Journal of Xi'an University of Architecture & Technology Issn No : 1006-7930

Evolution of Jokes

Shyam Hajare M.A. English with Communication Studies (2nd Year) Christ (Deemed to be) University

[email protected]

Abstract Rape jokes have been one of the perennial topics in the comedy industry, but what the term means has changed a lot in the past two decades. Various comics have come to the realization that this is a sensitive topic and thus have slowly tried to change their approach towards it. Along with rising concern about the issue of sexual harassment, the #MeToo movement has kind of given rise to the feminist movement in the comedy industry. This paper through the phenomenological study of the changes tries to understand how these jokes have evolved and what does that say about how the women are seen in the society as well as about the consciousness about sexual violence. The comics like Sarah Silverman, Hannah Gadsby, and others are using different ways to fight against the rape culture. The recent stand-up special by Cameron Esposito, titled Rape Jokes is the type of approach to the topic which uses the perspective of the survivor to talk about the topic. The changes show that it is all up to the to tell jokes that are funny but still makes a point and if done properly can be a platform for survivors of harassment to share their stories and stand like a wall against the rape culture.

Keywords: Rape jokes, Comedy, Cameron Esposito, Hannah Gadsby, Sarah Silverman.

Comedy for centuries has been a source of entertainment for people all around the world, making people laugh, but that is not the only function it has played. Comedy in many ways has worked as a social commentary and is considered one of the most effective ways to understand society. This is especially true of the satirical comedy, as it by ridiculing the society or government tries to bring attention to the issues existing in the society. In the more extremes forms of , which are called Black or dark Comedy, the topics which are considered a taboo, insensitive, serious or mortifying are made fun of. For many people topics like death, suicide, domestic violence, rape, disability etc. may seem a little insensitive and maybe even morally incorrect, but jokes on these topics may have a big function based on the context and the person who delivers it. Psychoanalysis talks about how the human subconscious refuses to be disturbed by reality, it tries not to be affected by the traumas of the external world. On the contrary, it tries to look at such traumas as occasions to gain pleasure. But this gaining of pleasure depends on whether the joke is told by the person who is threatened or the

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one threatening. This paper looks at one such topic in the , the theme of rape and sexual harassment. Rape jokes have been a big part of the field of comedy for many years. Many have made jokes on rape and sexual harassment and continue to do so, but these jokes have seen a lot more changes in the way these are presented as compared to any other theme. These jokes for a long time did nothing in helping the threatened victims or reduce their stress or help them move on, these were more like the threats themselves. The famous case being that of the joke made by Daniel Tosh in 2012 when an audience member told him that rape jokes are not funny, he asked her if it would be funny if that woman got gang raped there (qtd. in Solnit). These type of jokes are clearly insensitive towards the survivors and their families. This approach towards the topic of rape has seen some change since the Daniel Tosh incident. More and more comics are changing the way they talk about rape in their sets. Through the phenomenological study of the comedy industry, this paper is trying to understand what is this change and the other social factors which have led to this change. The change in its most advanced form can be seen in the stand-up special of Cameron Esposito titled ‘Rape Jokes’ which tries to bring the perspective of the survivor in the comedy. Esposito may have been the first to move ahead and come up with a one-hour special named Rape jokes and talking majorly about sexual harassment and rape, but there are others who have showed the gradual move towards this kind of comedy. Various other comics including , Hannah Gadsby, , Sarah Silverman, etc. have for many years included, in bits and pieces, jokes which try to the break free from the derogatory rape jokes. The special by Esposito though, is the most important one, in understanding the change because what other comics used as a filler topic in their sets focussing on a completely different topic, Esposito gave it the importance of being the central theme and dedicated a whole special to it. In the 1905 book Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious as well as in his article ‘der Humor’, Sigmund Freud talks about how jokes are a way to maintain psychic balance by working as a way to fight against adversity (Newirth). This way of thinking about the dark comedy can be seen working with regards to black comedy in general but when one looks at the rape jokes this does not seems to be the case. Most of the rape jokes being used by the comics are the kind used by Daniel Tosh mentioned earlier. This does not provide a way to fight against the adversity but works as a threat. But Freud’s idea is essential to understanding the current change in rape jokes, as a great number of female comics like Esposito are and sharing their experiences about sexual harassment through comedy, and trying to fight against the rape culture. One example of this can be seen in Rape Jokes as Esposito addresses the Daniel Tosh incident. She says that comedians use these kinds of jokes because these are a taboo and will get a response but when an audience member calls them out about it, they cry “censorship”, further adding, “That’s the wrong word. Feedback. You have gotten feedback.”

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Comedy is one of the stress-reducing forms of entertainment for many people, due to which stand-up comedy has been trending for the last two decades, all around the world, with the rise in the number of platforms available to stand-up comedians, like Youtube and Netflix. Many Stand –up comedians are especially well-known for their sets which use taboo themes. Rape jokes, however, took a lot more time to make it to the online platforms. It is already harder for the taboo themes to make it to the online platforms. On top of that in the past few years, there was a rise in feminist ideologies which had finally started raising voice against such portrayal of rape on various platforms. Rape jokes in such a social condition limited to live shows or exclusive dark comedy jokes as these jokes were of a certain derogatory kind. These were the jokes mainly punching down on the victims by using rape as a punch line. Comedians use these only because they know the word ‘rape’ will induce laughter. These jokes are insensitive towards people who have been victims of such incidents and their family and friends. Why are then comedians making such jokes? This was a question raised by some comics. These comics then through their comedy have tried to change the approach towards rape jokes in the past few years. This change which was slow to start got a push with the start of #MeToo movement. Comedians started to slowly move away from such jokes towards a more feminist approach. This change can be compared to an ecosystem. If rape jokes are considered as an ecosystem then the evolution of rape jokes can be taken as an indicator of the change in consciousness in regards to women and about sexual violence (Solnit). With the #MeToo movement people had started talking more about women being harassed and the rape survivors and this showed also in the various rape jokes. Before the movement becoming so huge there was some kind of unmentioned fight going on between comedians and feminists. As in 2012 and even now jokes about sex with unconscious victims were very common. Jokes like the one here by Sam Morril, "My ex-girlfriend never made me wear a condom. That's huge. She was on the pill." Pause. "Ambien.” (qtd. in Solnit). Such jokes were quite frequent and were used by many celebrity comics, one such comic being who was using it for decades. Different stand-up comics try to oppose these types of jokes and comics using rape culture to get some laughs in different ways. One way through which this is done is by changing the way comedy is induced from punching down to punching up. In comedy terms punching down refers to a situation when a comedian criticizes or makes a joke at the expense of an individual or group at a position of less power. This is what the jokes like the one by Sam Morril previously mentioned do, they can think of making such jokes as they are not part of the group they are making fun of. These are made by male comics about women getting raped. The opposite of this misogynistic way of comedy is punching up. This change in the comedy to punching up can be seen as a feminist movement in the comedy industry as now comics have started making fun of the rapists who are at a higher position of power. The example of fighting against rape by punching up can be seen in ’ show in 2014. Buress in his show mocked Bill Cosby for being a rapist and in doing so he ridiculed the whole rape culture. He talking

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about Cosby’s, "I can talk down to black people because I have a successful sitcom" stance, said, "Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby." This in a way started a chain reaction which led to various other comics to come out and talk about rape and show their protest against Bill Cosby and use it against the rapist and the rape culture. This led to a movement to move the industry from misogynistic to feminist comedy. Bill Cosby had been accused of sexual harassment by many women over the decades but the cases were settled outside the court and these women never got a platform to get justice. Once Buress did this, various other artists started talking about him in other places. At the Golden Globes, and Amy Poehler talked about Cosby, describing the fairy-tale movie Into the Woods. Poehler remarked, "and Sleeping Beauty just thought she was getting coffee with Bill Cosby." Fey then did a parody of Cosby. "I put the pills in the people. The people did not want the pills.” (qtd. in Solnit). Before this direct attack on the celebrities and rapist in general, there was a distinction between rape jokes and anti-rape jokes. Rape jokes were the ones where rape was the punchline and these were at their core insensitive and made it appear as if rape is acceptable to act. There were many oppositions to this kind of comedy, the main opposition was that rape jokes are never funny. This opposition is strong of the view that rape as a theme should not be used at all by the comedians. Many comedians in response to this opposition talk about how this stand is trying to censor the comedy industry. One of the comedians in 1990 talking about this was George Carlin, in his bit Joke on Rape talks about how rape jokes can be funny starting this bit with "Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd", then continuing to talk about rape for some five minutes, but not making a single joke which in any way can be seen as insensitive to anyone. He is neither attacking anyone directly just making a point that rape can be used as a theme and it can be funny and it is all up to the comic as to how he uses it. Travis Andrews in his 2018 article asks questions like who has the right to tell the rape jokes and how they should be constructed. George Carlin spoke from the position of a comedian talking about his art. He was not directly talking for or against rape jokes what he was trying to show that there should not be censorship in comedy and that it is possible to make jokes on rape without punching down on any group or individual. Andrews when looking at how the jokes are constructed takes examples from some films and comedians to distinguish between two approaches one where rape is the punchline and one where it is criticized. One jokes quoted is by Rodney Dangerfield's, "My girlfriend is so ugly, when two guys broke into her apartment, she yelled, 'Rape!'They yelled, 'No!'" (qtd. in Andrews). This joke here is inappropriate and insensitive on many levels and not just because it is about rape. Actress Molly Ringwald talks about how such jokes are mostly about a loss of power. (Andrews) "There's something funny about when someone slips on a banana peel, or when someone who is all dressed up falls in mud or seeing someone with toilet paper on their foot. (Rape) is the most extreme example: completely taking away a woman's power." (qtd. in Andrews)

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Looking once again at the first part of Andrews’ question about who has the right to tell the jokes about rape, it is interesting to note how for a long time many female comics have faced criticism about their content and how there are some topics they cannot use in their comedy as they are women and this includes rape. As some believed that such topics from a woman's mouth can not produce laughter (Zinoman). For example when in a interview from 1979, , host of "Tonight" gave his take on American female comics. "The ones that try sometimes are a little aggressive for my taste," he said. "I'll take it from a guy, but from women, sometimes, it just doesn't fit too well." (qtd. in Zinoman) But this kind of thinking does not hold true anymore, the times are changing and many female comics are bringing to stage shows which as Zinoman says breaking taboos. Some of these comics include Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Amy Schumer etc. Silverman uses a different kind of approach to her rape jokes. Through her jokes, she tries to make people think about what they just laughed at. For example, this joke delivered by Silverman "I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.”(qtd. in Zinoman). Or this one where she says "When I watch a movie where there's a really good-looking rapist," she says, her tone lilting upward before hitting the punch line on a low note, "I think about the girl: Why are you complaining?"(qtd. in Zinoman) Just as the laughter dies she apologizes for making such jokes and shows her disappointment with the audience for approving such a joke. The audience tends to react with laughter followed by groans when realizing what was just said. Silverman makes her audience think about what they find funny and what that says about them. If then agreeing that this way of Sarah Silverman is the way rape jokes should be constructed, we still cannot forget the comment by an audience that rape jokes are never funny. Many people may not be comfortable with the jokes about rape even if they are playing a function of making people aware of the prevalent ideas about rape and sexual harassment. So should Rape jokes be censored, considering that there are people who will be hurt if someone jokes about rape. Silverman will surely not agree with this, she does not censor her rape jokes or consider these a taboo. Through her comedy, she puts forth an idea that people should talk about rape as making it a taboo stops many women from reporting the crime. She directly shows her irritation with this type of mentality where one does not report the crime committed against them. She says, “I need more rape jokes," she shouted nasally before letting her fans in on what she called a comedy secret, that such jokes are actually not so "edgy" after all. "Who's going to complain about rape jokes? Rape victims?" she asked. "They barely even report rape."(qtd. in Zinoman) Other female comic criticizing the rape culture and the prevalent ideas in society about sexual harassment is Amy Schummer. In the season 3 episode ‘Last fuckable day’ of her show Inside Amy Schummer she parodies the way rape culture works in the society. Schummer in this sketch plays a role of the

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wife of the football coach, who introduces a no rape rule on his American football team. The team then tries to find loopholes in this new rule. "Can we rape at away games?" No. "What if it's Halloween and she's dressed like a sexy cat?" No. "What if she thinks it's rape and I don't?" Still no. "What if my mom is the DA and won't prosecute, can I rape?" "If the girl said yes to me the other day, but it was about something else?" "What if the girl says yes and then changes her mind out of nowhere, like a crazy person?” (qtd. in Solnit) These are the types of excuses one can see being used by various rapists as they roam around not acknowledging the rights of women. The following scene shows some middle-aged ladies spitting at the coach for not letting the boy have their rightful . The sketch as a whole is a joke about rape culture and how society supports the ideas leading to sexual harassment in many cases. These approaches of directly criticizing the rapists or satirizing the rape culture have been around for some time now. The newest type of comedy talking about sexual harassment can be seen in the past few years. Hannah Gadsby in 2017 performed her stand-up special called Nanette through which she showed the world a completely different kind of stand-up comedy. She used the platform of stand-up to talk about her life and what all she had to suffer due to her being a lesbian. She starts her special with an announcement that she wants to leave comedy and she is going to tell everyone why. She then goes on to talk about various incidents in her life and various incidents in her stand-up career. She talks about a joke she has been performing for a long time. The joke tells an incident when a man threatened to beat her up as she was flirting with a girl when he realizes that she is a girl and he because he is a man does not hit women. The joke in all previous shows always ended at this part and she got the applause from the audience. But this time she tells the audience what happened after that. “I couldn't tell that story as it actually happened. Because I couldn't tell the part of the story where that man realized his mistake. And he came back. And he said, "Oh, no, I get it. You're a lady faggot. I'm allowed to beat the shit out of you," and he did! He beat the shit out of me and nobody stopped him. And I didn't... report that to the police, and I did not take myself to the hospital, and I should have. And you know why I didn't? It's because I thought that was all I was worth.” (Nanette) Gadsby talks here about the harassment she had to face and the reason she could not report about it. This comedy special was not just meant to get laughs it was a platform for her to come out and talk about all the trauma she had to face. On the similar lines, Cameron Esposito in 2018 came up with the idea for her special Rape Joke. This was first of its kind special where a comic is exclusively talking about rape and sexual harassment. She starts the show and spent a few minutes making fun of President Trump she says, “Every word out of his mouth is something I would punish a child for saying!” and as the applause stops she adds, “And also, I am a survivor of sexual assault and I

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don’t like that he jokes around and brags about assaulting people.”(qtd. In Wilstein). It was meant to gets laugh it was just a simple statement of fact about herself and the president of the United States. As the show progresses she then talks about various other themes including sex education and realizing that she was a lesbian. As the show reaches the last some minutes she goes back to the previously stated fact that she is a survivor of sexual harassment. She tells her story of how some guy in her college used to act strangely around her and she had no idea what good behavior for boys was. She did not yet know what good attention meant and still, she would get drunk around him to feel comfortable. “I wanted to run away, so I tried to slow myself down,” she said (qtd. in Wilstein). She did not say “yes” because she could not have. She says she wants to share her story as she hopes that by talking about she can “get in the way” of rape and people who watch her perform to her especially the men will do the same. In an interview with Jordan Klepper, she talks about why she thought of this special. She saw President Donald Trump about women and it was dehumanizing, that she felt like an object. She also feels that as the #MeToo movement progressed the media focussed majorly on the rapists and did not give even a second thought to the survivors. She feels that the victims do not get to share stories of their survival with the world. She wanted to do something to change that and so thought of sharing her own story and in a way give voice to survivors. When questioned about the theme and if she felt that these things should be talked about, she responds with her views on rape jokes. Esposito talks about how the major idea in the comic community about rape jokes is simple, comic goes on stage and throws the word ‘rape’, the joke has no punchline, it is there just to get a reaction. She wants comics to be good artists and tell a good joke that has some point and harms no one. She, on the other hand, being a survivor herself, looks at rape jokes from the perspective of a survivor. She talks about how she can openly tell that her special is funny even though for almost an hour she is talking only about sexual harassment. She rightly says to the hesitant interviewer that people need to openly talk about rape jokes, so that more and more people get encouraged to come out and share their stories. Esposito’s comedy portrays the most recent approach to rape jokes in comedy history. Unlike the one used by Silverman and others where they are targeting the rape culture, Esposito and Gadsby are coming out and sharing their experiences to make people think. Though the approach may appear to be different all these comics together fighting against the rape culture. If these changes are seen as the previously mentioned ecosystem, we can see how rape jokes are no longer just something that men can tell. Female comics are breaking all the preconceived notions and using these themes for their comedy. They are talking about sexual harassment and raising awareness in the audience about the issue. But not everything has suddenly changed, these comics still get criticized for telling rape jokes. Neither have the demeaning jokes completely vanished. The comment by Daniel Tosh was not that far back in the time, people at that point were still trying to move away from

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such jokes. Today as well, many such rude and insensitive jokes are freely circulated on the net. What has changed though, is that people are taking note of these and more and more people are opposing these. And comics like Esposito, Gadsby, Silverman and various others are using their art to talk about these and making people think and fight against rape culture. The evolution of rape jokes does not end with this though. All the comics mentioned above, all the jokes which are criticized all have one thing in common, the victims in all these are women. Only the rape jokes, where the victim is a woman are discussed or criticized and are also the jokes which have seen the change mentioned above. The rape jokes which are made at the expense of male victims are still almost the same. These are predominantly seen in the special type of jokes called prison jokes. The main reason for why it may not have seen the change can be that male rapes are not as widely spoken of like the female rapes. Rape all over the world is a taboo but male rape is a taboo bigger than that. Comedians use prison rape jokes all the times and no one talks about these, and these are highly insensitive to prisoners who have faced these in the prison. People may think that prisoners are criminals and deserve all these and thus it is alright to make these jokes. To understand how insensitive these jokes can be one must watch the video uploaded by the Times on their youtube channel. It shows how these jokes appear to a prisoner who had to face harassment in the prison. One such joke made by Conan O'Brien says, “A police report described him as 5-foot-9 and 140 pounds or as his cellmates put it, just right.”(“Rape jokes we” 00:20-00:28). People still laugh at these prison jokes just as they used to laugh at the conventional rape jokes without thinking that it may hurt someone. When people say rape jokes are not funny, they mean it is not funny if the victim is women, prison jokes for many are still funny. These type of prison jokes and other rape jokes with male victims can be a topic for further research, as things may change as people have slowly started talking about male rapes and maybe the comedy industry will soon change their approach towards male rape jokes as they did with the female rape jokes.

References Andrews, T. M. (2018, Nov 16). Complicated grounds; edgy comics are flipping the script on rape as a punchline. Edmonton Journal Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2134170811?accountid=38885. . “Inside Amy Schumer - Football Town Nights”. Youtube, 22 April 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM2RUVnTlvs. Esposito, Cameron. “Rape Jokes”. Rape Jokes - Cameron Esposito, 2018, www.cameronesposito.com. "Hannah Gadsby: Nanette" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2019. Web. 22 Mar. 2019. .

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Newirth, J. (2006). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious: Humor as a fundamental emotional experience. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 16(5), 557- 571. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/233325379?accountid=38885. Solnit, R. (2015, Aug 10). If rape jokes are finally funny it's because they're targeting rape culture. The Guardian Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1702783114?accountid=38885. . “The Rape Jokes We Still Laugh At | NYT – Opinion”. Youtube, 9 July 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=14&v=ikqPnAhRo-c. The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper. “Cameron Esposito - Using Comedy to Talk About Sexual Assault - The Opposition w/ Jordan Klepper”. Youtube, 24 June 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aW4Q55fTb0. Wilstein, M. (2018, Apr 26). Cameron Esposito’s ‘Rape jokes’ is the first great stand-up set of the #MeToo era. The Daily Beast Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/2031154327?accountid=38885. Zinoman, J. (2011, Nov 19). Women comics in the U.S. are breaking taboos.International Herald Tribune Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/904535035?accountid=38885.

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