Just a note: I wrote this article after David Haye made a media faux pas. I can understand if people get offended by it. But before you do try to just consider the point I was trying to make. The magazine didn't run the article and I fully understand why. I just want it out there.
Words, Words, Words
A joke: Statistically nine out of ten people enjoy gang rape.
That got your attention. Why start an article with this joke?
World Heavyweight Champion David Haye recently commented that in his upcoming match, opponent Audley Harrison was going to be “violated” and that the bout is going to be as “one sided as a gang rape”. Duly the media world gasped as one and asked him to apologise for his comments. Haye side stepped the apology and now more and more people are discussing the use of the word rape.
Newspapers and TV shows have recently been publishing and presenting articles and saying that the use of the word rape is abhorrent as a metaphor or simile and slammed comedians for using it as a joke; the clones of Mary Whitehouse whipped themselves into a frenzy using her spinning body as a dynamo for the censorship arguments & agreed with the journalists/TV presenters. YOU SHOULDN’T MAKE JOKES ABOUT RAPE. This stirred angry feelings inside of me.
Now let me get this straight – I don’t think the act of rape is some trivial matter. Far from it. It is hideous, animalistic and as many other adjectives you can think of that would show how disgusted I am by it. However, that doesn’t mean I think that comedians should not be allowed to talk about it or make jokes. That’s the point of some forms of comedy. To push the subjects that are taboo. Ah but what about racist jokes you say – well, if we’re honest (to paraphrase Freud from ‘Wit and it’s relation to the Unconscious) we still laugh because we know we shouldn’t laugh and that’s what makes it funny. We are all guilty of it too – we have all told ‘an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsmen’ joke. Lest we forget, those are racist jokes.
I digress. My point is that we can’t want to become some form a Orwellian Language or Humour Police telling people what they can and can’t say. The journalists then go on to argue that people who make these jokes (on stage, in conversations) are cruel because they assume that this has not happened to the person they are conversing with (statistics are then regularly thrown up about one in four women in the UK being victims of sexual assault, the journalists though seem to leave out the statistics for men). If we followed that thought about what we say could have a negative effect on every person then we could never say what we want or ever make a joke for fear of causing offence to every single person we met. Maybe I shouldn’t say the word ‘fuck’ anymore as the person I am talking too maybe hasn’t had sex for a awhile or is a virgin and so I am making fun of them. Maybe I shouldn’t say the word ‘shit’ because the person I am talking to is constipated. You get the idea.
They appear to miss the point about some comedians. They are meant to make you wince, and look at each other and say ‘Can you get away with that?’ If you don’t like that comedy don’t watch it. One journalist quotes: “...in the midst of some material about drink-driving, Ricky Gervais said: "I've done it once and I'm really ashamed of it. It was Christmas - I'd had a couple of drinks and I took the car out. But I learned my lesson. I nearly killed an old lady. In the end I didn't kill her. . .I just raped her." Geddit? (Me neither.)” The joke here is obvious – to become all analytical about it and sap any humour you may have found – Gervais is pointing out some bad things he is doing (1) He has been drink driving (2) He nearly killed an old lady – phew, she is still alive let’s hope he learned his lesson (3) He raped her. That’s the joke. He is saying he is evil, he didn’t kill her - he raped her instead. Fine if you don’t laugh, but don’t assume that others will not, and then try to make them feel guilty for laughing at it.
Words are powerful. That’s the point. They will only be trivialised by people who do not understand language, or will be used even more because journalists try so hard to point out how these people should be stopped from saying these words; this will cause more people to use them because we all like to provoke a reaction.
So there we have it. Rape is not funny. We have been told by the media. However the comedian George Carlin has said “imagine Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd...that’s funny”. And it is. So rape is funny. And on and on the debate goes.
I have the feeling though that if Haye had said ‘I’m going to murder him’ , all this talk wouldn’t have happened at all. Strange that.
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