Rape is Hilarious, Part 53 in an Ongoing Series
Posted by Guest Blogger at Thursday, August 12, 2010
by Shaker Milli A
[Trigger warning for rape used in a "humorous" capacity.]
This is why, as a feminist, I barely have a sense of humor.
Yesterday's Penny Arcade,a webcomic centered around video gaming and its culture, featured a joke a lot of World of Warcraft players make, in a sense. In WoW, you'll often get quests like "Kill 10 of these terrible people" or "Save five prisoners". Because the game has millions of players all existing in the world who will do that quest, even if you kill all the bad guys and free everyone, they'll reappear against quickly, so the next person can do their good deeds. It's a silly conundrum if you let your suspension of disbelief lapse.
Penny Arcade took it to another level. In a strip titled, "The Sixth Slave," the comic features a (white, male) slave begging for rescue from another character. "Hero!" he pleads. "Please take me with you! Release me from this hell unending! Every morning, we are roused by savage blows. Every night, we are raped to sleep by the dickwolves." The hero tells him, "I only needed to save five slaves. Alright? Quest complete." The prisoner protests, "But…" The hero interrupts him, "Hey, pal. Don't make this weird."
Rape isn't a part of the game, so for the slave to explicitly state he is being raped is a "humorous" exaggeration. When he hero tells the slave his quest is complete and instructs him not to make it "weird," we're meant to laugh: "Haha, what a strange underreaction!" (Or not.)
When I have a sense of humor, it is a little offbeat. I have liked, for example, Penny Arcade's comics about the numerous times they've killed each other. I have a dark sense of humor, and I'll admit it.
But unlike Gabe killing Tycho so he doesn't have to share a video game, a slave being raped is a real thing that happens in the world every day. I don't find this "joke" funny because, unlike characters cartoonishly killing each other repeatedly and coming back to life, just as in video games, rape isn't a central feature of (most) games—at least in the actual gameplay, totally aside from the language used by players.
The problem is, I just don't find rape funny. Because rape survivors exist among us, and after being victimized by rapists, they are revictimized by a society that treats even real rape like a joke, forced to live in a culture that actually has a lot of rape jokes, including those about rape victims being actively denied justice for no other reason than because people don't take rape seriously. I don't find rape funny because rape victims are often doubted, mocked, and insulted openly.
This is why I avoid comedy. I don't go to comedy movies, I rarely watch comedians, I avoid sitcoms like the plague. I've started to develop a Pavlovian response, cringing preemptively, to things I do find funny, because if somebody makes a dark joke, I've learned it won't be long until the rape jokes show up.
This is why I'm a humorless feminist. Because rape jokes killed my sense of humor.
But murder happens everyday. I guess it is okay because murder survivors don't walk amongst us?
Rape is Hilarious, Part 53 in an Ongoing Series
Posted by Guest Blogger at Thursday, August 12, 2010
by Shaker Milli A
[Trigger warning for rape used in a "humorous" capacity.]
This is why, as a feminist, I barely have a sense of humor.
Yesterday's Penny Arcade,a webcomic centered around video gaming and its culture, featured a joke a lot of World of Warcraft players make, in a sense. In WoW, you'll often get quests like "Kill 10 of these terrible people" or "Save five prisoners". Because the game has millions of players all existing in the world who will do that quest, even if you kill all the bad guys and free everyone, they'll reappear against quickly, so the next person can do their good deeds. It's a silly conundrum if you let your suspension of disbelief lapse.
Penny Arcade took it to another level. In a strip titled, "The Sixth Slave," the comic features a (white, male) slave begging for rescue from another character. "Hero!" he pleads. "Please take me with you! Release me from this hell unending! Every morning, we are roused by savage blows. Every night, we are raped to sleep by the dickwolves." The hero tells him, "I only needed to save five slaves. Alright? Quest complete." The prisoner protests, "But…" The hero interrupts him, "Hey, pal. Don't make this weird."
Rape isn't a part of the game, so for the slave to explicitly state he is being raped is a "humorous" exaggeration. When he hero tells the slave his quest is complete and instructs him not to make it "weird," we're meant to laugh: "Haha, what a strange underreaction!" (Or not.)
When I have a sense of humor, it is a little offbeat. I have liked, for example, Penny Arcade's comics about the numerous times they've killed each other. I have a dark sense of humor, and I'll admit it.
But unlike Gabe killing Tycho so he doesn't have to share a video game, a slave being raped is a real thing that happens in the world every day. I don't find this "joke" funny because, unlike characters cartoonishly killing each other repeatedly and coming back to life, just as in video games, rape isn't a central feature of (most) games—at least in the actual gameplay, totally aside from the language used by players.
The problem is, I just don't find rape funny. Because rape survivors exist among us, and after being victimized by rapists, they are revictimized by a society that treats even real rape like a joke, forced to live in a culture that actually has a lot of rape jokes, including those about rape victims being actively denied justice for no other reason than because people don't take rape seriously. I don't find rape funny because rape victims are often doubted, mocked, and insulted openly.
This is why I avoid comedy. I don't go to comedy movies, I rarely watch comedians, I avoid sitcoms like the plague. I've started to develop a Pavlovian response, cringing preemptively, to things I do find funny, because if somebody makes a dark joke, I've learned it won't be long until the rape jokes show up.
This is why I'm a humorless feminist. Because rape jokes killed my sense of humor.
But murder happens everyday. I guess it is okay because murder survivors don't walk amongst us?
There are many responses to this, all of them to terrible for me to post.
Rape is Hilarious, Part 53 in an Ongoing Series
Posted by Guest Blogger at Thursday, August 12, 2010
by Shaker Milli A
[Trigger warning for rape used in a "humorous" capacity.]
This is why, as a feminist, I barely have a sense of humor.
Yesterday's Penny Arcade,a webcomic centered around video gaming and its culture, featured a joke a lot of World of Warcraft players make, in a sense. In WoW, you'll often get quests like "Kill 10 of these terrible people" or "Save five prisoners". Because the game has millions of players all existing in the world who will do that quest, even if you kill all the bad guys and free everyone, they'll reappear against quickly, so the next person can do their good deeds. It's a silly conundrum if you let your suspension of disbelief lapse.
Penny Arcade took it to another level. In a strip titled, "The Sixth Slave," the comic features a (white, male) slave begging for rescue from another character. "Hero!" he pleads. "Please take me with you! Release me from this hell unending! Every morning, we are roused by savage blows. Every night, we are raped to sleep by the dickwolves." The hero tells him, "I only needed to save five slaves. Alright? Quest complete." The prisoner protests, "But…" The hero interrupts him, "Hey, pal. Don't make this weird."
Rape isn't a part of the game, so for the slave to explicitly state he is being raped is a "humorous" exaggeration. When he hero tells the slave his quest is complete and instructs him not to make it "weird," we're meant to laugh: "Haha, what a strange underreaction!" (Or not.)
When I have a sense of humor, it is a little offbeat. I have liked, for example, Penny Arcade's comics about the numerous times they've killed each other. I have a dark sense of humor, and I'll admit it.
But unlike Gabe killing Tycho so he doesn't have to share a video game, a slave being raped is a real thing that happens in the world every day. I don't find this "joke" funny because, unlike characters cartoonishly killing each other repeatedly and coming back to life, just as in video games, rape isn't a central feature of (most) games—at least in the actual gameplay, totally aside from the language used by players.
The problem is, I just don't find rape funny. Because rape survivors exist among us, and after being victimized by rapists, they are revictimized by a society that treats even real rape like a joke, forced to live in a culture that actually has a lot of rape jokes, including those about rape victims being actively denied justice for no other reason than because people don't take rape seriously. I don't find rape funny because rape victims are often doubted, mocked, and insulted openly.
This is why I avoid comedy. I don't go to comedy movies, I rarely watch comedians, I avoid sitcoms like the plague. I've started to develop a Pavlovian response, cringing preemptively, to things I do find funny, because if somebody makes a dark joke, I've learned it won't be long until the rape jokes show up.
This is why I'm a humorless feminist. Because rape jokes killed my sense of humor.
But murder happens everyday. I guess it is okay because murder survivors don't walk amongst us?
There are many responses to this, all of them to terrible for me to post.
That has never stopped me, why should it stop you?
I think that writer is taking this far too seriously, but that's just me.
yeah
It takes some logical gymnastics to see how penny arcade was endorsing the further victimization of people who have been raped.
Tallahasseeriel on
0
Options
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
While I agree that rape isn't anything to joke about, G&T have been able to pull off jokes about it in ways that don't offend me. I'm not sure how to explain the comic about sharing a hotel room.
As for the recent comic, "raped to sleep by the dickwolves" loses any amount of "RAPE JOKES AREN'T FUNNY" reaction for me because the rape isn't the joke part of that whole bit - it's dickwolves. Dickwolves are the punch on that. What exactly is a dickwolf? What does it look like? The possibilities are endless. We know it's bad though because it has slaves and rapes them.
But now today's strip kinda makes things awkward for me. I'm not sure how to react to it. I just like Gabe's faces across all three panels.
i find it adorable that that blogger specifically mentions the fact that the 6th slave is white and male. Someone's been doing too many content analyses for their feminist studies hurr hurr
i find it adorable that that blogger specifically mentions the fact that the 6th slave is white and male. Someone's been doing too many content analyses for their feminist studies hurr hurr
So the blogger isn't really a feminist as s/he proclaims and more of a... one of those people who takes offense on other people's behalf types. What're they called? There's a term for them right?
While I agree with people pointing out rape culture as a bad thing, I can't help but feel bad for the creators of PA. Wednesday's comic was the only time I've found reference to rape humorous, because as an MMO gamer, I've done a lot of quests and felt exactly like that before.
Dickwolves are clearly fictional, and I don't believe Mike and Jerry meant any harm by it. However, a lot of the posts I've read here are... unsettling. Can we keep it civil?
I didn't even take rape as the base of that joke. The joke was something Unspeakably Bad is happening to these slaves, and the hero is just going on his way.
it isn't 'haha RAPE!' it's 'haha, man that hero is a dick, a real hero would save all the slaves! oh you mmo quests.'
the dickwolves thing was only funny because it went so outrageously out of its way to be over-the-top awful that i couldnt take it seriously
if the slave just said that they were raped every day i wouldnt have liked it at all
100% agreeance!
I've never liked it when playing online and some dude was saying 'oh man we raped them'. It's really just turned
me off to a lot of multiplayer games. Obviously I can't control what other people say, so I just go do something else.
Posts
Look at your OP, then back to me, back to your OP, now back to me.
Thankfully, he is not me.
I found the problem
Rape boner.
scratchin my nuts
smellin my hand
beeeelch
But murder happens everyday. I guess it is okay because murder survivors don't walk amongst us?
There are many responses to this, all of them to terrible for me to post.
Bel is a woman.
wymon?
Feminists are unusual beings.
naw, that ain't me
That has never stopped me, why should it stop you?
That makes more sense.
Wymon sounds like a digital monster.
Feminists need to be put in their place
I was actually expecting a glass ceiling joke, imply some kind of violence with it.
ejecting thread.
Dickwolves extinct.
'raped to sleep by dickwolves' cracked me up and i usually really dislike rape jokes
and gabe's panel 1 face is the greatest face
ok
yeah
It takes some logical gymnastics to see how penny arcade was endorsing the further victimization of people who have been raped.
As for the recent comic, "raped to sleep by the dickwolves" loses any amount of "RAPE JOKES AREN'T FUNNY" reaction for me because the rape isn't the joke part of that whole bit - it's dickwolves. Dickwolves are the punch on that. What exactly is a dickwolf? What does it look like? The possibilities are endless. We know it's bad though because it has slaves and rapes them.
But now today's strip kinda makes things awkward for me. I'm not sure how to react to it. I just like Gabe's faces across all three panels.
and I put that phrase very mildly
who was doing this?
i'd just like the status quo re-established without being painted as an oppressive rapist.
So the blogger isn't really a feminist as s/he proclaims and more of a... one of those people who takes offense on other people's behalf types. What're they called? There's a term for them right?
Dickwolves are clearly fictional, and I don't believe Mike and Jerry meant any harm by it. However, a lot of the posts I've read here are... unsettling. Can we keep it civil?
if the slave just said that they were raped every day i wouldnt have liked it at all
it isn't 'haha RAPE!' it's 'haha, man that hero is a dick, a real hero would save all the slaves! oh you mmo quests.'
reap what you sow
100% agreeance!
I've never liked it when playing online and some dude was saying 'oh man we raped them'. It's really just turned
me off to a lot of multiplayer games. Obviously I can't control what other people say, so I just go do something else.