Rape Culture, the rape joke & Commodification

[seabeyond]

Hmmmmm. You can't make a blog on rape humorous can you? oh then again.. maybe Jimmy Carr could?
"What do 9 out of 10 people enjoy? Gang rape." He also has "What's the difference between football and rape? Women don't like football." Yeah, I know, hilarious, I can't stop laughing...No, but I must, to write the rest of this blog... in the Guardian in 2009 Carr said..."I do a lot of jokes about rape...but not a discourse on rape. i do jokes to get laughs. i happen to think the construct of '99% of women kiss with their eyes closed, which is why it's so difficult to identify a rapist" is funny. It's not really about the act of serious sexual assault. You have to go out of your way to take offence over, "I bought a rape alarm because I kept on forgetting when to rape people." If a friend of yours was raped and your reaction to that news was jovial, you're mental. But the context is, you're on stage, it's about making people laugh, and it's about the world we live in..." 99% of women kiss...um...rape...isn't it offensive to mix up rape with an act of consensual sex or love? The "99% of kiss with their eyes closed" joke, whilst Carr I'm sure is not suggesting women enjoy being raped could reinforce that notion by suggesting women kiss their assailant, not only in very poor taste but reinforcing a notion that rape is predominantly about sex rather than about power and control.



Now this is the conundrum; is anything sacrosanct in comedy. Well, I'm a liberal guy but I would say yes, yes there are limits. The limit for me is about hatred and blame. It's fine making jokes about a subject if it doesn't reinforce preconceived notions that are both socially unpleasant and false, and it's fine to question beliefs.
Carr unfortunately fails because his jokes are self reflexively provocative for the point of it and just aren't funny. He's a throwback to the seventies style comedian who just stands there and tells jokes (think Bruce Forsyth or The Two Ronnies but with the odd 'fuck' or 'cunt' added but the same inherent sexism and homophobia). Bill Hicks did a lot of risque turns but his were part of a discourse and critique of often nonsensical beliefs, for instance his long rambling anti drug law tirades that, whilst I don't necessarily agree, are both very funny, ironic and have a point.
Carr's humour is part of a lad and pornified culture in which everything can be permissible if it's funny. If it's funny. Which perhaps it tends to be to if you're a 12 year old boy who doesn't fully understand the ramifications of the joke. Carr's humour (his humour not him himself) fits in snuggly with pop culture that debases women...

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In the US and Canada there are rape shield laws which shield questions about the accuser's previous sexual history or dress at the time of the offence. However, if you have money you pay people to 'out' the accuser as in the case of Dominique Strauss Kahn allegedly raping a hotel worker in New York. His lawyer's busily employed private investigators who gathered evidence about her linking her to a drug dealer, her sexual history and many suggestions of her lying. full coverage here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_v._Strauss-Kahn. Dominique Strauss Kahn arrested for raping a hotel worker...
but she probably faked it all to make some money out of it....yeah, that's right, she either a) came up with the plan in advance and made sure that she was there to clean Strauss Kahn's room at the very exact time he was just checking out so he was on his own and then made advances to him not knowing if he was the kind of man who thinks 'hey, i'm married and have a top political job but woah, this woman wants to have sex with me randomly, why not?' or b) she thought yeah, sure I'll have sex with you random stranger who I've just met whilst cleaning your room and then later thought hey, I can make some $$$ out of this...or maybe, just maybe she is a poor immigrant worker who thought no one will believe me whatever I say, and guess what?



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If you want lots of facts and figures that mean absolutely nothing because between 75-95% rapes are never reported and ooh notice how the more repressive the regime the less reported rapes there are, must be feminist paradises in Azerbaijan, Syria and Armenia, where there was 8 reported raped in 2008 you can check here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics It makes for really depressing reading, of course. Think of Sweden and well I think of liberalism, Ingmar Bergman films and just all round niceness...like this fella... Stieg Larsson, author of Men Who Hate Women, a polemic about a culture in which rape is seemingly an accepted part of male domination dressed up as a thriller and given a jazzy new name for consumption outside Sweden. You also get terribly unpalatable reading from an ethnographic point of view as in Sweden there is the highest level of reported rape in Europe, quite possibly because of broader understanding of rape and a more serious line taken by the authorities, though levels have risen co-existently with the rates of immigration and there are suggestions that asylum seekers and immigrants are more likely to be charged with rape than white Swedish citizens. This throws up a mass of political and cultural complications. Not least because of the strength of the far right in using such data as racist propaganda. There are suggestions this may be far more about culture than race, specifically Islamic culture. And there we get into a whole other debate for another day...










Is this taking back language and space controlled by men or simply conforming to a male 'pornified' discourse?



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4EDh1KymXWw/T5gWEp8PftI/AAAAAAAAB9c/RthTMlrAHRM/s1600/fluke+sandra+and+stupid+rush.jpg


Jon Favreau, Obama script writer, with friend like nothing better than simulating getting hillary Clinton drunk and groping her

dont play the video at work. it is a must see. wraps it up perfectly.



http://uncomprimisingliberal.blogspot.com/2012/04/rape-culture-rape-joke-commodification.html

[seabeyond]

1. no one had anything to say about the video?

i thought at least the video would get a comment. this was a man who wrote this article. there is so much in the site. it is a good read all the way thru

[Texasgal]

2. The article was very good...

the video? *blink* *blink*

Whoa. LOL!

[seabeyond]

3. i know. huh. lol.

someone sent that to me. i thought it wrapped the whole thing up really well.

oh.... and she was so sweet after the video and just talking.

[Texasgal]

4. Guess I need to go back and watch the whole thing

I got through about half. I realized the point however!

[seabeyond]

5. you really have to watch the end of the video. that is the whole point of what she put together

not teh ending ending of the tape. it is just here thanking everyone. but there is a point to the video.... at the end

[seabeyond]

6. and now that we can see the number of posts... i am kickin you ass

ah ha

i am so damn competitive

[Texasgal]

7. HA!

Whateve sister!

[Vanje]

11. I LOVED that video!

GENIUS!

[seabeyond]

12. i thought so. i started getting worried i was really off.... lol nt

[Vanje]

13. I heeded the warning

and waited to watch it until AFTER I got home from work.

[seabeyond]

14. i didnt even think about that and was on the other side of the house....

it hit me.... oh sheeeit. running thru the house. better add the warning.

[MadrasT]

8. Hey sea...

I didn't get to watch the video but the rest of it depressed me so much I didn't have anything to say.

Everytime I see this stuff I am outraged. That stupid slutwalk picture pisses me off every time I see it.

The worst part of it is that women are actively feeding -- and making excuses for -- this horrible culture of misogyny everywhere I look and it irritates the shit out of me.

[seabeyond]

9. hey madrast

the upside.... and damn if i cant almost always find the upside. searching google i am seeing so much of this shit, with the conclusions as this. AND this is a man that put this stuff together. AND reading thru the huge ass blog of his, everything, he called right, all on his own with HIS brain, lol lol.

the more we see. the more people that challenge, the more this shit will start being challenged elsewhere.

BUT... you gotta watch the video. to the end. and then she is the sweetest thing after the video. but the end is all that.

[MadrasT]

18. OK

Don't usually have the patience to watch videos because honestly most of the videos people link to are a waste of time but I will trust your recommendation my friend. I will try and watch the video over the weekend and report back.

[seabeyond]

19. lmao....

you are so cute. truly

not that big of a deal. dont bother. funny you. and i hear ya.

have a good day

[seabeyond]

10. ok....

i was listening to it again, and thinking, ya, maybe some wont like it. but i bust up in it. and then my 17 yr old came in. and i am saying, go, you cant listen to this. and he starts watching. oh hell. 17. he is busting up. he thought it cool and totally appropriate for what is happening today in the music rap world.

[laconicsax]

15. On the "comedy" aspect.

While I don't think Jimmy Carr's (or anyone else's) rape jokes are funny, I understand the point he's trying to make.

He's basically a one-liner comedian, which means that his style is all about unexpected endings with the humor being in the surprise at the unexpected. He doesn't make the rape jokes because he thinks the subject matter is funny, but because he knows he can get a laugh from the surprise/shock of the unexpected. He's basically banking on the inappropriateness of the joke.

I just think there's distinction to be made between someone who makes rape jokes because they think the subject matter is legitimately funny and someone who does it because they're desperate to get a reaction out of the audience. Neither group really understands why it's inappropriate, but at least the latter might have an idea.

[MadrasT]

20. That reminds me of Louis CK

He says horribly inappropriate stuff just because he gets off on the audience reaction. To him, it is the reaction that is funny and not the joke material itself.

[laconicsax]

21. I seem to remember that Louis CK is one of Carr's favorites.

[MadrasT]

23. When I heard an interview with Louis CK

where he talked about that being the reason he said horribly inappropriate things, it seemed so manipulative and somehow wrong to me.

Basically he is fucking with the audience to amuse himself.

But it amuses other people too, obviously. I mean, I think he is funny as heck. But sometimes he does cross the line (for me).

[Violet_Crumble]

16. Has anyone here seen Jimmy Carr? I like him...

I was addicted to 10 o'clock live where he appeared alongside David Mitchell, who also got into trouble in the media for telling off jokes.

[laconicsax]

22. He has his moments.

David Mitchell, on the other hand, is absolutely brilliant.

[MerryBlooms]

17. k&r Very good OP and the video really hit the mark