Entertainment Weekly is reporting upon the apology by comedian and Tosh.0 creator/host Daniel Tosh for a series of rape jokes at Hollywood’s The Laugh Factory.
An anonymous source gave an account of how Tosh’s act became interactive. As EW.com points out, this account wouldn’t be considered reliable without confirmation, but being as Tosh responded to it with some level of confirmation, it’s worth repeating her account with the caveat that this is merely one version of the story:
She claims, “Tosh [started] making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious.”
The audience member felt “provoked” and says she yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
Continues the account: “After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…’ and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing I needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there … I should probably add that having to basically flee while Tosh was enthusing about how hilarious it would be if I was gang-raped in that small, claustrophobic room was pretty viscerally terrifying…”
Tosh responded via Twitter:
all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize j.mp/PJ8bNs
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012
the point i was making before i was heckled is there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them. #deadbabies
— daniel tosh (@danieltosh) July 10, 2012
Jennifer Pozner, whom I usually have great respect for, replied with this:
Misquote? BS. #Fauxpology BSx2. RT @danieltosh all the out of context misquotes aside, i’d like to sincerely apologize j.mp/PJ8bNs
— Jennifer L. Pozner (@jennpozner) July 10, 2012
While I agree that the joke—if it happened the way the audience member attests it did—was out of line and insensitive, I don’t see how Pozner can call “BS” on something she didn’t witness. How do we know the audience member didn’t misquote him or take something out of context?
Louis CK does a fantastic set about rape (below) that is incredibly funny, and which I believe furthers the conversation about enthusiastic consent more effectively most earnest feminist articles do. But not everyone agrees…
What do you think of what’s being alleged about Daniel Tosh’s rape jokes?
Are rape jokes EVER funny? Is there any way in which Tosh could’ve told these jokes that wasn’t insensitive and even threatening?
Lead photo courtesy of Daniel Tosh’s Twitter
About Joanna Schroeder
Any joke about a fictional person can be funny, when it’s about a real person then it starts to get real fucked up. Depends on your sense of humor though, some people try to laugh at everything no matter how fucked up it is, I’ve done it myself although the humor is more in just how low can you go.
Being heckled sucks, but saying how funny it would be (if he did say it) for her to be raped I’d say is crossing the line, and there’s a decent chance she’s a rape victim. I’d say there was easily 1 or more rape victims in the crowd viewing so it gets very dicey to use. Although people also joke about domestic violence, any kind of violence, etc and there would be victims in the audience. I’ve laughed at jokes about abuse I’ve been though but that’s only with trusted friends who I know are just fucking around. I’d be annoyed if a stranger, even a comedian made a joke specifically about me though a joke aimed at no one doesn’t bother me.
Humor is a weird thing, do any of us really have a right to say what is funny and what isn’t funny for ALL people? I’ve laughed at some of the most violent, goretastic violence in games n movies (eg a car losing control n slamming the hell out of someone in GTA) because I know it’s not a real situation. I’ve seen people hit by cars on the news, utube etc, real situations and didn’t find it funny. I laughed at the cat shot scene in Boondock Saints, but if it were real I would want to shoot them for it.
Many people laugh at Eddie Murphy’s joke about the mum with the boomerang homing shoe, the reality of that situation is it’s child abuse but people still laughed. A friend made a joke about me getting cancer, I laughed, I’d rather laugh about it the be scared shitless of it and that friend still gives a damn n cares a lot. Humans are strange creatures and I don’t think humor will ever remain politically correct.
I don’t have much respect for Tosh after seeing one particular segment on an episode of his show where he humiliates a young girl. There was an 18 year old high school girl and Tosh was “helping” her doing a remake of a video she did for her senior prom. At one point the girl is in a building stairwell and Ron Jeremy comes out naked and running and in the process he knocks her over. The camera shows her look of bewilderment as Ron Jeremy runs away. I think it was borderline sexual assault and the fact that it was shown on national television makes it all the more extreme and unforgivable. I sometime wander where our culture is headed when shows like his are so popular.
No idea about the guy in question, but I think it’s possible to joke about anything in the right context and in the right manner.
It probably doesn’t help that the main two people I’ve seen claim that rape jokes are never funny are perfectly happy to joke about racism and anti-semetism. Ultimately everythings offensive to someone and if rape jokes aren’t funny then neither is virtually every joke except “Why did the duck cross the road?”
To rape the chicken.
Daniel Tosh is the dregs of humanity. The sad thing is that he thinks that there IS a context in which his comments are funny. Louie’s routine is totally different because he is exposing a facet of rape culture and criticizing it. In contrast, Tosh honestly thinks that rape and kitchen jokes are funny, embodying the out-of-touch, young white male suburban attitude that says “well I’M not misogynist,so I can say these things because I don’t really think they’re true, and women aren’t that poorly off these days anyway, so if you can’t handle my lack of political correctness it’s just because you’re too uptight.” The whole concept that “some things are terrible but you can still make jokes about them” cuts off the chance for understanding, empathy, and change, and is bad for society.
Tosh has a LOT more to apologize for than just this one “joke”. This guy needs to be run off the airwaves.
You really think that if someone makes a joke about something that hurt someone somewhere they’re cut off from understanding, empathy and change?
I can think of one response that might have been funny. When the woman said “rape jokes are never funny,” Tosh could have said “okay, what about Canola jokes?”
…never mind, it’s a Canadian thing.
okay, let me explain this joke:
Canola, the plant that is used to make Canola oil, is a variant of rapeseed (apparently “rapa” means “turnip” in Latin). Saskatchewan used to have signs that said “The Land Of Rape And Honey,” which naturally upset a lot of people.
It’s not a great joke, and it might still cross the line, but at least it’s a joke, unlike Tosh’s comment, which was pure ugliness.
I actually got it.
Like I said, it’s not a great joke, but it’s a real joke as opposed to a snide comment like what Tosh did.
Ah, it’s just called “rape” or “rapeseed” here. Surprisingly few peopler have heard of it. I bought some “rape oil” over in germany once and my friends were astounded that such a thing existed.
What makes Louis CK’s rape joke, as you call it, ok (or less offensive) is that the woman says she likes force and it’s clear that he’s not really into this. He shares a story that’s not degrading and admits to his confusion over how to handle a situation that could have gone wrong.
I don’t think ANY rape joke is funny. Rape is a violent act with long lasting traumatic effects for the victim–female or male. When we take something like that, racism and antisemitism as well, and joke about it we are normalizing it. We act as if it’s ok to do those things, giving tacit permission in a way.
The woman in question did the right thing by walking out of the Tosh Show. People need to point out the harm in such ‘funny’ incidents and help bring a greater understanding to the reality of rape. When we give ‘famous’ people a pass for misbehaving we are in effect saying that rape is ok or child abuse, racist attacks, etc…..
What about the possibility that a joke is funny because it’s wrong, rather than because it’s normal or ok. I laugh at dead baby jokes, but I don’t think it’s ok to murder infants.
The argument you (Walker) seem to be making, and I’ve seen *many* people make it so I just picked this instance to reply to, is that an example like Louis C.K.’s rape joke is funny (or okay or not offensive) because it’s not a rape joke. I find Louis C.K.’s rape joke hilarious, for the kinds of reasons you and others give it a pass, that it is not celebrating or advocating rape. However, the reason it’s such a powerful counter-example to the “rape jokes are never funny” position is that it is, indisputably, a rape joke.
Of course rape jokes can be funny. That doesn’t make rape funny, and it sure as hell doesn’t make all rape jokes funny. It doesn’t mean anyone who admits to laughing at rape jokes if the delivery, context, and message are right is a rape supporter who loves nothing more than sitting around laughing every time rape is discussed or described. What it does mean is that like any other horrible, unfunny thing that can happen to a person, rape is not off-limits to humor. If you carve out exceptions for Louis C.K. or other rape jokes you find funny, then it’s kind of like the No true Scotsman fallacy:
“No rape joke is funny.”
“But you agree Louis C.K.’s rape joke is funny.”
“Well that’s not a true rape joke. True rape jokes are never funny.”
The argument against ALL rape jokes usually boils down to saying that unfunny jokes aren’t funny, which is a lot easier to agree with, but that’s true whether we’re talking about rape, domestic violence, airplane food, or chickens crossing roads. Or dead babies. (That’s for you, Peter.)
I don’t think I’m stretching it when I say that rape is not an acceptable punch line, as in “wouldn’t it be hilarious if you got raped right now?” Jokes of that form should not register as funny. If you find yourself or those with whom you associate have set up a culture in which you do laugh when those ideas or images are merely suggested, then your group culture trivializes rape. It is now your responsibility to change that about yourself.
We are not trying to have an argument about the possibilities of humor, or what’s off limits, or what else would have to be off limits if we stop making rape a punch line.. We are trying to get people not to trivialize a horrible feature of our human condition that affects way more people than the current frequency of rape jokes would suggest.
I’m not sure if it was accidental that you submitted that as a reply to my comment instead of a stand-alone comment, but if it was on purpose, I don’t see how it had anything to do with anything I said.
Did you see the Lindy West article at Jezebel about how to make a funny rape joke? Based on that article, it’s evident that she and I both agree rape jokes *can* be funny, including a Louis C.K. example that both she and I cite. Several women in comments on that article agree. So, are Lindy West, I, and all these other women trivializing rape and in need of changing ourselves?
I suspect you make the same distinction as many others have, that rape jokes you think are funny aren’t really rape jokes;it’s just the ones that bother you that should be forbidden. As I suggested above, I think that’s a bogus distinction, and scolding me for thinking “rape is an acceptable punch line” thoroughly misses the point. If you find yourself or those with whom you associate have set up a culture in which missing the point is the norm, then your point-missing culture trivializes critical thinking. It is now your responsibility to change that about yourself. (Don’t take that personally, though. I did say “if”.)
You do realize some people trivialize n laugh at jokes because the reality is fucking scary right? How many laughed at Eddie Murphy’s mumma’s boomerang shoe? It’s child abuse, but they laughed, maybe they themselves went through it and all they can do now IS laugh, maybe it’s a coping mechanism, maybe by making it a joke it lets people handle the horrors of the world. I’ve laughed through some of my worst times, I’ve laughed with friends about my cancer, abuse, etc, I’ve laughed at some horrible shit comedians have said but I don’t laugh at real situations for others.
Rape, murder, etc, is a punchline whether it’s acceptable or not. Not everyone has to laugh at it, some will be horrified by it. Humor is a weird thing, I don’t like people laughing at an actual rape but laughing at a joke of rape is a different story to me. I don’t find them funny anymore, I use to laugh at the shock value but I’m all shocked out for rape. But I do see people who laugh at rape but would be first to skin a rapist alive given the chance. I don’t want rape jokes n jokes about murder, etc being shown against a person’s will, as in a person should opt-in to watch the comedy. But ATM I can’t see any point to making rape offlimits when everything else seems to be acceptable. Should Dave Chapelle stop his extremely racist jokes too? Or Eddies jokes about child abuse? How about jokes about violence all together? Cheating can hurt people a lot, so how about jokes about cheating? How far does this extend?
I don’t think tosh is an ass for saying a rape joke, I think he’s an ass for singling out someone n saying it about them (if that’s what he did). There’s a bigggg difference between joking about porky pig raping daffy duck and saying to a woman in the audience that it’d be funny if she was gang-raped or whatever went on.
Would it help to include a disclaimer at the start of the set “Rape is wrong, don’t do it, EVER” ?
One thing that bothers me are the people who write that the woman (ugh). ” deserved it” for the horrible crime of HECKLING SOMEONE OMG. Apparently this woman has to be thick skinned but how dare anyone interrupt The Great And Powerful Tosh.
I’m also disturbed by the reaction of Tosh in earlier instances where he said “I’m not misogynist or racist, I just find these things funny.” the same excuse is given for Seth MacFarlane’s humor (full disclosure: I laughed at many sick jokes in Ted) or so called Hipster Racism: we’re not being racist, we’re playing at racism!
When I was growing up, I thought it was “punk rock” to be as offensive as possible. I told jokes among friends that would be considered horrible to most people. Looking back, I just feel shame
I think that part of the problem, however, is that in the 80s some feminists allied themselves with censorious types (Catherine MacKinnon advised the Meese Commission on Pornography), and that makes it easy for politically incorrect comedians, etc to recast themselves as Free Speech Martyrs. Yet no one is threatening Tosh with jail or loss of his livelihood over this.
This is not unlike the Michael Richards issue. When a comedian is heckled, there’s no telling what he’s going to say in that state of anger/embarrassment/annoyance, and sometimes it gets really ugly. There are lots of comedians who handle hecklers extremely well, but Tosh’s retaliation is an example of the worst case scenario.
Absolutely. I don’t know, however, whether Tosh was losing control here. We have no way of knowing, of course, since no one else has come forward.
I do think it’s a neccessary skill set for being a comedian that you can handle heckling. Larry David stopped doing standup because he would just argue with the hecklers and end up screaming (I think we can all picture that).
When I saw the Michael Richards’ video, I thought “the poor guy’s having a breakdown onstage.” It’s silly to say that he’s not a racist, but that was obviously coming from a very desperate feeling on his part.
Dave Chappelle did a joke where he said that as a black man he was angry with Richards but as a comedian he was “hang in there Kramer!”
Rape jokes are never funny. If anyone laughs, it’s only to mask the discomfort of the moment and to mitigate the violence we sense from the comic. It’s a cheap shot because the comic knows laughter is the socially-acceptable response at a club. Seriously, does anyone need to know the “context” of a rape joke to know whether it’s cool to tell?
I do not think any topic is off limits. I am not a fan of rape jokes, yet I do find some of them funny. Louis CK’s skit about the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal is a great example. It is the sincerity of the priest’s explanation that makes it funny.
What I find ironic is that many of the people who complain about “offensive” jokes do not have a problem if the jokes target another group. Tracy Morgan got in trouble for telling a joke about killing his son if the boy were gay and came home acting effeminate, yet the rest of his act is just as brutal, and it is directed at his wife, his kids, himself, white people, black people, the disabled, and even Michelle Obama.
We joke about many serious things, from war to poverty to crime to disease to bigotry to child abuse to drug abuse. As Archy said, how many people complain Eddie Murphy’s bit about his mother (which is a staple among many black comedians)?
This is a pretty common problem with comedy. People find things find until it comes to their pet issue. That issue should be off limits, but everything else is fine.
“People find things fine until it comes to their pet issue. That issue should be off limits, but everything else is fine.”
Oh so very much. The loudest objectors to rape jokes I’ve known have joked about absolutely horrific things that didn’t involve sexual assault.
I’ve had someone involved with an anti-rape joke site say they hoped I was raped…Strange logic, but I guess it wasn’t a joke……which is even more scary.
I think they can be funny if for no other reason that I’ve known rape victims themselves to joke about the topic (yes I’m taking their word on it). I think the problems come into play once you go from a secure space (as in around people you know) to an insecure space (there’s no telling what types of experiences the random crowd of a comedy club are carrying). There’s probably rape victims who have heard about this and have no problem with it just as there are people who have not been raped that do have a problem with it.
Honestly due to the serious and painful nature of rape I’m not sure there is really a solution or definite answer as to whether it would ever be okay to say such things in front of random crowds.
And this goes for any topic.
“I think they can be funny if for no other reason that I’ve known rape victims themselves to joke about the topic (yes I’m taking their word on it).”
Me too, I asked a survivor friend of mine about her opinion on the facebook rape joke like pages. She laughed and said that she’d liked some of them herself.
And the only reason you can think of for her saying that is that she genuinely thinks that rape is funny? Are there any circumstances you can imagine in which a person might pretend they think something is funny when they don’t find it so? Or even perhaps try to convince themselves that they are unaffected by it?
Yes, I suppose it’s possible that every thing I’ve ever heard her say was the product of a self lie, but I’ve no real reason to think so either. If she says she found them funny I take her at her word.
Also: I wouldn’t imagine that she thinks rape is funny, no, but I think it’s entirely possible that she thinks jokes about it (which aren’t actually rape in themselves) might be.
It’s strange to me that so many people are unaware of the traditional role of comedy as social commentary. Comics have always spoken “truth to power,” which is as true today as it was in the days of court jesters and Greek plays. Comedy is a tool we use to talk about subjects that make us uncomfortable; in many cases it’s the only acceptable outlet. And so jokes about racism, sexism, rape, murder, corruption – all of these have their place because they are all important or taboo subjects. Louis CK’s bit was less about rape as much as it was about female agency and communication (although using the word “rape” certainly highlights the absurdity). Some comics take it a bit far – Sarah Silverman pushed the line too far for some in her classic rendition of The Aristocrats.
That’s not to suggest that this is what Tosh was doing. I suspect two things were going on here. First, given my limited knowledge of his comedy, I imagine he was trying to be edgy. Second, in this day of YouTube clips as promotional material, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was trying to “take down” or “destroy” the heckler. Heckling is rude and disruptive. If I go to a concert to hear someone sing, I don’t want the person three seats over from me belting out the tunes. Likewise, I go to a comedy club to hear the comedian, not someone in the audience. Some comedians are quite skillful at silencing hecklers – others (Michael Richards, anyone?) not so much.
I don’t recall seeing Sarah Silverman’s rendition of The Aristocrats, but if I did it was probably one of the many renditions in the documentary about that joke. The whole point of that joke is to be as vulgar and offensive as possible, with the point of the documentary being about how comedians use it not so much as an audience pleaser, but more as an opportunity to one-up each other and see who can be the most outrageous with it. Rape, incest, and an abundance of fecal matter are pretty much required ingredients in the joke. Going “too far” is the goal of telling The Aristocrats, so if Silverman took it too far, chances are she told it very well.
If you have no idea what “The Aristocrats” joke is, then Gilbert Gottfried performed an excellent version which you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGVL_reIuJM (from the documentary, accompanied with commentary by other comedians about why it’s funny). It is entirely NSFW, so don’t say you weren’t warned.
You may not find The Aristocrats funny, no matter who’s telling it. Many people don’t. But it’s a well-known example of how a joke that everyone who hears it can clearly agree is full of awful, terrible, indefensible acts, can be uproariously funny given the right context and delivery. It shatters the claim that to tell a joke about something is to explicity or tacitly normalize and condone the behavior being joked about. Many laughs are based on the wrongness of the thing being laughed at, and I’d say that’s the case more often than not with funny rape jokes.
The thing about the Sarah Silverman rendition is that she sort of diverged from the joke into a personal (and far as I know fictional) account of her being raped by TV host Joe Franklin. It was very subversive because this was a fairly straight-faced account of a horrible act within this movie about a joke that is predicated on such horrible acts.
Tosh’s humor is mostly based on shock value. He’s basically being the smart mouthed kid sitting on the side making snide remarks about everything. So it’s not surprising that he started on this route. What bothers me is that (again only hearing one side of the story) he then got personal about gang raping a particular person. That’s crossing the line to where it’s not a joke but advocating personal assault.
At that point he showed that he can dish it, but can’t take it.
I think that his apology was more of a personal justification. That shows he really isn’t truly sorry.
What is funny is dictated by process, not content. Assumptions and false assumptions make something funny – funny is not reliant on content, but a discovery of a false assumption. This is why you will find laughter on content such as murder, genocide, all kinds of death and diseases that cause real pain and suffering etc
Some may recall the film Life of Brian: the scene where the doomed prisoner jokes about needing to be in the crucifixion line, asking the audience to set up a false assumption that is then discovered – making a funny.
If the question is can a rape joke be funny, then the answer is yes. If the question is should we be allowed to use rape content to make a joke – that’s a totally different question outside of whether something can be funny or not.
The proposition: Jokes about _____ are never funny.
I have a much more visceral reaction to that idea than to any specific jokes. The idea that a particular topic is off-limits to comedians smacks of totalitarianism or fundamentalism to me. It’s the equivalent of telling me what I can and can’t laugh at. It also sounds patently absurd to tell me something is not funny when I am, in fact, already laughing at it. Objectively, if someone is laughing uncontrollably at something, then that something was by definition funny.
The idea that a stand-up comedian needs to apologize for offending people DURING A COMEDY SET seems cloyingly precious to me. Perhaps to avoid any misunderstandings in the future everyone in the audience can fill out a questionnaire before the show, maybe when you buy your ticket, and inform the performer about what topics are off-limits or are not funny to you. Only jokes that offend no one at all could then be delivered on-stage. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful experience for everyone?
Sometimes it’s the sense of taboo that makes a joke funny. All sorts of comedians get laughs because the audience is shocked that someone would say something like that out loud. I’m not so sure that Tosh has lost more fans than he’s gained by this little public relations “crisis.” This will probably just make his next rape joke elicit a bigger response.
I’d be curious to know what jokes Tosh had made up to that point in his show. I mean, this isn’t like he “slipped up” and told a completely out of character offensive joke. That’s what he DOES after all. So I’d be curious to know if this woman was perfectly fine with, say, racist jokes and it was only when he started to be offensive to a group *she* belonged to that it suddenly became too much?
Also, I can’t help but draw parallels to this incident and the castration jokes of Sharon Osbourne a while back.
I’m a little bit nauseated at the idea of someone arguing that what he [Tosh] said was at all funny. Some one has a right to tell some one else that they’re wrong, and that’s exactly what this woman did when he [Tosh] started going on about how ‘funny’ rape could be. To turn around and suggest that there would be humour in HER SPECIFICALLY being gang raped by a bunch of people, it becomes not only offensive, insensitive, and harmful, but also personally threatening to the point where she had to leave.
To say that there are just ‘different kinds of humour’ and Tosh is some one who not every one may ‘get’ is downright silly, because you’re giving him actual credit as a comedian, which he certainly does not deserve.
Making general comments about how rape is ‘funny’ is not social commentary, it’s not trying to be ‘risque’, it’s enforcing a dangerous and common thought pattern found in frat-boy culture (i.e. his demographic) that rape is NOT a problem overall, and should not be taken too seriously.
My husband’s best friend is a comedian/hypnotist…he tries out new material on us all the time…he is hysterical….! The best comedians have to walk that fine line and push the boundaries and say the things that people think about but don’t want to say out loud…I think the key thing is that your audience has to recognize those same feelings at least in part, or else it gets very offensive….at a shiva (!!), we were all hanging out with lots of family, friends, and neighbors, and he was making pretty racy jokes and talking about what he does for a living (he can hypnotize women to orgasm…live on radio!)…needless to say, he was a very popular that night! [The women still ask when he is coming to next family get-together!] …Needless to say, my husband’s family is not Orthodox (no joking there!)…
I see that Tosh is gaining Traction on this side of the Atlantic to feature in the Guardian and the Daily Maul.
Didn’t know of this Tosh until GMP mentioned him – had a look at his YouTube portfolio, and personally I can’t see why he is considered funny.
I wasn’t there to hear or witness what was said by him to his audience, so was what he said funny or not – an appropriate put down to a heckler – stage fright when challenged and a personal attack in the hope that his lack of stage craft and comedy smarts would not be uncovered? Don’t know – there are only second and third hand reports to judge it all by.
I’ve seen many comedians deal with hecklers over the years – some have natural comedy timing and a fast mind that can deal with it very comically (God Bless Robin Williams, The Big Yin – Billy Connolly, Joan Rivers and Jackie Mason). Others may have the ability to stand and deliver a scripted set and when heckled just die on the stage … and I’ve seen quite a few leaving the stage when they couldn’t put down the heckler and were put down very publicly. I suspect from what I have seen that Tosh is one of the latter.
I agree that Jen Pozner can’t call bullshit on something she hasn’t witnessed. But then again tweeting does, due to the limit of 140 characters, emphasise the tendency to miss out the conditionals, such “If”, “may”, “Could have” even “Suspect”. It is just not the right way to even attempt to provide rational comment on events you have not been a witness or party to.
Louis CK’s take is interesting – and I would like to see the full set before passing any judgement – I get where he’s coming from, but as it’s part of a bigger picture (generally 60 minutes) it’s hard to judge it’s overall validity and even humour from 100 seconds. It’s not just a joke – it’s an anecdote – a story that just does not fit well with the supposed social norm – it twists everything and mixes them up – it provides an insight into other people and makes you ask what would you do in the same situation.
I do wonder how the reports of asking if gang rape in a comedy venue should occur, fit with mixing up reality for the audience and making them think? Maybe if Tosh had asked if he should be gang raped – inviting the audience to do it – dropping his trousers in preparation …. but maybe that would have just revealed too big an ass on stage! P^)
Comedy is an odd and even funny thing!
Never heard of Tosh, but I’ll gladly defend him.
NO topic is off-limits to humor, period. There may be categories of jokes that you personally don’t find one bit funny–and that’s your right. It doesn’t mean that there’s no such thing as a funny {category} joke.
If you’re embarrassed by the crude and raunchy jokes someone tells, or even the one that you used to tell as a kid… that’s fine. But did anyone laugh? If so, then that joke was funny to that audience.
Huh. On the exact same night Sarah Silverman was making rape jokes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5IoKVHNXmI&feature=youtube_gdata_player