Did you know rape is funny?

[Jayson]

I have never seen the movie, but if it's so stupid and the characters act like dogs and not humans then it is sometimes funny.

However rape is funny...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C17yfGyJjM

That was pretty funny. Also reminded me of the one other rape scene I could think of that was funny. Aquaman trying to stop a rape on "Family Guy."


Jason

I was chary of clicking that link, but I'm glad I did. I may have to slightly revise my idea that there's no such thing as good rape humour - that song's poignant and powerful. How have I never heard it before? It's awesome. (In a deeply harrowing way)

Still sickened by 99.9+% of rape jokes though.

In any audience, there are going to be rape survivors. Most of them won't have got justice, many of them won't have been believed, and a lot of them won't even have ever been able to tell anybody. Rape jokes turn something which might have been fun and enjoyable and inclusive into an attack, making their trauma the butt of other people's fun. I reckon it'd have to be a pretty frickin' good joke to justify that - like, maybe the kind of joke that wipes out armies.

It's the same as other shock-humour like racist or homophobic attacks. It's supposed to be funny because of the "Oh my god, I can't believe they went there!" factor. It's only funny if you're lucky enough not to live every day knowing that people go much further all the time, and not for fun and laughs, y'know?

I think the reason for this humor goes a little deeper than shock value. I think it has more to do with finding new things to get material from. You can only do so many variations on "airplane food" type of stuff that has been done a million times before. That's why I am not against rape humor,Nazi humor or anything that might be in bad taste. Only thing that counts is whether it's funny or not and rape is just hard to make funny. I think it's kind of sick to find humor from serious depictions of this type of stuff but like George Carlin said. You just need a little exageration or at least something that makes it feel disconnected from reality and then everything is fine.

Jason

 

[Keith1701]

Rape is never funny...unless you're raping a clown.

I had no idea that Rape could be funny.....who knew???

 

[dragunzng]

Yeah, I embarrassed the hell out of myself once when I was younger because I couldn't stop laughing in the middle of a funeral for one of my friends. I had to get up and leave, it was honestly uncontrollable. Then I went outside and started balling.

Nothing pisses me off more than this. Half the time when I hear someone's died, my first reaction is to stifle a laugh and fight a smile, I just don't get it, because it's not funny, but precisely because it's not funny I can't help but think about how NOT funny it is.

I usually have a good sense of humor though.

 

[ALF]

^He's presumably referring to "Rapelay", a Japanese Hentai game that was being sold by a third party Amazon.com seller until Amazon removed it recently.

In Japan, the concept and existence of rape doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
I'm not being flippant or insensitive. Honestly, nobody seems to care about it. No one wants to discuss it. It's a non issue.

I'm sure rape survivors and their advocacy groups would disagree with you, or do they not count as 'anyone'?

It depends. Do they live in a culture where women are empowered and vocal?

I guess you don't understand how women are perceived in Japan. Women are very objectified in Japan and highly sexualized from a very young age. It's not seen by the populous as a plight to be changed or a groundbreaking social hurdle to be challenged. The status quo remains and it will take another hundred years before it sees any radical change.

Thus, rape porn and magazines are huge in Japan. And I've seen girls reading some of those magazines themselves - so what conclusions can you draw from that?

You can't impose western values on every culture in the world.

Having said that, I'm not saying rape doesn't happen in Japan. It appears to happen constantly. Here's a news story where a man dragged a woman into a washroom to rape her in full view of a trainload of people who did not intervene.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUST17815620070515

 

[SiorX]

In Japan, the concept and existence of rape doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
I'm not being flippant or insensitive. Honestly, nobody seems to care about it. No one wants to discuss it. It's a non issue.

I'm sure rape survivors and their advocacy groups would disagree with you, or do they not count as 'anyone'?

It depends. Do they live in a culture where women are empowered and vocal?

What do you mean, 'it depends'? There are people speaking out, and their voices matter. That they're in the minority only means that they need all the help they can get to be heard, not that their point of view - the point of view of the people who suffer most at the hands of a rape-saturated culture - is a non-issue.

In that article to which you link, it's clear that there are those fighting against the horrific status quo. Quoting from that article:

Activists and lawyers say...

Campaigns by women's groups and legal changes have helped make it easier for rape victims in Japan to speak up and take legal...

"There is still widespread belief in 'rape myths'," said Masayo Niwa, an official at the Centre for Education and Support for Women, Japan

Some victims' support groups estimate...

Some lawyers say prison sentences and compensation fail to adequately reflect victims' sufferings...

Hitoshi Yamada, a former head of the Tokyo Bar Association's committee on victim support

etc etc.


But when you write that it doesn't seem to matter to anyone, or nobody seems to care, it silences those people who are working to try and make things better. Those whom the status quo suits benefit from rape culture - it makes money, it titilates, and it keeps women submissive and scared. Of course they're not going to be challenging it. That doesn't mean nobody cares. It means that the status quo includes very effective techniques for silencing victims.

I guess you don't understand how women are perceived in Japan. Women are very objectified in Japan and highly sexualized from a very young age. It's not seen by the populous as a plight to be changed or a groundbreaking social hurdle to be challenged. The status quo remains and it will take another hundred years before it sees any radical change.

You say that it's not seen by the populous as a plight to be challenged, but very clearly it is seen as such by victims and their advocates. And if social change is to come, even if it is in a hundred years, it's going to come from more people being educated to see rape survivors and women in general as human beings. It willl come from the words of victims and advocates being spread and amplified.

Thus, rape porn and magazines are huge in Japan. And I've seen girls reading some of those magazines themselves - so what conclusions can you draw from that?

The conclusion I draw is that rape culture is endemic. That doesn't mean that nobody cares, or that outrage is misplaced because it's just the Japanese way.

You can't impose western values on every culture in the world.

I really don't think I'm trying to. Unless the idea that women are human and entitled to have their safety and dignity recognised by society and protected by the law is inherently Western. (Given the appalling problems we still have with rape here, I don't think that's the case.)

One of the biggest difficulties facing anti-rape activists - and here I'm talking about my own experiences, but I'm sure it applies in Japan too - is the juggernaut of rape myths. (She was asking for it. Look at what she was wearing. She led him on. He's not a real man anyway if he let himself get raped. What was she doing out on her own? She's probably lying to get back at him. It's her own fault for drinking. If he didn't want to be raped, he shouldn't have landed himself in prison. She's just a prostitute. She should be flattered. She changed her mind, and now she's screaming 'rape'.)

These myths are insidious, and they spread like wildfire because so many people get these messages from our culture and don't ever really examine them. Even here - though I don't believe it's as bad as Japan - challenging these myths can feel like screaming into the wind. So while I understand your point that the idea that rape is no big deal has a strangle-hold on Japanese culture, I think it's so so so important to acknowledge the voices of people who are trying to change this.

 

[ALF]

I think it's so so so important to acknowledge the voices of people who are trying to change this.

So do I.
Fundamentally I agree with you, SiorX.