor is what encourages a man to feel comfortable tweeting to Daniel Tosh, “the only ppl who are mad at you are the feminist bitches who never get laid and hope they get raped so they can get laid,” which is one of the idiotic, Pavlovian responses a certain kind of person has when women have the nerve to suggest that they don’t find sexual violence amusing. In that man’s universe, women who get properly laid are totally fine with rape humor. A satisfied vagina is a balm in Gilead.
We know the appalling statistics. We know sexual violence is embedded within our culture so deeply that there exists a website, Hollaback, where women regularly report street harassment. Sexual violence is so problematic that there is a Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and there are countless organizations whose sole function is to support victims of sexual violence. We live in a society where the phrase “rape culture” exists because the culture itself exists. This climate is staggering. Either you
recognize that or you don’t. Rape humor is not “just jokes” or “stand-up.”
Humor about sexual violence suggests permissiveness—not for people who would never commit such acts but for the people who have whatever weakness allows them to do terrible things unto others. If any number of young men were willing to film themselves touching women lightly on their stomachs, how many were encouraged to ignore a woman’s no because Daniel Tosh finds rape amusing? What are the consequences if the answer is even one?
What surprises me, what really troubles me, is this: only one person stood up and had the strength of conviction to say, “Enough.”
