The current controversy over Daniel Tosh being heckled at a live show that "rape is never funny" and his responding that "Wouldn't it be funny if 5 guys raped [the heckler] right now?" brings up several issues and responses from several parts of my brain.
Many of Tosh's defenders talk about the heckling and the backlash as an affront to his civil liberties, that freedom of speech means he can say whatever he wants.
To those who say "she shouldn't be heckling", the part of me that believes women are, shockingly! people too, says: she has the same basic human rights as he does, so just as he is free to propel whatever sounds out of his mouth that he chooses, she is too. He can perform, she can heckle, he can strike back, she could say something back to him, the government is not stopping either of them.
The Bill of Rights fan in me says: you seem to be confusing freedom of speech with freedom from critique. Saying what you want is legal, so is criticizing someone for what they said.
Some of Tosh's defenders are taking great offense at this being characterized as a threat. They insist that Tosh wasn't condoning rape, that the woman was in no danger of being gang-raped there and then, and it's not like if 1-5 guys did get up and try to rape her in the theater in front of Tosh and the rest of the audience that they all would have just watched.
The Law & Order fan in me says: not a threat? If the heckler had been raped at or after the show, Jack McCoy would try him for inciting it, like he did in an episode about a hate crime following a white supremacist rally or the like. Would charges like that get filed in the real justice system? I'm not a lawyer. I mention it to draw you to reflect on whether you think it's not a threat simply because no one followed through.
The linguist in me says: "wouldn't it be funny if X" means "wouldn't it cause pleasure, amusement, and probably laughter if X". This is not "interpretation" or "reading in to what he said", this is what the word "funny" means. So by saying it would be pleasurable and entertaining, how is saying "wouldn't it be funny if you were raped right now?" not condoning the rape of this woman.
The consumer of comedy entertainment in me says: if you saw this interaction while you were at a show for an envelope pusher like Tosh, and then some guys grabbed the woman and were getting ready to rape her, wouldn't you think that it was a stunt? Wouldn't it occur to you that the heckler was a plant and Tosh was doing a "rape sketch" as well as a "rape joke"? Only it wouldn't be the case. How long would it be, and how far would it have to go before someone realized that it wasn't pretend, and tried to stop the rape or called the police? Would Tosh have piped up when he saw some guys restraining her and said "hey, stop! It was a joke!"? When the audience started laughing at the woman being assaulted in front of them, would he say in to the mike "This isn't part of my act"? Would he call for security? I certainly hope so.
The former Intro. to Psych. student in me says: if you believe, should some rapists materialize, that the whole audience would jump to this woman's defense, you are sadly over-confident in the helpfulness of large groups of people. Ever heard of Kitty Genovese? She was repeatedly stabbed, then raped, then robbed, outside her apartment building over the course of half an hour. She repeatedly cried out for help. At least a dozen people saw or heard part of the attack, but the phone call that brought the police wasn't made until several minutes after the attacker was finished. It's called the bystander effect; the more people present, the less responsibility each person assigns him- or herself to intervene. Kitty Genovese died, by the way.
Some defenders say that this is being treated differently than it would be if Tosh had made a racist joke, that if he'd been making a lynching joke, and a black man heckled him, there wouldn't have been such an uproar if Tosh had responded "wouldn't it be funny if you got lynched right now?"
The part of me that lives in 2012 says: lynching is not the scourge it once was. While it was horrible and I am disgusted by the perpetrators, making a joke about a horrible thing that went on a lot 50 years ago and then wishing it on a contemporary person is not equivalent to joking about a horrible thing going on now and wishing it on a contemporary person. It is unlikely that that black man is concerned about being lynched by a stranger every time he walks down a dark street alone, or being drugged and lynched at a party or at a club or on a date, but these are situations where women must have their guard up against rape.
When it comes to consequences, Tosh supporters say he should get off scott-free, because punishing him would violate his First Amendment rights.
The capitalist in me says: any business that wants to remove their support from Tosh can do so, regardless of their motives. If a club owner was offended by him, that club is free to blacklist Tosh because they don't want to support his venom. If an advertiser on his show thinks Tosh is hilarious, but believes that their customers find Tosh objectionable, the advertiser can pull their ads and cut ties with Tosh because they don't want to loose market share. And Comedy Central can demand that Tosh publicly "apologize" because they are concerned about loosing sponsors. This is the free market at work.
Similarly, the part of me old enough to remember the Michael Richards (Kramer) racism fiasco says: after that rant and the backlash, Richards retired from stand-up. He crossed a line, his audience was alienated, no one compromised his First Amendment rights.
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