Presumably most of you have seen this—it’s been making the rounds of Facebook like crazy—but just in case you missed it, here’s Lindy West summing up some of the violent, violently misogynistic responses she’s gotten to her recent debate with Jim Norton.
Lindy has decided to allow herself to be a lightening rod so many things—comedy’s issues with women, the internet’s issues with women, the world’s issue with fat women—and it’s both inspiring and sort of terrifying to watch. Terrifying because, well… see above.
(growls, hisses, sharpens knives)
Well that was unpleasant. Ima pet a cat for a while.
Her looks and weight have nothing to do with the fact that she engaged in histrionics and name calling while Jim Norton was composed and intelligent when making his points.
Paxton, you are actually right about one thing: her looks and weight are irrelevant. The twats that want to make the “[I/nobody] would rape her” comments would make them because she is a woman talking about rape (which, as you have demonstrated, automatically amount to histrionics because, go with me, she is a woman).
Her big point was this: If you make a rape joke, you cannot start shouting “PC GARBAGE [blah blah] SLIPPERY SLOPE [blah blah] MY FIRST AMENDMENT RAHTS [blah blah] FEMINAZI BITCH JUST NEEDS SOME DICK”. You need to take the criticism because she is right, rape is bad, don’t be a dick.
Now my beer is warm.
It’s freedom of speech. Rape jokes are tacky, but saying “YOU CANT SAY THEM!” is stupid. Find something new to fake rage over.
Yep, just like that.
Yup, this is definitely a freedom of speech issue because Lindy is arguing for laws that ban comedians from making rape jokes. I’ve totally heard her make that exact point several times. In fact, the main reason the Founding Fathers included the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights was to allow comedians to make jokes about women being sexually violated. Good point, j.cas.
Chundy and me vs 2013 Blogtown Commenters apparently, for fucks sake. Shit, now my whiskey is watery.
@spaceman I’ve always held the commenters on Blogtown in low regard, but not because I thought they were moronic enough to think rape jokes are “protected speech.”
@Chundy I don’t know, lately it seems like Blogtown is that party in 2006 where some douchie hipster with demos in his back pocket and something that we’ll call a mustache for the sake of brevity was trying to convince me that Hitler was, in hindsight, a good thing for humanity. I’m not used to disagreeing with people here. Shit, now my bahn mi is cold. I AM ISSUES HAVING.
^This.
Am I the only one who thinks there might be some sort of middle ground between those moronic trolls and the kind of “you go girl” bandwagon-ing that Jim called her out on?
It seems to me like every time West goes to bat for womankind, she dredges up these crazy reactions from obvious crazies and holds them up as if they somehow prove that she’s right about everything. She’s got some pretty misguided and misandrist (chrome doesn’t even know that word, jesus) views of the comedy scene, but I don’t think we should all just be cool with any and all rape jokes, either.
She’s the only one benefiting from this polarization. I kinda just wish she (and the rest of the Jezebel crowd) would pursue a more relevant, actionable problem, like say, prison rape or sex trafficking, instead of whatever bullshit offended Lindy this month.
As far as I’m concerned, let those fuckers tell their rape jokes. Then chuckle as they complain about “criticism” while defending “free speech” at the same time. That little dog can run in circles all day trying to catch his tail, but if they can’t tell which way the wind is blowing, they’re gonna end up broke, or opening for ICP
I get the impression that Lindy’s profession is getting offended on behalf of other people. Which makes me support whoever she’s “arguing” against.
Spaceman- All I’m saying is that she was clearly outmatched in a debate that should have been a slam dunk for her. I’m not saying her position was without merit, I’m saying she didn’t have the skills to hold her own and just maybe someone else should have been speaking instead of her. The perspective of a female comedian would have been good.
@ Broseph: You don’t find this conversation relevant? Then by all means, let’s change the subject! We will all do our very best to reallocate our feminist rage to a topic of your choosing. Thanks for your input!
@BG I’ve attempted to make a version of the hey-some-rape-jokes-are-okay-if-they-help-rape-survivors-cope-with-their-trauma argument (and I’ve even read a version of that argument on Jezebel http://jezebel.com/5094798/is-a-rape-joke-…). But I’ve realized that such arguments are pointless because there are too many misogynistic rape-joke absolutists who don’t want to make that distinction. They think they have a constitutional right to make any rape joke for any reason at anytime; that’s pure bullshit.
I’m not going to provide cover for hacks and chauvinists to tell their tasteless rape jokes.
This too: if you’re making fun of the victim, you’re doing comedy wrong. It goes against every comic truism I know. Comedy is there to knock down bullshit that is, for some reason, elevated. The opposite is Larry the Cable Guy.
But there’s lots of spectacularly unfunny motherfuckers out there who think that just making people “uncomfortable” is some sort of achievement. You know how easy it is to make your average person uncomfortable? Sheeeit…
GETS IT.
http://robdelaney.tumblr.com/post/52276170…