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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that rape jokes just aren't funny?

31 replies

EvilVampireFrog · 14/11/2011 10:05

And to wonder why professional comedians are using them as a staple part of their act?

Went to a comedy night at the weekend, 10 comedians doing 10 mins each.

6 of them used rape jokes.

9 of the 10 were men.

I am just thinking about this - the comedy I really enjoy is pretty offensive to religious people - Tim Minchin, for example.

So I appreciate that people find different things funny.

I can't understand why jokes about rape/ sexual assualt are EVER funny though. I was at a loss to understand why I was sitting stony faced, while almost everyone else in the room was roaring with laughter.

(My friend had a titter, then caught my eye, and caught himself on!)

AIBU? Am I in such a minority here?

OP posts:
Sevenfold · 14/11/2011 10:06

yanbu

tooearlymustdache · 14/11/2011 10:07

yaDnbu

i would probably want to complain to the house management

ElizabethDarcy · 14/11/2011 10:09

YANBU I'd be livid!

Original poster
EvilVampireFrog · 14/11/2011 10:09

tooearly had a word (they're friends of mine) but unfortunately they know I am a dried up old feminist, so tend to ignore.

Plus, I was literally one of two people who were angered by it. The rest of the room were very angry at the pope jokes from one of the other comedians though.

OP posts:
MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 14/11/2011 10:11

You're not in the minority but ask anyone who works in the comedy business and they will tell you that ALL of life has comedy potential.

Rape is terrible but so are a lot of other things....such as death, poverty, violence and disease but comedians also joke about those.

Are you going to suggest they can only not joke about rape?

I am playing devils advocae here a bit and know that on MN I will be the ONLY person saying YABU probably....but I think that terrible things sometimes need laughing at in order to assist processing.

Happymm · 14/11/2011 10:13

Recently went to a Jimmy Carr performance. Didn't laugh much as most of his jokes were about rape (he termed it a struggle cuddle); incest; child abuse etc etc.
Thought it was just me & my sense of humour bone not being tickled by such topics-but why do comedy acts think they have to be outrageous to be funnyConfused

tooearlymustdache · 14/11/2011 10:16

"they know i'm a dried up old feminist"

i hope this was a joke too Wink

it makes me sigh too, because (to me) a good joke is one that breaks past your personal boundary of what is right/wrong, it will tap into your inner 'grey area' and the laugh is often borne of embarrassment.

rape has no grey area to tap into, it is always wrong.

KouklaMoo · 14/11/2011 10:16

YANBU of course, some of these comedy nights are awful. I went to one and one the guys sounded like he was campaigning for the BNP, he was so racist. I'm not oversensitive to these things I don't think, but everyone else was laughing, and I was just Shock

Very worrying that rape jokes are becoming so mainstream.

WoTmania · 14/11/2011 10:21

YANBU - I think what bothers me about rape jokes is that it stil isn't really taken seriously as a crime (especially not date-rape and rape within marriage) and it being included in comedy just takes it a step closer to acceptable everytime.

Original poster
EvilVampireFrog · 14/11/2011 10:22

mumbling it's the way the jokes came across.

I've heard people do bits on e.g. the child abuse scandal in the catholic church that are really thought provoking, and make people think.

These people were presenting a more trivialising, a "we're all lads together, we know women like it really"
Or saying, it's a man's right to sex, so it's OK to take it.

I found it deeply sinister, really. I don't think I'm overthinking it either, it was pretty overt.

OP posts:
MumblingAndBloodyRagDoll · 14/11/2011 10:22

there are some very interesting points on this blog and also some clips of rape jokes being told by comedians...including femae ones....I laughed.

TheRhubarb · 14/11/2011 10:24

I only experienced this once. At a friend's wedding reception. I was 2 weeks away from popping with my first baby, so very heavily pregnant and the comedian they had booked for their reception made a series of jokes about attacking women before he went on to do his racist act. dh had to drag me away as I wanted to floor the ignorant fucker.

I think more and more 'comedians' are pushing the boundaries because let's face it, all the old jokes have been done and the only new stuff they have is the stuff that others won't touch. So they think it makes them contemporary and daring and shocking. It actually just makes them idiots (such as Ricky Gervais joking about a mong) who rightly get criticised for making jokes about such easy targets. These people are not clever, in fact they are just thick. They obviously haven't the brains to think of something that is genuinely funny so they choose shock tactics. They should really be pitied for being so obviously stupid and ignorant.

Original poster
EvilVampireFrog · 14/11/2011 10:24

tooearly yes, sort of - but I do have a reputation!

(I am a single woman in a bar full of men, usually - I play music and am almost always the only woman in the room. I have had to grow a very thick skin, and learn to out banter them in order to be taken seriously. But to then sit and watch my friends laugh at that kind of joke - it makes me feel vulnerable to be honest.)

OP posts:
tooearlymustdache · 14/11/2011 10:24

i'll pass on that mumbling but will try to cheer up when my demons return to haunt me, ok?

porcamiseria · 14/11/2011 10:26

YABU
comedians have always made jokes about stuff thats offensive, always have done.

why is rape more offensive than any other sensitive topic??

Original poster
EvilVampireFrog · 14/11/2011 10:28

porca because of the way it is portrayed.

Because it ISN'T offensive, apparently. It isn't sensitive. It's completely acceptable and mainstream. And, from the evidence I have seen, apparently hilarious.

OP posts:
NaughtyBusterAndTheBumFactory · 14/11/2011 10:30

YANBU

Mumbling YABU!

It's hard enough to get a rapist convicted without people trivialising it. The conviction rapes are shocking. The other points you made I also don't find funny either but with things like death, it may be horrible but it's something we all deal with. Think about all those victims of rape who don't come forward as they won't be believed. These jokes don't help.

StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes · 14/11/2011 10:32

YANBU, I too wonder why they have to resort to offensive jokes, its just not good or clever comedy unless its highlighting something and making fun of the offence iykwim people like Bill Bailey can do a whole show without being offensie, resorting to 'bad taste' sexism racism or toilet humour and he is fab. to me it just mirrors some of the ignorance in society.

TheRhubarb · 14/11/2011 10:32

It's the fact that they are NOT making fun of the attacker, of the rapist, but rather the victim. They imply that it was her fault for having a vagina, for being out after dark, for being attractive. If they made fun of the rapists that's fine, but they instead have to try and make out that in rape, the victim is to blame and in laughing at the victim we have convinced ourselves that rape would never ever happen to us because we're way too smart, aren't we?

WoTmania · 14/11/2011 10:34

That's a good way of putting it Rhubarb0

NaughtyBusterAndTheBumFactory · 14/11/2011 10:36

Yep agree Rhubarb

tooearlymustdache · 14/11/2011 10:37

what Rhubarb said

too many 'punchlines' are along the lines of 'don't worry, it's only sex'

Clawdy · 14/11/2011 10:43

Would any woman actually laugh at a joke about rape? Has anyone on here found such a joke funny? Has any female comedienne included one in her routine? Anyone aware of it?

crystalglasses · 14/11/2011 10:51

If these comedians had ever been raped or had a child who had been raped, and had gone throught the criminal (in)justice system they would know that rape is never a laughing matter.

TheRhubarb · 14/11/2011 10:54

Women comedians have made jokes about it actually, but I think their jokes are coming at it from the woman's point of view and are taking the piss out of misconceptions of rape and the rapists themselves. The male jokes do tend to be very different, focusing on very sexist notions that sex is what women are here for and basically we're a frigid lot who go out 'looking' for it and actually enjoy it.

Those are the sinister undertones of rape jokes that simply are not funny but which merely encourage this notion that rape is not real and doesn't actually happen.