POSTED 1:48 11/7/2012

RE: So a Girl Walks into a Comedy Club....

collaterlysisters:

breakfastcookie:

This is something that happened to a friend of mine in her own words.

“So, on Friday night my friend and I were at her house and wanted to get out and do something for the evening. We brainstormed ideas and she brought up the idea of seeing a show at the Laugh Factory. I’d never been, I thought…

There’s been a particular sort of response to this - usually something really venal and plodding about Tosh’s identity as an edgy guy who pushes the envelope and bringing the darkness in the world to light.  It’s a generous, that-was-out-of-line-but, he obviously thinks rape is bad sorta thing.  And really, who wouldn’t want that to be the case?  However:

1. He could have said, “how funny would it be if I got gang-raped, right now, on stage?”  It wouldn’t have been unproblematic or made everyone happy but it would have blurred lines.  It would have been a snappy response with some art to it.  It might have evoked the kind of contrast that actually makes people think about shit they usually don’t, which the Edgy Comedian is apparently all about.  He didn’t do that, though, because he’s a talentless little prick with a dime-a-dozen stand-up ego.  It was a fundamentally lazy and cruel joke, and it shows.  Blubbering about context only shows that Tosh has failed on more than one front.
2. Lenny Bruce was getting arrested for being edgy back when Tosh’s parents still loved each other.  Being Edgy is painfully old.  Anyone can do it at this point.  If you want to be something special, do it well.  Do something new.  You think you’re the first stand-up to run a set about rape jokes?  George Carlin has lived and died in your lifetime, Tosh!  You are paid to know these things, Tosh!
3. My mother told me that I always need three entries in a numbered list.