Even After He Tweets and Apology Daniel Tosh Takes Heat for Rape Joke
Hate those damn bloggers.
Daniel Tosh was the victim of a Tumblr. There was a rape joke incident at the “Laugh Factory” and thanks to the wonderful world of Tumblr we got to hear all about it.
During his set Daniel Tosh says that Rape Jokes are funny. Someone (we will call her Ms. Tumblr) yells from her seat,
“rape jokes are never funny!”
Never provoke a comic. He has a microphone and you don’t. Tosh took it on as a challenge. He replies back,
‘Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…’
That’s it. That was the end of the story because Ms. Tumblr got the hell out of there. As she says in her own words,
I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.”
Somehow that blog gained traction. (I wish I knew because I could use some traction….wtf!) So much traction that Tosh himself noticed it and issued a Twology (An apology on twitter). He writes,
“All the out of context misquotes aside, I’d like to sincerely apologize,” he tweeted to his 6,139,000 followers. “The point I was making before I was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them.”
Of course, now it’s a big deal and a self-initiated apology is now not enough. Here comes the RAINN with their act. A spokesperson for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network wrote in Fox411’sPops Tarts column,
“When will this ‘funny man’ realize that rape jokes aren’t funny? By suggesting that an audience member deserved to be gang raped, Tosh took his shtick to a new low. Applause is due to the woman who had the guts to vocalize what many in room were thinking,”
However, “Laugh Factory” owner Jamie Masada, who was reportedly present during the showdown, has a slightly different version of events, telling Buzzfeed that he asked the audience what they wanted to talk about, and one viewer piped up “rape.”
“Daniel came in, and he said, ‘Well it sounds like she’s been raped by five guys’ – something like that. I didn’t really hear properly”
He then said that she didn’t get up and leave but stayed for the entire act and then complaine afterward.
But according to Ashley-Michelle Arnold, a webmaster for a message board for rape victims, is not enough,
“When your punch line comes from a horrific experience, there’s nothing funny about it. Right now, defenders are spinning it that the woman wasn’t really offended, as if that somehow makes it OK because she was the subject, after all. However, it doesn’t work like that; humor that trivializes what is one of the most horrific experiences a human being can inflict another doesn’t get a green pass simply because the intended target didn’t gratify Tosh’s disgusting punch line,” she said. “Comedy should be used to entertain people, and to educate them. Jokes that turn violence into a caricature do neither and, in fact, contribute to the stigma which blame survivors for being victimized and downplay how severely it can impact a life.”
I say lighten the “f” up people. He’s a comic. I’m not saying that what he did was right, I’m saying that he’s a comedian so let it go. I’m also not saying it wasn’t an awful thing to say, but he apologized. There is not more that he can do. If you don’t want to watch and support him don’t. But just putting out these statements after he’s already apologized is almost meaningless.
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