This is a question that plagued me since noticing that a presentation on the subject was to be given at the Modern Language Association (MLA) 2013 meeting in Boston. It turns out that the answer is “liberals” or at least the more apolitical cretins at Comedy Central.
“In my viewing, 80 percent of the jokes involve vomiting or getting hit in the genitals,” Natalie Carter of Butler University told the MLA of CC’s offerings. “Lately is has gotten nastier: a preacher passing gas when he gets excited about scripture, which is a lot.”
Specifically, Daniel Tosh of CC answered a heckler at an in-person stand-up gig by saying, “Wouldn’t it be funny if she got raped by five guys right here?” “The woman did not think it was funny and blogged about it,” Carter pointed out.
“Almost all the comedians who came to Tosh’s defense were male,” Carter noted. “Doesn’t ‘she heckled him because she got what she deserved sound uncomfortably close to ‘she asked for it’” Carter asked.
Yet and still, she observed that “comedians make rape jokes every day so why is this one getting so much attention?”
Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, e-mail mal.kline@academia.org.