Why rape jokes aren’t funny: the science. There’s been an awful lot of discussion surrounding rape jokes this week.
It all seemed to start with a “comedian” named Daniel Tosh deciding to announce that he thought it would be funny if an audience member got gang-raped. Numerous comedians waded in to defend this piece of alleged humour. Tosh’s fans cheerily threatened to rape anyone who thought that maybe the joke wasn’t on. Accusations of humourlessness flew around. But here’s the thing. There’s been rather a lot of research into humour and how it works. Another theory in play is Benign Violation Theory. The theories offer an explanation of some people who might find rape jokes funny: people who have not been paying attention to the world around them.
Imagine that you are a comedian. The problem with rape jokes extends beyond only being funny to narrow-minded wankers and rapists: there are real-world effects. Ultimately, the humour fall flat at every level. Further reading: So a Girl Walks into a Comedy Club.... Consent zine. The Day I Taught How Not to Rape. Yesterday, the news invaded my classroom.
I think the kids aren’t paying attention. I think the kids only care about the news as it relates to Justin Bieber. I think they aren’t listening or capable of advanced thought. Every single time I think one of those things, I sell out the ninth-graders that come traipsing through my room every day. It started when I picked this poem to go over different ways to look at poetry: It is ambiguous. Yesterday, pretty immediately, someone in the back shot their hand up and did not wait for me to call on them. Sexist Humor No Laughing Matter, Psychologist Says. A research project led by a Western Carolina University psychology professor indicates that jokes about blondes and women drivers are not just harmless fun and games; instead, exposure to sexist humor can lead to toleration of hostile feelings and discrimination against women.
“Sexist humor is not simply benign amusement. It can affect men’s perceptions of their immediate social surroundings and allow them to feel comfortable with behavioral expressions of sexism without the fear of disapproval of their peers,” said Thomas E. Ford, a new faculty member in the psychology department at WCU. “Specifically, we propose that sexist humor acts as a ‘releaser’ of prejudice.” In their research article*, Ford and the graduate student co-authors describe two research projects designed to test the theory that “disparagement humor” has negative social consequences and plays an important role in shaping social interaction. Learning good consent2. Feminists don't think all men are rapists. Rapists do. Via chickwithmonkey I have discovered this excellent comment from Time Machine explaining just how rape jokes are harmful.
Quoted here in it’s entirety, for truth, justice and the ‘murican way FUCK YEAH and because the original thread is 1000+ comments deep and takes ages to load. [Note: Many people on Reddit have expressed the sentiment that while they agree with the substance, they have a problem with the condescending tone. This is because the comment I'm reposting was on a blog post and was made in response to a guy who was actually arguing that it's okay for him to make rape jokes with his friends. While it starts by addressing all men, it's coloured by the reaction to that particular guy.] The Feminist Power of Female Ghosts. The new movie The Conjuring has been called "scary as hell" and "the summer's scariest movie"—it's so frightening, in fact, that it earned an R rating despite an absence of any explicit violence, sex, gore, or foul language.
According to star Patrick Wilson, the film gave the ratings board a case of the willies that was simply too intense for a mere PG-13. Part of what makes the The Conjuring so very disturbing is that, like The Amityville Horror before it, it's "based on true events. " The Conjuring tells the story of the Perrons, a family of seven who moved into a rural Rhode Island farmhouse in 1971 to find it already occupied by a variety of spirits, and the real-life paranormal investigators whom they called in to mediate. Those real-life investigators, by the way, were Lorraine and Ed Warren, who would later become known the as couple who investigated that famous house in Amityville. When rape jokes aren't funny. Daniel Tosh was free to say what he said about rape, but that doesn't mean it wasn't morally repugnant, the writers say.
Julie Burton, Michelle Kinsey Bruns: Men, women seem to disagree on comic's rape jokeThey say many men don't seem to get the joke reflected extreme end of rape cultureThey say threat of rape used to define boundaries for women's behavior; joke did this, tooMen see rape in jokes as an abstraction, but it's real for women, writers say Editor's note: Julie Burton is president of the Women's Media Center. Michelle Kinsey Bruns is online manager for the Women's Media Center. Both are longtime feminist activists and organizers. (CNN) -- When the comedian Daniel Tosh reportedly singled out a woman in his audience and suggested, according to a blog post that recounted the incident, it would be "funny" if she "got raped by, like, five guys, right now," the online reaction was swift, heated and often split down gender lines.