Comedian Damon Wayans seems to be a shoo-on for this week’s Shitty Rape Apologist Shithead of the Week award.
In an interview on Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club show on Friday, Wayans attacked Bill Cosby’s accusers — or at least the majority of them — as money-hustling “bitches” too ugly to have been really raped.
Wayans’ explanation for why 50 women have stepped forward with similar stories of drugging and sexual assault at the hands of Cosby?
I don’t believe he was raping. I think he was in relationships with all of them, and then he’s like, ‘You know what, [I’m] 78, I can’t get it up for any of y’all, bye bitches.’ And now they’re like, ‘Oh, really? Rape.’ Forty years — listen, how big is his penis that it gives you amnesia for 40 years? …
If you listen to them talk, they go, ‘Well, the first time…’ The first time? Bitch, how many times did it happen? Just listen to what they’re saying and some of them really is unrape-able. I look at them and go, ‘I don’t want that. Get outta here.’ [Laughs]
He added:
Look, I understand fame. I’ve lived it. Women will throw themselves at you. They just want to be in your presence. There’s some that innocently will come up there, but not 40-something women. They’re not that naïve.
You’re talkin’ about, what, in 1965 he just walked into someone’s dressing room and put his penis in their mouth?
Backtracking a little, Wayans later said that he thought some of the accusations could be true.
And for them, my heart goes out to them. For anybody who was raped by Bill Cosby, I’m sorry, and I hope you get justice. You other bitches, look. …
What’s the joy of banging someone who’s asleep?
Lovely.
Breakfast Club co-host Angela Yee pushed back against some of Wayans’ assertions, pointing out that many of the women came forward decades ago. In an aside that seems to have gone unnoticed in the coverage of Wayans’ remarks, she said that when she was a little girl her mother told her she knew someone who’d been drugged (and presumably raped) by Cosby.
50 women have already come forward; I wonder how many more there are?
For more quotes from the interview, see Gossip Cop. Or you can watch the actual interview below; skip ahead to 26 minutes in.
Not to mention that he seems to think that rape’s all about the rapist raping someone they find attractive, when that’s not always the case. Sometimes, it’s just about how ‘easy’ the target looks to conquer.
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/614/729/e62.gif
I’ll second that.
I think it’s hilarious that these talentless fuckers are crying because they can’t be “offensive” anymore, when the fact of the matter is, if you have to be offensive to a group of people to be “funny”, you were only funny to the worst kind of people in the first place, and I’m glad you’re getting phased out because that’s a sign of fucking social progress.
Step the fuck down and make way for the new generation, you old pieces of shit.
That poem. Damn. Thank you for sharing that.
Also, I miss George Carlin.
One of my male friends, a very great feminist guy, gets aroused by rape. It’s not too unusual. He, of course, does not rape women but has removed himself from situations where women are drinking and vulnerable because he is getting turned on inappropriately.
It’s not unusual to “get off ” on rape, but good people do what my friend does and have self control and respect for others.
AMEN.
Also agreed. I’ve been sick and tired of the old “Get over it!” or “It’s just a joke!” ‘arguments’ that have been flung every which way for quite a while. I know I have a sense of humor. It’s just that their “jokes” just aren’t cutting it.
Reminds me of this horrid stand up from last year’s “Last Comic Standing”. Basically, the horrid standup involved the guy making “jokes” about how women can’t design video games because “LOL, PMS!”
No surprise that I stopped watching the minute that got him to the top ten.
This should be the end of Damon Wayans. Hannibal Buress, on the other hand, should be fine.
We do need heroes in the Black community, but we don’t need to idolize rapists. Bill Cosby has already admitted under oath that he drugged one woman and then had sex with her. How is that not rape? Shame on Damon. Loved his shows and am disappointed at his misogyny. I’m surprised he hasn’t issued a pseudo apology as yet.
I think he said his true reasons for doubting the Cosby rape victims when he said, and I’m paraphrasing, “We need heroes.” Bill Cosby was probably this guys hero and he can’t accept that his hero did such a horrible thing.
Never heard of this sack of crap, and looks like I’m not missing out.
If people don’t laugh at your jokes, you’re not funny. And if your response to people not laughing is to insist that you actually are funny and they’re wrong, well, stand-up may not be for you.
It’s also not surprising that many women have fantasies about rape. However, there’s a difference between a fantasy that you agree to act out with someone you love and/or trust and consent to having sex with, and someone using your fantasies as an excuse to rape you without any prior knowledge or consent.
Good on your friend for understanding that he is in a position to do harm and removing himself when things get out of hand, and not blaming women for any lack of self-control on his part.
http://i.imgur.com/oU9uH4k.jpg
Yeah, it always raises my hackles when people tell me I just don’t “get it”. No, I get it. I get that you’re a douchebag who thinks that you can make a joke at someone’s expense and you and you expect that person who is the butt of your joke to laugh, especially when they’re already mistreated by everyone around them who isn’t the same as they are.
Reminds me of how MRAs make jokes about beating, raping, and killing women, but “male tears” jokes aren’t funny at all how very dare you joke about that do you laugh when men commit suicide?!
Paradoxical Intention: This is deeply and highly ironic, coming from the kind of men, who make prison rape jokes, about men.
“Or you can watch the actual interview below; skip ahead to 26 minutes in.”
I think I’ll pass, thanks. *tries not to vomit*
Sn0rkmaiden, that’s a magnificent poem and I’m now fiercely researching and watching all the rest of his work. Thank you so much for linking.
@Sissy
Oh, I remember that one. It was the guy who sounded exactly like Jerry Seinfeld, too. I remember losing interest in the whole season after that performance. Even the basic premise was just incorrect and betrayed the comic’s ignorance on the subject. He started out by saying something like “I know why women don’t make videogames”. Even before he got to the jokes, I was already thinking “but.. they do”. One of the jokes was “when you die in the game, you can just keep on playing, but the game will never let you forget that mistake you made before”. My first thought: every game lets you keep on playing even if you die. Worst case is you start over from the beginning, but modern games rarely work like that. Look at the more recent Mario games, even. You have “lives” but they barely mean anything. You lose your last life, you just get 3 new lives.
—
I’ve been thinking of this with comedy for a while. I think there’s a type of lazy jokes that rely on the audience being as ignorant on the subject as the comedian is. They require that the performer and the audience share a common mental stereotype about a subject. If the listener happens to know too much about the subject, they can’t relate to the stereotype and the joke will just seem incorrect and stupid.
Myself, I often have this response to American jokes about football/soccer. There’s a common American stereotype that soccer is incredibly boring, all games end in a 0-0 draw, and the players are just slowly passing the ball around to the nearest teammates in midfield. This kind of joke can get huge laughs even from let’s say a Colbert Report audience. And it’s not that I don’t “get” the joke – I know about this stereotype. It’s just that I happen to actually watch soccer almost every week, and this stereotype makes no sense to me. I can only think “that’s incorrect, but ok”. I’m not offended, I just think it’s a bad joke which relies on a flawed premise.
I’ve been thinking maybe this is in part related to the problem with these comedians complaining that they can’t do their material in colleges anymore. There are obviously jokes on certain topics, like rape and racism, that can be a lot more offensive than a joke about soccer, but even if you’re not particularly offended you can still find the joke incredibly unfunny because you don’t share the antiquated stereotype that the comedian has chosen to rely on.
I heard that the Seinfeld joke was something about guys who swipe there touch screen phones with their finger look like “gay French kings” or something. And he’s surprised that a young, intelligent audience didn’t find that very funny? Well, maybe because these ignorant stereotypes aren’t relatable to most young people anymore. Seinfeld learned his craft decades ago, and he’s expecting to still make people laugh with the same tools. It’s like going on stage with only Spiro Agnew jokes. Dude it’s over, leave the stage.
Apologies for numerous spelling errors.
Where do we stop? It’s clear that no comic has a “right” to get booked somewhere. If the people doing the booking don’t like his jokes, bad luck for him. Sure. And we also can agree that, for example, MRA jokes about rape, etc. are stupid, tasteless, offensive, disgusting, etc. So let’s be offended by them and try to prevent them from being said. What’s next? Ok, jokes about jews are obviously bad. Let’s prevent them, too. Simple thing. Next? Jokes about republicans. Weeeelll… Ok, why not? Republicans are idiots, after all. And then? I know this is a slippery slope argument, but somehow I don’t see any good way to draw a line. Where will it end? In a world where noone will be offended? Sounds like Utopia. Or perhaps Dystopia, because such a place would be a place without any free speech at all. Is that worth it?
@Twisted Inspiration
Well, for one, you can choose to become Republican. You don’t always choose to become Jewish; Jewish is a very small an ethnic minority which have been enslaved and killed off for centuries.
There’s a clear distinction between joking about Jewish people and Republicans and you know it.
What’s the point in admitting that bad comics don’t have a right to be booked, admitting that you’re making an idiotic slippery slope argument, and then yelling “But but but FREEZE PEACH”? You’ve already handed us two enormous points against your own argument!
Oh, whatever, I’ll humour you since I have a few minutes to waste while dinner cooks: Despite what half the bloody Internet seems to believe, free speech is a two-way street, and there is no law that states you must be this conservative to enjoy your First Amendment rights. Yes, bad comics are allowed to say whatever offensive, unfunny bullshit they like (you might not have noticed, but nobody is calling for them to be banned), but we’re allowed to say that they suck harder than a tornado full of vacuum cleaners and venues are – as you said yourself – allowed to not book them.
… Also, it’s really quite fucked up to read a thread about a guy saying that Cosby is innocent because his victims are “Unrapeable” and throw a freeze peach tantrum.
@Twisted Inspiration:
Remember that free speech isn’t about the right to be heard. Free speech means that you have the right to say things to other fellow believers without getting arrested. People can choose not to book you as a speaker or a comedian without violating your free speech. They can choose not to buy your books or vote for you or let you comment on their website. You just can’t be arrested for saying it to people who choose to listen to it. That’s all.
@Twisted Inspiration –
Comedians have to know their audience and write for their audience. They also have to acknowledge that their audience will only book them based on how much they enjoy their comedy.
To use your example, a comedian can write jokes that consist entirely of angry tirades against Republicans—not dependent on whether Republicans are lousy enough to justify it (again, that’s another discussion entirely), but because it’s a free country, and this particular comedian can do what they want. They are allowed to make brutally scathing jokes that only a left-leaning audience will find funny. However, that comedian would be rightly mocked if they proceeded to get offended that the Republican National Convention did not invite them to perform. “What, I called the entire GOP a bunch of peabrained incarnations of evil in my act, and now Republicans won’t give me money? How dare they!” It just doesn’t make sense.
So now comedians are facing a generation of people who are, on the whole, squicked out by rape jokes, racism and homophobia. Comedians have every right to continue making rapey, racist, and homophobic jokes, but in doing so, they are alienating huge swaths of their potential audiences. If they are committed to that brand of humor, then they are committing to an increasingly niche audience (i.e. unpleasant white dudebros who aren’t bothered by rape or by racial/sexual slurs).
If comedians want the big audience, they have to perform humor that the big audience actually finds funny.
There is no “drawing the line”. It’s simply a matter of people giving patronage to comedians they actually like.
God damn it Damon you were the funniest Wayans, and now I can’t like you anymore. Douche.
Where do we stop? When we’re taking the piss out of people who haven’t been victimized. Ridiculing the “others” in society is the laziest, most un-creative humor there is. A 10 year old bully knows how to do that. It’s hacky and pathetic.
Free speech doesn’t entitle you to an audience. We’re not talking about arresting anyone. If you want people to listen to your speech, you have to say something worth being heard.
So what he is basically saying is that of course Cosby didn’t rape them, he only had sex with them (multiple times since “he was in relationships with all of them”), cause they are waaaaay too uggo to be raped?
Is… is that the way it works in reality? All the beautiful women get over there in the raping line and all the ugly ones in the consensual sexing one?
Cause that is depressing as hell and makes you wonder why any beautiful women would want to interact with any man whatsoever.
As for the free speech fetish I only have two things to say:
1) American free speech laws are not the worlds free speech laws. And as someone from a country that has hate speech laws in the constitution, thank fucking god for that.
2) Funny how they always only come out when it’s priviledged people being slightly inconvenienced.
A woman gets mobbed away from all social media with death and rape threats, essentially cutting off her chance to let her voice be heard by the internet? *Crickets*
A man working as a freelancer (cause that’s what a comedian essentially is) is not being hired to perform in every single venue populated by the very people he intends to insult and possibly trigger? “Oh my god, worst threat to our freedom of speech in our lifetimes! Quick, find out who said they would feel uncomfortable having him there and tell them to go kill themselves!”
Funny how some people think their own ignorance is an argument.
Do you often write in the third person to describe yourself?