14kgoldnyc:

athenasaurus:

What, did everybody sign some sort of fucking Comedian’s Oath one drunk ass night in the Comedy Cellar or something where no matter what hideous fucking content it was you are compelled to defend your Brothers against evil audience members* or some shit? I don’t give two shits about your Comedy if this is what you have to say on fucking Shit.0. Don’t offer your opinion if all you’ve got to say is yet another defense of something awful in the name of “edginess”.**

*(not to mention that it’s not like these people are vulnerable fucking comics or just starting out and therefore heckling is just The Worst, The Ultimate Catastrophe to your delicate comedian’s ego. You have a prime time show on Comedy Central, or FX, or whatever. Be a class act, for once in your fucking life) (but what am I even saying that’s asking for way too much from square one)

**(never mind, again, that rape jokes are the least edgy thing in the world because rape? Is already treated as a joke. Often by straight cis white dudes! All the time! Isn’t it funny how your comedy just reinforces the status quo at the expense of others? You can hear me laughing all the way from nowhere!)

Reinforcing the status quo =/= edgy.

Reinforcing the status quo =/= edgy.

Reinforcing the status quo =/= edgy.

I didn’t comment on the Tosh thing yesterday, because it got good coverage on Tumblr, and like, what would I add to it? What he did was reprehensible. Rape jokes are unfunny and shitty. But now that every fucking white man with a Comedy Central special feels the need to back him up, I want to say a few things.

• It is entirely possible to be funny without hurting people.
• If you can’t be funny without hurting people, maybe you aren’t very funny.
• If your material’s only appeal is shock value, you are lazy and probably not very funny.

Like, I get it. Rape jokes appeal to the sort of frat bro douchebag who watches Tosh and Dane Cook and Patton Oswalt and every other cis straight white man who makes a living telling shitty jokes. But that doesn’t mean those comedians (“comedians”) have to stoop to that level. I know lots of people who are funny, like, side-splitting, face-hurting, out-of-breath-not-making-noise funny, who do it without making jokes at someone else’s expense. I run (what I consider to be) a pretty funny blog, and I manage to do it without making people relive traumatic experiences. It is possible!

All the comedians standing up for Tosh make me really sad. It’s bad enough that stand-up is almost entirely the domain of straight cis white men as it is. And now they’re banding together to let us all know that rape victims are less important than their “craft.” And that’s a big bag of bullshit.