Poll: Daniel Tosh threatens Woman with Gang Rape

[Dogstile]

He's made a career out of being tasteless, and gets annoyed when someone calls him on contributing to a rape culture.

There is a difference between dealing with a heckler and being a person in power who is singling out a woman in a room full of men and saying "wouldn't it be hilarious if she got raped?".

No, it wouldn't be. That's not shock humor. That's just tasteless venom of a disgusting little man who has no idea how much power a person in a position of authority has over a room full of people.

He's not a drill sergeant. All she had to do if she didn't like the joke was leave.

And what's all this room full of men bollocks? Were you there? how do you the the percentage of men to women?

I don't even like what he said but the amount of people coming up with bullshit arguments against it is staggering.

Are you serious?

Do you really have to ask what the demographic of a man that jokes about rape might be? Especially considering the effect gender has on a persons chance to be raped?

It was a comedy night with various acts. Men and women both like stand up comedy. And some women are fine with jokes about rape, I know a couple that make them on occasion.

Chicks heckle comics and can't take it when they fire back all the time. They don't make the news.

I wonder why.

Social media. Because of social media plenty of things that don't get on the news do. That woman who got bullied on the bus by children? Social media.

Some kid beating up another kid by delivering a pretty badass slam? Social media.

 

[Ranorak]

Either everything is okay to make fun of, or nothing is.

Why do you just drop your opinion like it's authoritative and fail to back it up? It's at the level of any random drivel with such support. You do nothing to explain why such a statement would be true. At best you try to argue that time and place matter, but nothing at all suggests that if I think one thing is unacceptable as a target that all things must be.

Simple,
Because if one topic is too mean, or offensive to make jokes about, what makes the next topic any less serious.
And the next.
Jokes offend.
If we were to give in to everyone who doesn't want to be offended. We could no longer joke.

I know it's a bit of a slippery slope argument.
But what makes, for example, rape a non-jokeable subject, but dead baby's okay?
Or death in general?

So either everything is okay to joke about, or eventually, nothing is.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Ahaha people still T.Ting about the poll options.

Well excuse me for seeing this thread for the first time. Guess I'm not as "cool" and up to date as you and don't follow your exact browsing habits.

Not you in particular - started the post before you posted. And definitely not just you haha. There are a lot of people ITT who like "dark" "comedy" but are apparently offended by a poll that isn't a 100% srs bsns attempt to gauge community reaction.

Ok, you have used it a few times, what the hell does ITT mean? I looked it up and found about 200 different things it could be. And does it really take that much longer not to be lazy and write it out?

And where are people getting offended, I see a bunch of people being entertained how childish the thing is, but I guess over sensitive people see offense where there is none.

ITT = in this thread.

Dude I just responded to seems pretty offended haha. And this has been going on for eight pages. "Naw man rape 'jokes' are cool and the ministry of polls will receive my letter about this mockery of the polling system tonight."

 

[mrverbal]

There are three points to be made here:

1) Jokes about rape - more than jokes about any other subject, pretty much - are going to offend some people more than they can reasonably take. Yes, jokes about murder are pretty grim as well, but your odds of your audience containing a murder victim are pretty low.

2) That said, I can see that it is possible to have a funny rape joke - for the right audience and for the right joke. I actually am less sure it's possible to have a *dark* funny rape joke; you could potentially have a light-hearted one and get away with it. I'd be surprised if futurama, for instance, never has. (Indeed some of the Zap/leela stuff is pretty close and...oh, there is a whole episode about it and the giant women.)

3) However! Jokes about raping an individual when you are in a position of power and they are already upset are never funny; it makes you a gigantic dickwad. And, given that there was an audience of 'rape jokes are funny' people, it is not outside the realm of possibility that one of them might do it.

Lets face it - if he were making jokes about murdering people, and someone objected, and he said 'Man, wouldn't it be funny if that ***** got murdred' - would that be ok? It seems clearly not. And it seems that he might be liable if a nut in his audience did it.

 

[NiPah]

Fake edit: on a side note, is it just me or has the Escapist been getting a little r/mensrights around the edges these last few weeks?

Wait did I miss the memo that advocating for men's rights was a bad thing? Or are you saying that judgement of good or bad?

 

[SadakoMoose]

I love how some people responding to this thread apparently think that I want LEGAL action taken against Daniel Tosh, or that "there should be a law" or something. I'm just a motivated guy, expressing my honest opinions and defending them, all by myself. If people read this story and decide to never consume products with his name on them ever again, that's their choice. The same is true for if it makes them want to buy more Tosh stuff. I'm not trying to tell anyone to shut up or be censored. I just want to bark louder.

 

[curseuglod]

where is the yes option? seriously though, you can't start being selective about what you can and cannot make fun of, thats silly, humour is funny due to detachment. besides he didnt threaten her, he just said it would be funny if she got raped, not that he was going to do it, or have his friends do it.

 

[DRes82]

Update: Well, did this story ever get big quick... HuffPo and Think Progress in a very short time! The wonders of social media!

That's a good thing? Huffington Post is a joke. Also, Tosh is pretty offensive. That's his thing and why he's so popular. Don't like his fucked up sense of humor? Don't watch his shows.

Seriously, the things people get upset about these days. I shudder to think what would happen if we were suddenly plunged into a dark age. All you fluffballs would just melt.

Edit: Just noticed the poll. I can definitely tell that you're a 'huffpo' regular.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Fake edit: on a side note, is it just me or has the Escapist been getting a little r/mensrights around the edges these last few weeks?

Wait did I miss the memo that advocating for men's rights was a bad thing? Or are you saying that judgement of good or bad?

In theory, there's nothing wrong with a reddit community to advocate for men which get the short end of the stick in custody battles and the like. * Just like how in theory there's nothing wrong with tvtropes or sanic hedgehog fanart. Who knows what makes particular internet communities completely insane?

[small]*although to be completely honest, "mens' rights" is usually a dogwhistle for reactionary gender politics anyway.[/small]

 

[Doc Theta Sigma]

Well I think this quote sums it up perfectly:

"In a world where people starve, are neglected, tortured, killed by drones, I find the idea of being offended by a joke vaguely decadent."

Yeah, dude went a bit far with joking that it'd be funny if she were gang raped but for the love of all that is reasonable, grow a skin.

 

[Eynimeb]

The act of enjoying someone else's pain is disgusting. It's perhaps the most common sense of humor, schadenfreude, but it's still disgusting.

Even if people find cracking wise about male rape acceptable, and about murder, and about any number of horrible things, as people bring up - it's still wrong, all of them. It may not be possible to make a stand against those, but if it's possible to make at least joking about females being raped unacceptable, that's at least *something*. Baby steps...

 

[dmase]

Don't blame anyone for saying they never wanna watch Tosh again, if i had a guess that wasn't a plan curve for that night it just kind of happened. He is under more than a little bit of pressure every night, sometimes you might end up blurting out shit you never meant to. I also never take things comedians say seriously otherwise you miss the point of being at a comedy club.

 

[Klonoa Prower]

In the words of the late and great George Carlin:

"They say, 'You can't joke about rape, that's not funny.' Well, I say, Fuck you, I think it's hilarious, how do you like that? I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd. Why do you think they call him Porky?"

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

No, rape jokes are hilarious especially if they offend someone so much that they have to fight you on them. I make rape jokes all the time and I always laugh when someone else tells one. Just because someone had a traumatic experience doesn't mean I can't have fun. Maybe you should lighten up OP.

Just as I'll continue to post, retweet, and tweet this story to everyone I can until Tosh either apologizes or suffers monetary losses as the result of people no longer wishing to support him by consuming his product.
Glad to see that you'll stand behind a guy that thinks gang rape is funny.

"This man made a joke that I didn't like so I'm going to spend my time trying to get a fake apology!" Great way to fight rape dude.

 

[Mr F.]

One, Rape jokes can be funny. Most are not. But sometimes, in the right situation, with the right group of people, they can be funny. Like racist/anti-semetic jokes. Sometimes, in the right situation, they can be funny. Not saying they all are. Just that some of them are. And that they have the potential to be funny. As GLADoS says, "Humour = Tragedy + Time".

Two, The poll is utterly worthless and just an attempt to get people like me to say what we are saying.

Three, If saying "Wouldn't it be funny if XYZ happened" is now a threat, well, then I should be imprisoned (Making a threat against someones wellbeing can count as assault, you can be charged with it.)

The guy is a douche. Sure. What he said was not funny. But it was not a threat.

 

[ProtoChimp]

Well Daniel Tosh's main category of comedy is dark humor. Sometimes it delves into incredibly dark areas. Being offended at what he does is like being offended at Lisa Lampanelli for calling any man that looks even slightly effeminate a ******.

Its just what they do.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean people should stand for this kinda bullshit if he said it to a woman's face who clearly wasn't finding it funny and was uncomfortable. When someone pays you money to be entertained you don't then single out that person just because you think its funny, you move on and continue the comedy routine.