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Getting offended: the new national pastime
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In shock humour the more outrageous and vile something is, the greater the humour. If you are disposed towards that kind of comedy that is. Thus, if rape is used in shock humour, it is a testament to our abhorrence of it. Not that it would be much comfort to rape victims.
Of course, not all humour is shock humour but make what you will of my considerations.
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True, but some people will say "this subject matter is too serious / sensitive / tragic to be made into shock humor!"
Teabagging your mother's corpse at the funeral would be "shocking" and it may be an attempt at humor, but I don't think it would be proper.
Regardless, its okay to use rape in a joke but you should be careful about it and its ok to take offense at a joke but you shouldn't freak out about it and its even ok to make a joke that you think will be funny but ends up just being offensive and then apologizing for it.
And if you're ever going to apologize for offending someone, don't say "I'm sorry you chose to get offended" or something similar, because that's not an apology that's just you being a passive-aggressive douche.
Hey, I'll help you with that. (With a pre-emptive "simmer down" gesture to TheCat lest they try to interpret my responding to you as being about them. Well, what follows is sort of "about them" but, let me assure all and sundry, is certainly not an attempt to "bait" them.)
I did indeed imply at one point that chiming in to a thread to declare the thread irrelevant involves a certain performative self-contradiction. Had this been the first time the poster in question had made that declaration, I would probably not have made the associated implication. However, that declaration was coming at the tail end of a series of somewhere around a dozen posts to that same thread, some of them wrapped up in some of the most retarded tangents of the tangentialism in question. This led the continuing attempts to post about the retardedness of the conversation to strike me as amusing.
Meta-explaining one's posts with faux-propriety is pretty fun, by the way. But don't try this at home, kids.
I find it highly offensive that the topic of this thread is "Getting Offended: The New National Pastime." Fucker, please. "Choosing to be offended" by homosexuals or gawths or what have you is dumb. "Choosing to be offended" because someone wasn't the epitome of polite to you, or because they don't match some arbitrary standards you have, is dumb. "Choosing to be offended" by the prevalence of rape jokes in our culture, and the offhand dismissals that criticism of them receives? IT'S PRETTY FUCKING LEGIT TO GET OFFENDED. Especially since this happens a lot. Sometimes, women get tired of being told to keep our thoughts to ourselves, or being trolled with rape jokes/jokes about how unhot and unattractive we are and therefore how our opinions don't matter. SOMETIMES we get tired of all the blatant sexist shit that goes on day after day and the fact that no one really gives a shit, because in the end, the straight white dude's opinion is the only one that matters. In other words, sometimes we lose our shit because we are tired of bullshit. So fuck you, OP, for saying victims of rape "CHOOSE TO BE OFFENDED" by rape. Oh and I'm sorry that sometimes people are mean to you and call you out on your privilege whether it be on matters re: sexism or re: racism, and you feel like the big meanie PC police are all up in your shit.
I've never been a letter-writer, and I don't consider myself a fan of censorship. With that in mind, this is the email I was moved to write when I read the response comic that came out today. It is a fairly angry, ranting letter, but I like to think it's worth sharing? And if not...well, it's not like I'm an established poster here, so there's no real fallout for me to face.
in summation: FEMINIST THEORY 101, my learnings let me show you them.
You are welcome. I feared that most people lived under this false belief. See most people tend to react by stating that you can't call someone an idiot for being "offended" you have to respect their feelings. I am glad that you know see the light and realize that if someone is offended by something that most find inoffensive then they are idoits or giant babies.
Its not rape-rape, apparently. There's rape and then there's rape.
There is a distinction between violent rape and other forms, just as coercion is seen as worse than other cons like bringing a contract to a saloon or trying to enforce the signature of a minor.
Dude its cool, I'm living in a whole new world now that I don't have to respect someone else's feelings and now that you've shown me the light that my opinions are valid and anyone who disagrees is a gigantic crybaby.
I'm also learning to strawman from you, but I'm still practicing so feel free to give me some pointers. Regardless, thanks bro!
But if we censor what we talk about to exclude things that are controversial or horrible then we limit our ability to talk about things that are actually important.
Satiric comedy is a valid medium of communication and isn't excluded in the above. I'm not about to make a value judgment about whether or not specific topics should be discussed. All topics should be discussed. If the audience doesn't want to participate, they have the freedom to decide not to.
It was sort of the starting point of the whole debate, on a thread prior to this one, and has been chewed over pretty extensively.
I imagine this was written without irony. Please let that be the case. I would sig it if I didn't like my current one so much.
A question, though: do you think rape should ever be included in humor?
Also also would like to add that the whole Roman Polanski thing is fucked up. I work at a movie theater, and every time I sold tickets to Ghost Writer I just wanted to say, "So you enjoy supporting child rapists?" or something similar because, really? It's so fucked up that most of Hollywood supports him, and even at least one of my bosses believes "there's more to the story" than Roman Polanski being a rich, famous white dude who was able to (surprise) avoid consequences for his crime. Like THAT'S never happened before.
"Too serious" makes it even more audacious and thus more funny. Not "being proper" is the essense of the humour. Of course it's not funny when it reminds you of something that you were the victim of.
Its a difficult matter to breach successfully. When your central point of contention is "You need to reconsider the way you view reality because this rape thing is a fucking problem that you do not even barely understand" its kind of hard to be polite. Sort of like trying to find a polite way of accusing someone of racism: It probably exists, but it isn't easy.
I do want to reiterate that the concern police are obnoxious bullshit. "Man, how DARE you CHOOSE to be offended?" What the fuck. Who the fuck says that? Do I get to punch you if you say it? Should I then apologize for your head CHOOSING to be in the location my fist happened to enter?
You do it by pointing out the problem and rationally discussing how it should be handled. Its how debates work.
Holocaust jokes can potentially be funny now because it's over, and those jokes help to solidify how we never want to have it happen again. Rape is an ongoing problem, it still happens. That makes it different in some fundamental ways.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
"Opinions are like assholes, everyones got one and everyone thinks the other persons stinks."
Yeah, more or less, but its a difficult matter to breach without making someone's defensive mechanisms kick in. When you're talking about issues of race or gender, you're often getting into subject matter that is pretty sensitive for anyone discussing the topic. Like I said, its hard to basically assert "rape is a huge problem and you need to forget everything you know about it because seriously what the fuck look at this." You're basically trying to very politely break down an entire socially constructed belief system in regards to sex, gender, or race, and all the baggage that goes along with it.
Still probably best to speak carefully instead of carelessly, although sometimes I think a harsher tone is necessitated when you need to counter arguments offered in bad faith.
Sorry for the long run on sentence guys.
I'm skeptical of the time-based theory of offensiveness. Is 9/11 okay to joke about yet?
The measure should always be context. Don't make a word radioactive, just be aware of its use in each particular instance and go from there. Nuance.
Yes but considering the subject has already been breached in this thread, had the poster actually read the thread, he/she could have built upon the subject and even brought in his/her own view points without "blowing up".
I'm skeptical of it too, although there's a logical connection between time and threat posed. If another Holocaust appeared to be a serious concern, jokes about it might be taken in a very different light. Its harder to currently be accused of not taking the Holocaust seriously, although maybe jokes from Holocaust-deniers about "lol Jews!" are a different matter.
I also suspect that PA's tolerance for Holocaust humor and the general public's tolerance for Holocaust humor will not match up neatly at all.
Barely related story: A (presumably) badass old Holocaust survivor on Capitol Hill went fucking apeshit on some David LaRouche supporters, who are crazy assholes who wander around Seattle with "OBAMA = HITLER!!!" posters. I wish I would've been there with a video camera, at least until the police showed up.
But, if you are so disposed, what happened last week is much funnier than 60 years ago because it is is more outrageous, audacious and offensive. That is the essence of shock humour. I'm not saying what is ok or right but that the essence of shock humour lies in what is not right. What is not ok. Most people have a line where it stops being funny but where that lies varies greatly. It's personal taste as to where that line is.
My point was merely that rape jokes don't necessarily indicate a casual attitude to the crime. I'll leave it at that.
Looking back at that fender bender you got in yesterday can be humorous and cathartic. The car accident you're currently in or may soon be in isn't nearly as funny.
Humor is how our brains reconcile strong emotions and rational thought. That's why it can be a catharsis. But you can't have catharsis for something that is an ongoing problem because it hasn't been solved yet. That comes after.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
Roman Polansky: Was actually convicted of sexual assult of a child and fled to a non-extradition country, thus avoiding justice, but he was convicted.
The American Criminal Justice system is flawed but it is what we have.
It is hard to convict on circumstantial evidence, believe me, rape is very hard to convict, if its some random stranger on the street, severe physical trauma and there is DNA then it probably won't go to trial the guy will plead out.
If it is a situation where they were on a date, boyfriend/girlfriend, spouses, etc it becomes very very hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt because it all comes down to whose story you believe.
Its fucking life, C'est la Vie, we do want we can with what we have.
The way i look at it, I have vial rapist in one hand and capital punishment in the other hmmm maybe I should put them together?
I admit I got pissed off (I didn't see the new comic until maybe twenty minutes ago, since I just got off work) and reacted without really taking the time to think about what I was doing. I made assumptions about what I would find in this thread, and for that I'm sorry. The only excuse I can give is that all too often on the internet, you run into anonymous assholes who generally spout hateful shit, which is bad enough--but even worse is when you run into someone who is not trolling and who genuinely, actually believes some fucked-up shit, whether it's racist or sexist or ableist or whatever, and sometimes...yeah. Emotions override common sense.
Anyway. I'm glad that at least this once I was surprised at the kind of discussions going on on a forum.
Sorry for the redundancy of my OP.
If you maybe wanted to put yourself into context, I'd say you'd tell yourself no.
You're doing this wrong, you're supposed to be sorry that we chose to be offended.
We aren't completely anonymous on this forum, some are some aren't. I'm actually glad people are able to believe in and talk about racist and sexist things though, its the only way I know people can believe and talk about things like a woman's right to choose.
Firstly, of the many posters in this thread, The Cat is not one of the posters who went off on a tangent, as all her posts were on the theory of offense, which is the point of the thread given in the OP.
Secondly, she didn't say the discussion is irrelevant, she said it was stupid and shouldn't have been started. For the former, there would only be a contradiction if posting in the discussion went against the reason given for why people shouldn't be having the discussion, such as saying that the discussion wasn't worth the time or effort. Fortunately, she said we shouldn't be having this discussion because the answer is obvious, which has no contradictions, being a variant on "I shouldn't have to tell you this."
being hard to convict and making rape a recidivist statue that allows capital punishment for repeat offenders are not mutally exclusive concepts.
Okay, this has me confused. If someone is a rape victim, then the event is technically over (the 'car accident'). At that point, they are in the same realm as the holocaust survivor--someone with immense trauma in their past. Yet you make a distinction between the two victims. Are you talking about minding the sensibilities of only future rape victims and those currently being raped?
No wait, I mean that other one. Tedious
Dammit you guys, please stop making this thread dumb.
GT: batshido Hit me up on ME3.
I dunno Blind, do you want to make an argument that a crime you admit is difficult to prove in the affirmative or the negative is a good candidate for capital punishment?
If a comic offends you, do not read it.
If a thread bores you, do not __________ it.
This question is worth 5 points.