OMG! Shocking cartoon in today's Metro - serial rapists are fanicable apparantly

[Katiekitty]

Oh my god, I am unable to make any sense of this - in today's Metro, page 31, the This Life cartoon shows this:

Two women in a bar, one drinking wine, one says to the other: "I met him on the internet - he's not interested in football, games consoles, old cars or the history channel - who cares if he's a serial rapist?'

This is absolutely disgusting! Or am I missing the point here or something? It's on a page with horoscopes, puzzles and sudoku - a bit of lighthearted stuff, then a joke about serial rapists. Not funny. Or AIBU?

I've logged a complaint with the newspaper editor, I wonder if they'll have the gumption to explain how this slipped through and got into the newspaper?

Please feel free to tell me I'm experiencing a sense of humour bypass and showing unreasonableness, but I think I'm right here...

Indeed muffle, it's that brick wall moment!

" will admit i dont like Sarah Silverman, i dont 'get' her.. she irritates me.

My humour leans more towards Peter Kaye, Bill Bailey, Lee Evans, Billy Connolly, Michael Macintyre...etc "

oh god bill bailey is the only one of those i can stand and even then not is stand up.
this in reality could be a microcosm of this thread. comedy is subjective and it's different strokes for different folks.
while one person might find chris rock or dave chappelle empowering cutting edge comedy, another will find it to be vile racist gags which simply happen to come from the mouth of a black man instead of a white man.
i don't agree with many peoples interpretations of the comic as normalising and justifying serial rape, but that's their interpretation and they're entitled to it.7i would question how wise it is to put such a joke in a free paper that could be picked up by anyone. i think if such a joke was made somewhere like a brass eye type show then it would be a bit off to complain as you know what you're getting with it, but in a daily paper handed out to absolutely everyone it may be out of place.

Pregnant Hedge Witch - will try harder to get you going! Good luck with it all if it happens.

Similarly - if it was part of an ongoing series, where there would be a specific context. Instead, it's a stand alone, tomorrow's cartoon won't follow on from this will it?

It would have been perfect for the 'yobs/yobettes' cartoon series where all sorts of crimes and misdemeanours crop up among people in bars.

Posted too quick - yobs and yobettes is in Private Eye - crickey Hedge, I'm agreeing with you! The brick wall comes tumbling down!

has this cartoon not been done in yob yobttes, im sure i have seen it somewhere else

mwita - your explanation makes sense to me, about tapping into worst fears. Maybe then it should read "serial murderer." Maybe then it would be more clearly satirical. I mean, obviously it is satire, but I've just looked at it again and it still isn't very funny.

Now that i think of it - in the current climate, maybe it should read - "who cares if he's an investment banker?"

that would have at least been funny

Update!

I got a reply to my complaint from Rick Brookes the cartoonist himself -
he says: (all typos are his own!)

Dear Katiekitty

Your absolutely right and I apologise.
I put "serial rapist in as a rough caption intil I thought of something better [ ie mass murderer ]
but I forgot to change it.
I'm really sorry to have caused you so much offence
It was stupid of me!
Rick Brookes

So there you go!

katiekitty that is brilliant. what a great result. i feel far better about rick thingy now, although today's cartoon isn't exactly a side-splitter.

Hey katiekitty I wrote as well and got the exact same reply. I suggested that in these days 'investment banker' would have been more appropriate.

Fantastic news! what a great response and reassuring to see he agrees with your point. wow.

Oh that's good to hear, well done for complaining. I am shocked at all the 'where's the harm' comments on this thread.

Good going KatieKitty and well done for following this up. I agree with you that the punch line was out of order. In the way of not offending peoples relgious beliefs why should it be thought ok to offend women in general? Some people might think it funny but it's terrible and sad.

Is it his joke to make?
That's what I don't understand.

People have said jokes are a coping mechanism for unpleasant things ( I understand the analogy of doctors and cancer, Doctors would have to create humour to deal with the death they face all the time. It personally affects them on a daily basis)

But in this case, did a woman make this joke? DId a woman who was raped create this joke? Would any woman here create that joke and expect all the other MNers to laugh at it.
No.
Because it just ain't that funny.

So how can it be a coping mechanism?

Oh, I just saw he offered an apology.
Well done katie

I'm not sure who I agree with. I'll put up my thoughts so you can tell me whether you think I've gone wrong in my thinking:

First of all, some people in the thread seem to me to have somehow read the scenario as "the woman is so desperate for a man that she'll settle for anything" - which is not the case. Apparently she's got plenty of offers but all the available men are into computer games and football. So I don't see that her victim status is properly made out.

So that being the case, Dittany's analgous joke doesn't quite fit, because while it makes sense to substitute serial rape for genocide as the bad thing, the Jewish version of the joke goes on to reinforce a stereotype: Jews are so money grubbing that they can overlook anything as long as they get money. As far as I know there's no equivalent stereotype involving women's distaste for football and video games.

what an old thread !

Waaaay haaaay!

Mass murderers are ok to date, thank god for that!

Katiekitty, you should be very proud of yourself, not just for standing up for what you believe, but for taking action. You held your nerve very well on here in the face of some heavy critisism.

I don't find that's funny and would find it offensive. But then I don't find any of the cartoons in the metro funny just a bit odd.

Why did Sakura post on a thread that's months old?

Where did she find it?

OMG, I just read this whole thread and then realised how old it is. Why was it dragged up again? Hope TPHW has had her baby by now