My reticence isn’t a dodge: I didn’t want to do a whole unpacking of the comic explaining myself because in other threads – mostly recently the Spartacus thread – my earnest and lengthy responses were seen as an attempt to win via quantity instead of quality, and on this board I’ve spent too much time working up arguments that’re casually dismissed in two seconds. But all right, let’s go ahead with it. I’ve still got to meet my writing quota, and I couldn’t think of a topic, so this works out well. Here’s two hours’ worth of row hoeing.
My reading of your position, minus the goading and rustic metaphors: Anyone who thinks that PA used rape to get a laugh performed a fundamental misreading of the comic.
Since you’ve certainly already heard the arguments from offended readers, I don’t think a rehashing of that will change your mind. I basically agree with this paragraph from Shakespeare’s Sister:
Rape isn’t a part of the game, so for the slave to explicitly state he is being raped is a “humorous” exaggeration. When he hero tells the slave his quest is complete and instructs him not to make it “weird,” we’re meant to laugh: “Haha, what a strange underreaction!”
The punchline is that the hero* is indifferent, and for that to be funny, he needs to be indifferent to something so-awful-it’s-funny: hence the rape (so awful) by dickwolves (it’s funny). So you don’t accept that. That’s fine. Here’s two reasons why you should.
First, proximity. If I hear the word rape and I’m supposed to be laughing two seconds later, that’s a good sign I’m hearing a rape joke. The precise mechanics almost become irrelevant – you’re putting rape and a good belly laugh side by side. That’s when I think laughter becomes dangerous/dismissive. Laughter is automatic and unconscious, so there’s consequences to telling jokes like this. It creates Pavlovian responses (I laughed at this joke, therefore this joke is funny, therefore rape is funny) which are irrational but still potent. And in breaking a taboo for a joke, it begins to normalize that taboo. One joke can’t be held responsible for a rape culture any more than one drop of water can be held responsible for the Grand Canyon, but we’ve still got the Grand Canyon and we still have a rape culture.**
Second, the sheer number of people who were pissed off about this. The fact that this thing has its own tumblr says to me the plaintiffs aren’t exactly a minority. Of course, “what’s popular isn’t always what’s right,” etc., but in any field of interpretation which is almost completely subjective, popularity correlates with correctness. Now I was an English major, and I heard a lot of really dumb, straight-up wrong interpretations. I don’t mean to say anything goes. Personally, I think the offended interpretation is in no way far-fetched, and was my first reaction on reading the comic. But if it isn’t, the burden of proof is on you guys for that one. So far I’ve only heard flat, general assertions:
There was no reason to get upset with the first comic
It wasn’t making a joke of rape.
Aaron actually makes a counter-critique – the joke doesn’t work unless we agree rape is terrible – but I think they’re exploiting the fact that this particular society thinks rape is terrible. If Gabe and Tycho thought it was really terrible, they wouldn’t have made this comic. But who’s right and who’s wrong isn’t the main issue at hand, here. People tell bad jokes on the internet all the time. It’s the spirit of this joke which bothers me most.
What I find troubling about both PA’s position and the position of their apologists is the reflexive certitude. It makes sense here, since we plaintiffs are basically accusing you (in the general sense, not you in particular, Rimbo) of a callous, cavalier attitude towards something as awful as rape. In your position I too would probably outright reject the idea rather than acknowledge its possibility. Nobody thinks they’re an asshole, after all. And honestly, I wouldn’t call the PA guys assholes for putting up the comic, or you an asshole for defending it. I think intent is what decides that, and I doubt PA intended to be so callous.
But people say a lot of hurtful things without meaning to, and its in those moments where a non-asshole apologizes – whether he means it or not. Because at that point, you’ve been made aware of the offense, and you’re deciding whether or not that offense is “valid.” And I’m not sure validity comes into play – you can claim they got upset for the wrong reasons, but unless you’re 100% sure you’re right, you can’t dismiss the resulting, genuine offense.
PA dismissed it (and are still dismissing it, though more softly). Tycho’s response, “those who felt that we were somehow advocating the actual rape of human beings,” doesn’t at all characterize the nature of the offense, and smacks of a straw man defense mechanism. How to reconcile the dissonance between “I think, therefore I think I am right” and “you’re an asshole”? Turn the people calling you an asshole into morons! Rimbo, you do the same thing with your phrasing:
the anti-dickwolves hysterics
Is that really any way to announce you’re serious about considering another perspective? It’s also telling that you’d use the word hysterics, which, with its connotations of men dismissing females as irrational, is a microcosm of this whole issue.
Below Tycho’s post, Gabe invokes the Humorist’s Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech! If you don’t like it, don’t read it! I agree with that – comedians need to have the ability to go anywhere with their comedy. Nothing is off-limits (though the less appropriate the joke, the funnier it has to be) because who’s to say what’s appropriate and what’s not? Censorship is evil. But this is more a question of tact; censorship says “You cannot say this,” while tact just says, “You probably shouldn’t say this.”
We all have an inner censor who tells us when to bite our tongue. The censor is calibrated by our culture and our relationship to it. Read through the PA archives and you get a very clear sense of their personal subculture simply by seeing what it is they find funny. And they find gay jokes and dickwolves jokes funny, among other things. It marks them as socially privileged straight, white, geek, males. They’ve made a good living catering to that audience, and most of the time you don’t even have to check every box: you just have to be a geek. “The Sixth Slave,” though, is an example of those deeply exclusive strips where they put the shingle out on their boy’s clubhouse: no feminists, no gays, no rape victims, etc. Which shows to me a very troubling lack of empathy. They are the biggest wecomic going. They have an audience in the millions. And a number of people in that audience went online, opened up PA, saw that comic, and were reminded of a deep pain while luckier people got to laugh about it. Not only that, but a lot of rape accusations are dismissed by the only people who can do something about them, a scenario reenacted by the last panel.
Apparently they did not anticipate that this comic would be offensive. Gabe writes, “There is no way we can know what each and every person who reads the comic has decided to find offensive.” I would think it’d be pretty easy to write this comic, look at it, and realize, “Oh, right, anybody who’s been raped would of course find this offensive.” Whether they agree with it or not is another matter – this is just a simple question of utility. Will this joke be worth the offense it causes? Apparently they thought so.
But maybe they honestly were taken aback, and they simply lack the empathic equipment to imagine another person’s response. Ignorance isn’t an excuse in this case – they should have known better, they have a responsibility to know better. They’re a webcomic. Their reason for existing is to provide three chuckles a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Shit-stirring at that scale should be left to the Ricky Gervais’s, Louis CKs, and George Carlins of the world, who do it a little more responsibly.
I feel like the people who were offended were right in being offended, but even if I didn’t, I think they have the right to be offended. It just seems like good practice not to make these kinds of jokes. What’s the downside? It’s like with global warming. Say that in fifty years irrefutable proof shows that global warming is a myth, and that hybrid cars and recycling don’t do shit to save the environment. Does that mean it was a bad idea to drive hybrids and recycle? No, it didn’t cost us anything except our right to drive obnoxious SUVs and be lazy with our trash. Same thing for PA – are they really placing their own right to make rape jokes over the feelings of their audience? Is that something worth going to the mat over?
*This is a total sidebar, but isn’t it kind of interesting how the hero is a wolfman? Perhaps he’s related to the dickwolves, and excusing their crimes.
**Just came across this page… I even used the same analogy as her. So if you want a fuller explication of this paragraph, go ahead and read that too. It’s kind of bizarre how closely my ideas mimic hers. Luckily this isn’t for a class, so you’ll believe me when I say I didn’t plagiarize.
