• Home
  • Videos
  • Pics
  • Blog
  • Modules
  • About Us
  @TheSocyCinema

@thesocycinema / videos

Rape as Prime Time Comedy

2/24/2012

3 Comments

 
Picture
Rape humor on prime time television
_Tags: discourse/language, gender, media, violence, comedy, media literacy, rape culture, symbolic violence, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2012
Length: 1:14
Access: nymag.com

Summary: Before watching this remix of the 2012 television season's many rape jokes, take a minute to view an excerpt from the documentary Vietnam: American Holocaust, where American soldiers testify that they raped civilian women during the Vietnam War. "We found one hiding in a bomb shelter," one soldier explains, "She was taken out [and] raped by 6 or 7 people." You might also watch this recent speech from Tony Porter, where he recounts a moment from early adolescence when he came upon a group of older boys raping a mentally disabled girl from his neighborhood. Rape most easily stirs anger and depression, so a joke about it would seem to be a risky proposition for any comedian; yet that is exactly what happens with relative frequency in a number of new sitcoms this television season. The remix above features scenes from 2 Broke Girls, Wilfred, Up All Night, Workaholics, Whitney, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family, Glee, Work It, and a few others. More than just insensitive content in an era when 1 in 5 American women experience rape or attempted rape at some point in their lives, the use of rape as humor can potentially minimize the brutality of this crime. While humor can sometimes be an effective means of leveling social criticism (as argued elsewhere on The Sociological Cinema), that does not appear to be what is happening in the scenes that compose this remix. This short clip provides an excellent foray into discussions about how rape humor is part and parcel of rape culture (defined here). The humor stands to reinforce deeply problematic values, norms, and ideas of that culture, especially when they are blended with other more innocuous punchlines and canned laughter from a studio audience.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

3 Comments
Riem
4/18/2012 05:10:34 pm

it's scary how so many "jokes" about rape go on TV unnoticed, or maybe we choose to ignore them for a few laughs?
ouch

Reply
Jessie
11/1/2012 01:31:22 am

This is the most disgusting rape joke I've ever seen. As a 30 Rock fan, it made me very, very sad.
http://www.vulture.com/2010/09/30_rock_rape_joke.html

Reply
Rachael
3/13/2013 04:05:44 am

This is horrible, TV is really in the gutter anymore.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Tags

    All
    00 To 05 Mins
    06 To 10 Mins
    11 To 20 Mins
    21 To 60 Mins
    61+ Mins
    Abortion/Reproduction
    Aging/Life Course
    Art/Music
    Biology
    Bodies
    Capitalism
    Children/Youth
    Class
    Commodification
    Community
    Consumption/Consumerism
    Corporations
    Crime/Law/Deviance
    Culture
    Demography/Population
    Disability
    Discourse/Language
    Du Bois
    Durkheim
    Economic Sociology
    Education
    Emotion/Desire
    Environment
    Food/Agriculture
    Foucault
    Gender
    Globalization
    Goffman
    Government/The State
    Health/Medicine
    Historical Sociology
    Immigration/Citizenship
    Inequality
    Intersectionality
    Knowledge
    Lgbtq
    Marketing/Brands
    Marriage/Family
    Marx/Marxism
    Media
    Methodology/Statistics
    Multiculturalism
    Nationalism
    Organizations/Occupations/Work
    Political Economy
    Politics/Election/Voting
    Prejudice/Discrimination
    Psychology/Social Psychology
    Race/Ethnicity
    Religion
    Rural/Urban
    Science/Technology
    Sex/Sexuality
    Social Construction
    Social Mvmts/Social Change/Resistance
    Sports
    Subtitles/CC
    Theory
    Violence
    War/Military
    Weber

    RSS Feed

    Tweets by @TheSocyCinema

    .

    Got any videos?

    Are you finding useful videos for your classes? Do you have good videos you use in your own classes? Please consider submitting your videos here and helping us build our database!

     

    Creative Commons License
​About Us      |      Facebook      |      Twitter      |      Pinterest      |      Tumblr
Creative Commons
  • Home
  • Videos
  • Pics
  • Blog
  • Modules
  • About Us