So on Wednesday, Penny-Arcade posted a comic with a rape joke. I became aware of this sometime on Thursday night, and was aghast but not entirely surprised, after all, the fruit fucker had been a regular character for a while (but fucked fruit...which doesn't have the capacity to give consent, doesn't have sex, and doesn't feel emotional or physical pain from being raped). I figured that like Dr. Laura or Micheal Richards they would realize "oh shit people get raped in real life and it totally sucks, dude, lets apologize" but instead they just gave the same reaction they did when Hallmark hassled them. IE: "fuck you, you're too sensitive".
So yeah.
I'm done. Just like I stopped reading CAD ironically when CAD guy posted the now-infamous miscarriage post, I'm done with Penny-Arcade. So, I am auctioning off all my penny-arcade merch on ebay and donating to Men Can Stop Rape, because, contrary to what Jerry and Mike espoused in their reactionary comic today, there is a lot that men can do to stop rape.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200508046911#ht_500wt_1139
9 comments:
Yes, you got offended by Penny Arcade's first reference ever to rape.
Oh wait.
I agree completely with Kai...
Do not try to generalize the use of off color jokes, and pretend that you, unlike everyone else, have the ability to wear the same face no matter the nature of the people you surround yourself with at a given moment.
One of the great things about being human is that we are able to use common sense, and thereby sense when it is "ok" to use such a joke. Maybe you just FEEL better, when you PRETEND that you are offended by something that you actually do find funny, do not give penny arcade shit for not caving into what has been a united mob of deeply hypocritical individuals
Wow. @Andreas so when is it "ok" to use rape jokes? I am intensely curious.
This comes super late, but I have to say that being raped is not funny. The very idea of being raped is definitely not funny, and I understand that it is a subject of concern for a lot of women, and rightfully so!
However, I also believe that the most powerful coping mechanism on the planet earth, with any and all forms of pain, is the ability to laugh at something. I think no subject should be exempt from being funny in the right context, within reason.
It is your right to take the subject of rape so seriously that you cannot laugh about it under any circumstance. And if you dislike anyone else who feels differently, then obviously that's your right and no one can make you read Penny Arcade if you don't want to read Penny Arcade.
However, to criticize others for expressing a different attitude about it, is going a little far. Obviously they don't take the subject seriously.
And, furthermore, I don't see how the comic condones rape as being hilarious, because that's not at all the point of the comic. The JOKE is that, as a player who has no personal investment in the personal feelings or safety of NPCs that don't concern him, the wolfen character cannot be bothered to help an NPC who is in a very harsh and cruel living situation. The exact situation is interchangeable, and not the point. It's not the introduction of the page, nor the punchline.
Nevertheless, you and others like you have gone up in arms over it, and have put up banners suggesting that they are okay with Rape, which to me is a more realistic reason to get upset with someone than making a joke about a scripted NPC in a videogame getting raped, which is the most nonsensical and ludicrous context to take offense over, in my opinion.
But, I'm not a feminist, so what the hell do I know? :P
to stop reading cad when the story got stupid is one thing, to pretend every rape of joke is victimizing the world is just bull crap.
1. the rape wwas entirely in reference
2. the characters and actions where fictitious
3. ITS NOT REAL RAPE, do you send hate mail to NBC and claim they are re raping victims with the show Law and Order SVU?
@ert3 (and DJ): The difference between SVU and the PA strip is that SVU doesn't use rape as the lead up to a punchline. This whole thing wouldn't be a big deal if Tycho and Gabe hadn't acted like those who protested were getting prissy over nothing.
When feminist sites put "trigger warnings" in front of articles, they aren't warning that someone's feelings might get hurt, they are warning that the article in question may trigger a PTSD attack.
Would you say that a PTSD-suffering soldier who protested against a joke that made light of their experiences was overreacting? What if the civilian who made that joke then proceeded to demean them and their criticisms by claiming that they just have "different senses of humor" and that the soldier should get a life for not understanding that they "weren't advocating terrible, life-scarring acts of war"?
Maybe you find it hypocritical, but the fact is that those of us who haven't been raped, myself included, don't have the right to talk or joke about the issue as if we know it the way rape victims do. It's like Jewish jokes. Mel Brooks making Jewish jokes is funny, because he's actually Jewish and is making fun of all the shit Jews have had to go through throughout history. His jokes are cathartic. Mel Gibson making Jewish jokes isn't funny, because he's an anti-semite, and his jokes are malicious, meant to hurt Judaism more than anything else.
Of course Tycho and Gabe didn't MEAN to hurt anyone with the original joke, but please understand that those who protested weren't geting upset over nothing.
...And now I come off like a douche. Look, my point isn't that the creators of Penny Arcade are terrible people for making a joke that mentions rape in a clearly exaggerated way. I laughed a bit at the joke myself.
My point is that the people who objected did so for a reason, and, to me at least, the offensive part isn't the original joke itself so much as how Penny Arcade responded to criticisms of said joke.
Reading the original criticisms made me think that those who reacted definitely had valid points, but they were probably overreacting a bit. Reading PA's response to the criticisms, however, made me think "Holy shit, the creators of Penny Arcade are complete douchebags, now I get why those people weren't overreacting at all!"
Jokes are not offensive. People take offense to jokes. Two very different things.
I know that this post is incredibly old but I am trying to understand why posts that deal with miscarriage in a very real and honest way would make you "stop reading CAD ironically"? How is that even on the same level as the PA dickwolves issue?
I didn't find the dickwolves joke offensive but that's probably because I'm not a rape survivor. I can see how rape survivors got incensed by it, however, because I was surprised by my reaction to this post. Having never read CAD before coming across this article, I went searching for the miscarriage post you referred to. Once I read them and wiped away my tears, I was angry. How dare you stop reading CAD because of those posts!
It's irrational and my anger is because people consider miscarriage a taboo, it should be talked about more often and I'm glad that someone had the balls to do it, yet the second he did you stopped reading. How incredibly small-minded of you.
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