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.
Technically, there’s not a subject that can’t be joked about, it’s just that the most common form of jokes sensitive subjects have are mocking or extremely disrespectful. Rape jokes often have the punchline of someone getting raped; however, you can, in fact, joke about rape. Wanda Sykes and Amy Schumer have made jokes about rape that were not offensive at all. Wanda Sykes had the “removable pussy” while Amy Schumer had the “army video game” and the “Coby courtroom” sketches.
There is also mocking yourself for your own appearance and mannerism and whatnot. It’s completely fine to make the punchline of the joke “haha! I’m fat” because you’re mocking yourself.
And it’s completely possible to choose your own beliefs because we all change in our lifetime. We learn new things, we see new things, people come, people go – everything can change and can change you. That’s why we have “born again Christians” and people who choose to no longer believe in god. That’s why we have “spiritual crises” and stuff and we find something to fill it in. We’re pretty moldable creatures in that way.
In relation to comedy:
As someone whose been going to open mics for a few years now, I try to put a lot of consideration into the jokes I tell and try to gauge the material based on the response I get from an audience. Admittedly, I sometimes took it personally – but I eventually got over myself and realized that the response a joke gets isn’t indicative of what people think of me. They just didn’t think it was funny, so I change it as best I can or scrap it. The reason I haven’t tried getting booked for any show is because, honestly, I only want to do that when I feel ready and am not arrogant enough to believe everything I say is gut-bursting hilarity. The fact I stopped my leg nervously while on stage was a big improvement and that took a while…
My approach is generally more irreverent, so I go the Mitch Hedberg route, because topical jokes get old very quickly and I honestly despise it when comedians use the stage as a soap box or some kind of therapy session. It’s why I can’t stand Nick DiPaolo or Colin Quinn – who just make personalized rants and, thus, treat every form of criticism like a personalized attack. Apparently the notion that they’re playing to an audience, who might not like it, is either something they don’t realize or do and yet still entitled enough to act like no one is allowed to act less-than-entertained by them.
Even comedians in my area have these bad habits – treating criticism of their material like personal attacks and often trying to rationalize or justify their hostility towards it. Although, to me, they’re just acting like giant fucking babies.
One guy I know was called out for his sex-obsessed jokes in a local weekly newspaper – not by name, by the way – and decided to best course of action was to mock the writer by claiming that she “needed to get laid.” It only ended up proving the writer’s point but he didn’t get it and went on to explain why she shouldn’t of been offended by the joke (which is simply a sign the joke failed). Unfortunately others, including his fiancee and a female comedian, used this as a reason to explain why modern day feminism was somehow total bullshit or whatever. They put up a meme mocking the notion of street harassment as being overstated – which is odd as the criticized comedian, some months before that, took issue with several men accosting his fiancee and put up signs near their hang-out point to make them stop doing so.
But, because one person (rightfully) pointed out a problematic element of his humor, suddenly it’s totally blown out of the water and people are too sensitive and blah blah blah blah blah blah fucking blah. He should’ve been happy that (again) he wasn’t even mentioned by name and yet made it obvious by taking umbrage. Is that ironic? Feels like it is…
Gah! Blockquote monster strikes again!
If he wants to know why many of the women didn’t come forward at the time of the rapes, he need look no further than his own reaction to the allegations.
If 40 women coming forward doesn’t convince him, then what hope would one woman have?
Also: I meant “[t]he fact I stopped my leg from shaking nervously while on stage was a big improvement and that took a while…”
I sometimes go back and forth with what I write and forget to add words… 🙁
Pandapool: “Technically, there’s not a subject that can’t be joked about, it’s just that the most common form of jokes sensitive subjects have are mocking or extremely disrespectful.”
Yes, that’s mocking done by assholes! You’re right, it’s possible to joke about anything, as long as you’re not an asshole.
Of course we change our beliefs, since we are all individuals, with unique experiences, and as our life changes, it’s possible for us to change our views. But it doesn’t mean that we could change our beliefs on demand. The change of mind comes from within, not usually because we are pressured by others, or scolded because we *could* change “if we really tried hard.”
Mitch Hedberg was great. I liked his style, too. Just short little quips, no long bits, no transitions. It was great and versatile. He went too soon.
And this is truth.
Tell that to a politician. Wakka wakka.
I also never said that it would be easy nor fast to change your beliefs, only that it can be done, and it’s a choice because there is no one answer to anything. A person who had a near death experience may become Christian or Buddhist or Kabala or decide not to believe anything at all. They may even hold onto their old beliefs. It’s all a choice.
peristyle-
Eh, I agree-ish with a caveat. Some of the best dark comedy can be mined from people talking about their own experiences of oppression. People finding a way to laugh about the frightening numbers of their fellow group who are murdered without reproach or who are denied fundamental rights can be healing and informative and cut through a lot of bullshit. Mining dark comedy out of the microagressions and the frustrations, the pain and the anger can allow one to heal from it and help others facing that experience to heal from it and can remind people of the humanity of those actually affected by a systemic problem.
But that must come internally, from people who have experienced the shittiest end of that particular stick. Rather than from their oppressors or from people trying to tap into a “shared experience” that often presumes cis-ness, heterosexuality, white-ness, male-ness, and middle-class-ness.
Which leads in to my response to this:
CONTENT WARNING: Terrible life experiences
Dark comedy can be mined out of anything. I’ve seen some devastatingly powerful sardonic wit mined out of all manner of horrific life events (modern day sex slavery, childhood molestation, physical and sexual assault, near-murder, suicide attempts, and so on…). But that was made by people who had unfortunately been burdened with those experiences with full awareness on their part that their works had full capability of hurting others and so tried to adequately warn their audience and do justice to the experiences.
Humor is often part of a healing process and a way to make the mind-breakingly terrifying less so. However, it is often harder to mine good, non-damaging humor out of dark events because of the reality of triggers and the risk of doing some very real damage to others if you fuck it up.
And that’s the thing most people are responding to with regards to asking for fewer comics to make “rape jokes” and the like. They are not saying that someone who has experienced these things can’t mine something darkly funny to process it or that someone can’t carefully construct a humorous means of getting people to focus on the humanity of a marginalized group or an axis of oppression (I mean, just see Daily Show, Colbert, or Last Week Tonight).
Rather they are saying they are sick and tired of lazy idiots stumbling into the “edgy” shit with no awareness of what they are doing and the wrong damn loyalties, making light of genuine suffering because, who cares, all of life’s a joke to an overprivileged white dude living in a nice house on the LA strip.
That’s not a “double standard” nor is it being too “insecure” to take “jokes”. It’s not willing to play nice and put up with genuinely damaging and harmful statements from some asshole who is unwilling to keep in mind that his hyperbole is someone’s reality. That some audience member might be having their day ruined because their “rape joke” just thrust them mentally back to when they were assaulted and gave them a week ruining panic attack.
CONTENT WARNING: Transphobia
And it’s an especially heavy price to ask of the marginalized to “take jokes better” when so often the privileged and dominant groups exploit “I was only kidding” to further entrench bigoted beliefs and perpetuate harmful stereotypes that lead directly to further oppression. Someone making a “shem**e” joke about trans people and laughing it up about “ch**s with d**s” may seem relatively innocuous from the perspective of a shitty cis person laughing at the lowest common denominator. But on the ground, those “jokes” about how disgusting or vile the thought of “those” people are directly perpetuates a culture where cis straight dudes feel wholly justified in killing trans women who give them an errant boner or who look too “attractive” by some arbitrary standard. As such, when trans women encounter these “jokes”, it is not “insecure” of them to react poorly and strongly to them and ask the speaker to think before they make such comments. It’s not them “censoring” someone or showing a “double standard” or “insecurity”, it is understanding a genuine threat to their own right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and deciding to use their own free speech to note the social cost of certain unthinking “jokes”.
Which is not to say that trans life experiences can’t be mined for humor. Get 2 trans people in a room and they will often gladly do so as laughing about how much they get shit on is the only way to keep from weeping.
But it needs to be done by people who know what the fuck they are doing.
Cerberus: “But it needs to be done by people who know what the fuck they are doing.”
That pretty much says it all there! I agree. There’s a fine line between joke (good natured, or black humor from a fellow sufferer) and an asshole saying, “Lighten up! It’s a joke!” with complete tone-deaf insensitivity.
It’s got a lot of risks. I do see double standards. Some people can be assholes or blind to the hypocrisy of “it’s okay if I do it, but not okay if you do it,” even though they don’t view themselves in that way. (And in may in fact view themselves as the opposite of that.)
But that’s better discussed in more specific terms, and to be honest I am feeling a bit worn out right now! All I can say is, if you’re not an asshole, the likelihood of you crossing the line is far less.
Funny how arguing about the nature of humor leads to such tedious and in-funny conversations.
@WWTH:
Holy shit that’s awesome! That’s awesome in ways I can’t begin to express!
@ WWTH and Mockingbird
The Salon article does a good job of pointing out what’s wrong with that email/Facebook post that’s been doing the rounds.
However I think it’s wrong to dismiss seldom defence entirety.
Obviously there’s always the proviso that nobody is under any obligation to protect themselves and it’s always the assailant’s fault, but many women have benefitted from knowing self defence so it’s good that such knowledge is available as an option for those who wish to learn.
The key thing of course is to learn something useful. There is so much BS out there. Filtering the wheat from the chaff is the first hurdle.
As I mentioned above this is something I could go on about for days, but I’ll shut up unless anyone has any specific questions.
Hello from Brazil!
I don’t know if anyone will read this, but I just… I know the lives of feminists are full of negativity, so I think reading this will make you happy.
When I was younger, I was an anti-feminist. Of course, for male approval, as many of us do. About one year ago, I’ve been through rape. I heard all the worst victim blaming bs you can ever think of, from everyone, from the doctor ,from the cops, from my family. That’s when I entered feminism, and everything I have ever been through made sense. But if feminism was easy, it would not be called a fight… Feminism opened my eyes and I started seeing such ugly things… Such ugly people… Even inside online feminism, the feeling of sorority and casual, curious debate was rare. If you asked for sources, they gave you opinion articles in feminist sites. If you said those ones wouldn’t do, they started screaming at you. I don’t blame them, they are
young, suffered lots, and in certain online groups the atmosphere IS pretty aggressive. But I was antifeminist for a long time, see, you couldn’t simply tell me theres a wage gap without showing evidence. In the middle of this, i fell deep into depression and PTSD. There were a lot of monsters out there and the only group who ever tried to help me were also freaking mad at me for not automatically taking their words as law.
Then I discovered this site. It’s safe to say I read all posts of the last two or three years, as well as lots of the comments section. This site and it’s commenters gave me hope and taught me many things. It showed me some men actually care, and gave me hope that the toxic, self superior guys who once scared me so much, because I saw them in power, I saw them in my family, they are just big clowns, without a point and without a future, because they will never win. And this comment section, of kind, wonderful, genius, mature feminists, got me to actually understand feminist arguments, thought and history in a way no online feminist ever was patient enough to show me. I really appreciate how you take your time to actually answer the trolls, backing yourselves with sources, instead of just dismissing them. You have no idea how much I have learned from you this year, all passively, just printscreening your comments and saving the helpful links. Much beyond the sassy-but-empty, because-I-said-so discourse that unfortunately seems to be the rule of youmg online feminists in my country and does not satisfact the thick headed. Keep rocking on the comments so I can keep learning and teaching others!
I mean a serious, tear filled thank you for David and the constant commenters. I can’t remember them all, but one that comes to mind is WeirdWoodTreeHugger, you rock! Thank you for teaching me so much!
I have been wanting to write this comment for a while, haha, but lacked the bravery. I am seriously a bit of a fan of you people. Now I did it, I may be brave enough to comment sometimes, maybe ask some questions, if it wouldn’t bother you. As stupid as my questions may sound, I assure you, I am not a troll. Hope I never come off as one.
Ps:thank you for that video on rape. It was awesome. Really, thank you lots for it.
David, something I have been wanting to tell you. First, thank you. Second, I read your site in mobile, and I would like to warn that I can’t access the… I think the word in English would be hashtags? I have to use the search engine, which doesn’t always point to what I’m looking for. Also, while I’m commenting here, if I type too fast the system mixes and messes up what I’m writing. It’s horrible. Just letting you know. I use Android.
And now it’s more than 50, I believe. But yeah. Anyone who points to some Muslim country and says “But look how much worse they have it!” should look at the Cosby case and STFU. Most Sharia-observing areas require far fewer female witnesses than that to convict a man of rape. The First World is the Worst World, by that standard!
Chiomara,
Welcome and thank you.
Alan,
The point isn’t that it’s bad to learn self defense. The point is that by telling women to learn self defense – among other safety tips – we’re making rape prevention about what the victims are doing or not doing rather than putting 100% of the focus on the rapist. The one who has made the choice to rape. Plus, since most rape is someone the victim knows and trusts, rather than a stranger lurking in an alley self defense doesn’t always come into it. Also, as the other points out, since women are often not believed when they are raped, there’s always a chance a woman will get in legal trouble for self defense. This is particular true for women of color.
@ WWTH
That’s why it always has to be made clear it’s an option, not an obligation
Proper SD training will cover all scenarios, including the more common acquaintance stuff and also the legal aspects.
That’s why you have to shop around to get the decent stuff.
@Alan – It’s been a bit now since I read it, but I believe that the author does positively reference _The Gift of Fear_ in (especially in comparison to rote rules), and I think that anyone can benefit from basic (and competent) self defense training – you never know when knowing how easy it is to pull off someone’s ear might come in handy 😉 – but WWTH’s points hold true as well.
Emphasizing self defense *can* lead to victim blaming, habitually practicing “safe” rules (buy your own drinks, keep your hand over your drink, travel in groups) can feel like a prison, and legitimate countermeasures against aggression can land women in legal trouble (see the article’s examples).
Personally, I’m stuck philosophically – I’d love to not feel like I have to teach my girls self defense and discuss with them lists of DOs and DON’Ts, but I’m going to.
I’m also going to make sure they know that there are no perfect scenarios, that something happening to them doesn’t mean that they’ve failed or are at fault, that men can be victims of sexual assault and violence as well, and that they should never coerce or force someone into something…but damned if some of those lists and rules that I wish weren’t necessary are still.
I know that at least one time one of them – getting into a crowded place as quickly as possible if something feels wrong – saved my neck for sure.
@ Mockingbird
Coincidentally, this story just popped up.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2015/sep/07/sex-attacker-mark-willis-kickboxer-jailed-cheltenham
It is important to make sure that spreading knowledge of self defence doesn’t lead to putting the onus on women to prevent attacks.
I think it’s helpful though to let people know their options, and to correct a few fallacies; especially the idea that you have to be super fit or even able bodied to learn effective self defence.
A lot of SD is preventative anyway. That’s not to say you have to live in a bubble. The whole point of SD is that you shouldn’t have to limit your actions to stay safe. A major aspect is just giving off the hard target vibe.
The legal side is important and oft neglected. That is one of my main areas. If you are briefed properly on the law though *before* any use of force you are pretty safe though from a legal perspective. As I put it “It’s not what you do that gets you in to trouble; it’s what you say afterwards”.
Hey guys,
Sorry for such an off-topic post, but I have a “poll” for my Humanities class that I have to present on a “political” website, and this one is the only one I lurk/frequently. I need 10 replies, so for any kind-hearted souls in the audience:
“When I think of Appalachia, I think of ___?”
Thank you so much in advance!
Ally, I think of the movie Deliverance. I know that’s bad, but I swear it’s because I’m a horror movie buff!
@Ally
Mountains. The Appalachian Mountains.