Trigger warning for discussion of rape.
Those who have read about the misandry in the new alleged comedy Horrible Bosses may wonder if it is possible for Horrible Bosses to, in fact, top itself. The recently released TV spots, however, have shown that it has somehow managed.
That’s right. Not only does the spot contain the clearly hilarious “there’s a sexual assault! And it’s by a woman! This is funny, because women don’t sexually assault people! Hahahahahaha!” jokes we’ve come to expect, there’s a prison rape joke.
Call Time Warner and tell them that prison rape is a tragedy, not a compliment.
The trailer didn’t make it seem like it, but the movie handled the female to male rape with much more taste than I’d ever expect from mainstream media. It was never used as a joke, it actually portrayed the rape as (you won’t believe this) a bad thing.
lol, plus they want to murder their boss
I don’t think the double standard is as much in who gets targeted with these jokes as much as in which shape they take. I just watched an old episode of Friends where Monica and Rachel get into a fight (and because they’re girls, it’s really hilarious), and Phoebe intervenes. She ends up grabbing them by the ears, and as she gets them to stop, she smiles and remarks “If we were in prison, you’d be my bitches”. On a trip to Italy with the choir I sang in as a teenager, we were sleeping in the bus, and early… Read more »
I wonder if Anniston’s character will get arrested and threatened with prison rape as a way to get her to talk ala Law & Order: SVU. (Probably not because even on that show on the rare a occassion that a woman races rape charges, and rest assured it almost always a child, never an adult, she is spared that bit of intimidation). I’m preemptively predicting that out of the three horrible bosses at least Anniston’s character will get away with no punishment (meaning she will not face formal justice nor will she be killed off).
Have you considered the possibility that men joke about prison rape because it terrifies them and they are trying to (a) pretend they are not scared and (b) take their mind off of the terror they feel?
A lot of humor comes from people trying to deal with things that terrify us by pretending that they are not such a big deal.
It is probably simpler than that: they do not think there is anything wrong with it. Unfortunately, people generally do not care what happens to inmates, and sometimes think inmates deserve it.
I am not opposed to anyone making rape jokes. However, the jokes actually do reinforce people’s indifference towards prison rape, so I think writers should be aware of how the joke will come across and maybe rethink the way they write those jokes.
If only the writers gave a shit. They’re there to make as much money as possible. That’s all.
I dunno man. I’ve heard it laughed about a lot by men and women. It doesn’t seem like terror as much as it does some kind of sick joy/revenge.
I’m thinking in the context of the movie, where apparently the two men are discussing who would be more likely to get raped. It seems to me that in such a situation such jokes could be coming from fear.
Oh, sure, that’s possible. In which case, aren’t we, the audience, laughing at their fear? That’s even worse somehow.
While that’s true, I don’t think that is what is driving the jokes; they don’t really seem to be coming from men who believe they themselves may actually spend time in prison.
I guess in todays world that might be called ‘equality’, as perverse as that may sound.
Might be called equality by whom? I’d hope that we all want equality to be about dignity and fair treatment for all, not reducing everybody to the lowest common denominator. I suppose a sexist screenwriter or director might think “hey, this is OK because ROLE REVERSAL!!!111!”, but that betrays a total lack of understanding that rape is evil, period.
Can you imagine if they made a movie where two women were walking down a dark street joking about who would be raped worse… and it was portrayed as comedy?
I imagine South Park could get away with it as “satire”. And it wasn’t that long ago that you could portray rape and sexual harassment of women as “funny” a la Revenge of the Nerds – but we’re getting past that. We’re still not there in regards to men. (The rapist boss is called “maneater”. Sheez.) What especially baffles me is that this is a movie written and directed by men – I get that patriarchy can blind all of us, but seriously, wtf are they thinking? On prison rape, I often think that there’s a huge dollop of classism… Read more »
I think your analysis is quite right: there’s definitely a classist aspect to prison rape humor. In particular, I grew up in the South, and the hypothetical guy who was going to rape you in prison was always a “redneck” named Bubba– which seems a pretty standard reflection of the classist fear of being taken for “white trash.” I wonder if the identity of the hypothetical dude who’s going to rape you changes across locations (the same way that, iirc, the group stereotyped as “bad drivers” is always the largest minority group in an area).
I’ve heard both “Bubba” and some variation of “a big black guy who goes by Killer”, which nicely manages to combine the racist view that black men are sexually aggressive with the further minimizing of rape because, hey, the victim is a white guy. (I’ve seen sites where this is such a common view that there’s an acronym: “I hope this guy gets sent to a real PMITA prison”. I assume you can guess what that stands for.
How… charming. I kind of wish that everyone would be forced to listen to 24 hours of rape survivor testimony before they’re allowed to wish rape on ANYONE.
@ozy: I just wish that people didn’t wish rape on anyone, ever. :
Are you equally baffled that female jurors are more likely to vote not guilty in a rape trial or what about women who slut shames other women? I’ve heard many reasons for why this is so and none of them are of the form “wtf are they thinking”.
Are men supposed or expected to be more aware of the ways gender structures screws them over?
“WTF are they thinking?” is really a rhetorical question. It was not a condemnation of men for failing to be especially enlightened.
Well, presumably they’ve bought into the idea that guy’s can’t be raped, and/or they know that idea will sell for some reason.
You’re quite right about the prison rape, by the way. It turns my stomach whenever you hear someone say that someone “deserves to get raped” when they go to jail.
And of course it’s also funny because men always want sex all the time, so as long as the woman is hot, it isn’t really rape! /eyeroll
Yeah, not funny at all.
Thanks for calling a spade a spade.
Will do.