For once I completely agree.

I can think of a bare handful of rape scenes that were powerful and had a real impact on the movie, without which something truly essential would have been lost. The rest have been either fake "edginess" just to make audiences uncomfortable (and they *should* make us uncomfortable), or an unhanded way to sneak in some sex shots into an otherwise "serious" film.

They forgot all the ones on "How I Met Your Mother"

I'm not sure if this happened to anyone else, but when I clicked on the link for the original post, I was at the right site for just a second before it switched over to something different that downloaded a virus onto my computer. I don't know if I accidentally clicked something on that site, if there was already something wrong with my computer, or if there's something wrong with the link, but I thought I'd say something..

There's a distinction to be made though. There are some jokes that are explicitly about rape, but there are also some about the variety of, if you excuse the language, humping a sleeping person. This is possibly the most contested definition, and there's not really acknowlegeing that it's any more that a rude thing to do. I think this may the msot problematic of the jokes, as it trivializes the action by repeatedly putting it in context where noone reacts to it, therefore training the audience to think that not reacting is the right way to approach it.

Great, insightful article! I recently made a 5-minute film for Campus MovieFest which represents the effect that patriarchy has on women in society. The movie has a non-graphic rape scene in it, but I used the rape to symbolize how patriarchy can essentially screw women over by limiting them to certain roles... would you mind watching it? I am very passionate about the film's message--the boxes that society tries to jail women into must be shredded and thrown away (recycled, if we're being green!).
Here is the link to the film and it's description. DESCRIPTION: According to Jackson Katz, young women in today's world are "caught in a Catch-22--where social validation comes from sexuality, but the more sexual you act the more you may be despised and blamed if you are victimized," and they are "constantly negotiating an impossible balance." In this movie, a young woman must choose a label for herself after a harrowing experience. FILM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWfo1EJpNes&list=LLKe4HaH94VPadmBYw21_D5g&feature=mh_lolzI would really appreciate your comments/critique on the movie!

The ultimate 'culturally acceptable' rape is about the inevitability of a naive male being anally raped in the prison system. The prevalence of the jokes suggest that the 'extra penalty', on top of the basic sentence, is condoned. Just think folks, if we could get some teeth in the 'hate speech' laws, then that slime ball who called Lin a Chink could spend some quality time with Bubba and D'Shaun. Wink, wink.

Interestingly, in the linked video, I found the exchange "I thought I was being raped" "That's not what being raped feels like" to actually be a calling out of the entitlement/cluelessness of the one character -- as in, "It's not cute to say you thought you were being raped when I tapped you on the shoulder." In other words, "That's not what being raped feels like" was actually not a joke -- it was a commentary on this very issue of the word "rape" being tossed around carelessly.

I don't think there is anything wrong with rape jokes, they are hilarious! But the rape joke can't be putting a positive light on rape, that's where it's bad. I didn't like the jokes in the clip above where the characters acted like it was okay to have sex with someone who is sleeping. I think a character can act like that but they have to be clearly portrayed as a jerk/bad person and from those clips it didn't seem like that was the case.

Just want to point out one small note. in the John Stamos clip from Two and a Half Men, I took "she passed out and Charlie and I kept going" to mean they had sex with each other. I saw the episode in question and contextually, that's how I took it.

There's a useful discussion of rape as prime time comedy over at The Sociological Cinema too http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/1/post/2012/02/rape-as-prime-time-comedy.html

I have stopped watching so many UK comedies due to rape jokes too. When I watch the episode of the IT Crowd which revolves around an apparently hilarious male-on-male indecent assault, and the proceeding court case, I just feel ill, having myself been through a lengthy defense interrogation as a victim of a similar crime (surely not such a rare experience?!). I have to fast-forward through jokes by The Mighty Boosh about a character who 'rapes dolphins' etc. When shows you like include jokes like that it is as if they are saying "this show is not for you (maybe for your attacker though)". 

Great, insightful article! I recently made a 5-minute film for Campus MovieFest which represents the effect that patriarchy has on women in society. The movie has a non-graphic rape scene in it, but I used the rape to symbolize how patriarchy can essentially screw women over by limiting them to certain roles... how does it come across? In light of the article above, is it offensive? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... 

Great, insightful article! Sorry for the multiple posts--trying to re-organize my thoughts! I'm a senior at Emory University and I recently made a 5-minute film for Campus MovieFest which represents the effect that patriarchy has on women in society. The movie has a non-graphic rape scene in it, but I used the rape to symbolize how patriarchy can essentially screw women over by limiting them to certain roles... how does it come across? In light of the article above, is the rape offensive? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWfo1EJpNes

I actually think that a (I assume) male writer expressing discomfort at having to view "superfluous" rape scenes is a privilege problem, since men are statistically much less likely to be raped. Rape isn't some rare thing that no one ever encounters in real life -- it's very common, and it stands to reason that it would happen to characters in TV and film, and that it would impact them in some way. 

When men are uncomfortable watching rape scenes, some of that discomfort probably arises from their knowledge that they are, right now, contributing to the culture that trivializes rape. That they didn't start boycotting football when Roethlisberger was signed, for instance, and that they don't tell their friends that they're disgusting for not following suit. 

If there's too much rape on TV and in film, maybe the problem isn't TV and film.

The rape jokes featured are not that funny, and at first, I thought I was being extremely superficial that it was my main reaction to the montage video.  But as I got to thinking about it, I realized that I don't think rape (or many a human rights-violating phenomenon) should be off-limits as a word or even a subject to play around with for laughs. 
I know how awful that sounds, so I will try to explain.  

If we didn't have rape jokes, we wouldn't have a number of Jennifer Grey's one-liner gems from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  We wouldn't have most of Pedro Almadovar's oeuvre.  (In a scene from Kika that has to be watched to be believed, the title character is raped for literally hours by a house intruder.  This being Almadovar, he somehow manages to make the scene humorous rather than horrifying.)  
Comedy is not meant to only good-natured and non-offensive; it is a vehicle for societal reflection and/or commentary as much as any other form of performance.  Despite its inherent light-heartedness, it serves to provoke and upset us as much as any drama or documentary.  Comedy is a threshold of neither here nor there, akin to carnival, in which rules, ethics, morals, and norms are meant to be subverted.  In fact, many theorists argue that we need such states of limbo in order to define and maintain social rules, ethics etc.  This doesn't mean that comedy should not be held accountable for how it treats a subject, and I too find it problematic to allude to rape in order to gain edginess/"cool" capital.   But rejecting a comedy on the basis of its subject matter is not only artistically stifling, but also socially stifling. The same goes for drama.  McWeeny pleads for an end for rape scenes, unless the rape scene is extremely important to the plot.  He lauds Irreversible, which is about the after-effects of rape. Does McWeeny mean that rape scenes should be avoided unless it is absolutely central to the plot? I was puzzled by McWeeny praise of Irreversible and criticism of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, because to me, they follow a very similar plot mechanisms.  Both build a story around seeking violent vengeance for rape.  McWeeny criticises TGWTDT because the viewer does not otherwise see how the female protagonist is affected by the rape, aside from the vengeance she seeks.  In Irreversible however, the female protagonist's character is only fleshed out as a pre- and post-rape subject; in other words, only as a character defined by rape.  Otherwise, the story focuses on her boyfriend seeking vengeance. McWeeny argues for the artistic directorial merit of "Irreversible", but I'm still undecided about it, even many years after I watched it.  The director films a very graphic rape scene that lasts for several minutes.  It is certainly effective in making the viewer understand what an atrocity rape is, but is it artistic?  Again, I'm not as sure; it's a great example for debating whether a depiction is gratuitous or relevant.  I've seen other rape scenes that were equally affecting without being nearly as graphic.  More importantly, I've also seen other rape scenes that were equally important to a movie, without serving as the main plot device.   

For the 2 and a half men reference, when I first saw it, I construed it to mean that they did it with each other, hence the "without her" reference. If they meant it the other way though, it takes a whole new aspect of creepiness and the joke really is horrible taste. He had an expression of embarrassment, not of remorse, which is why I went with the more "innocent" interpretation.

i thought they where funny. its just a joke.

Its almost as if everything can now be called rape. I wonder why that is?

I would argue that it's the implied reaction of the audience, and the message of the joke, that is problematic rather than the subject of the joke itself. Comedy is a valid medium for exploring social and personal issues and (as with any medium) it is important to think critically about the ways in which said issues are treated. Though they are taken out of context, I feel confident saying that the clips presented do not contribute anything productive to the discussion on sexualized violence; however, I think it would be dismissive to say that rape is an issue off-limits to the world of comedy.

Just a question. I was very young when I watched Roxanne (Steve Martin, Daryl Hannah). I was horrified by the ugliness of Christian sleeping with Roxanne under false pretences.

Does anyone else remember that? The word "violation" kept running through my mind.

'Depiction' of women in media photos needs much improvement

by Dan Bloom

It's not just television and movies that often portray women in a poor
light. Print newspapers and magazines are part of the problem, too.

In newsroom cultures of newspapers and magazines around the world, the
photographic depiction of women in many standalone photos amounts,
more or less, to what might be called newsroom rape. It's not a pretty
picture, and the mindset
among editors who greenlight such photos and write the captions needs to change.

Rape and violence toward women does not happen in a vacuum, and the
modern newsroom has helped create a culture of media rape on an almost
daily basis.

If these photos and captions of scantily-clad "models" and "campaign
girls" were of Black men or Islamic men and carried captions such as
"Juicy Fruit" and "Get an Eyeful," things would change very quickly.
But depicting women this way is business as usual in most
male-dominated newsrooms, from the New York Post to the Esquire
magazine.

To raise awareness about gender equality for women in a man's world is
not an easy thing, since so much of modern culture and news media
continue to objectify women as sexual objects for men to ogle in
movies, magazines and daily newspapers.

In order to really tackle such
issues as domestic violence, gender discrimination and the division of
labor in modern families-- and even gender roles in modern religion
and folk beliefs -- and move gender equality forward, newspaper
editors need to step up the plate and stop printing sexist photos with
sexist captions of women, even in standalone photos with brief
captions.

Surely, you've seen photos of pretty young women with
un-necessary cleavage posing for ''promotions'' for computers, flower
shows, tourist
sites and smartphones. Always the cleavage, of course, for the male
viewers, and also the snarky headline or caption such as "Juicy Fruit"
or "Get an Eyeful" and worse. What kind of culture accepts this kind
of media violence toward women.

Of course, the women who pose for these photos are also to blame, and
they must have their awareness raised as well, because if they agree
to pose for such sexist photos and promotions at computer shows and
tourism sites then the female models and their managers are also part
of the problem. The women get paid, their managers and PR people get
paid even more. Business, as usual. But this must change.

Rape happens in cultures that portray women as objects to rape, and
the more cleavage shown in newspaper and magazine photos, the more
these culture create a dangerous atmosphere for women. If newspaper
editors would step up to the plate and stop publishing sexist photos
of women, and instead find photos that show women in more everyday
clothing, it would be a step in the right direction.

And the men who
write the coy and teasing headlines and photo captions that show their
male bias and gender brainwashing need to also change the way they
write headlines and photo captions.

Rape is not funny, and neither is domestic violence or gender
inequality. The culture we live in should honor and portray women in
photographs as equals to men and boys, and stop with the cleavage
shots. Such photos given approval by male and female editors at
newspapers worldwide are part of the problem: a culture that winks at
women's sexuality on a daily basis but never does the same with males.
It's a man's world and the sooner that changes, the better.

As readers, most of us can do nothing. But if you were an editor of a daily
newspaper, you could make sure that in the future the photos you approve
for publication will portray women, even computer show models and
tourism campaigners, in the same way as you show men: fully clothed.

In other words, no more photos of computer show models with their
bosoms hanging out for male ogling, no more half-naked tourism models
showing more cleavage than scenery, and no more
standalone photos with snarky, sexist headlines and captions. In the
bedroom, at home, in private, sure, get
as naked as you want. But not in a newspaper. Not anymore,

Violence towards women is not a laughing matter. Stop the
immaturity and grow up. Male editors will someday have wives and
daughters, and they'll know more about rape and violence then, but
it's time to start showing respect for women now.

I'm going to qualify the statement that I am about to make before I make it: My own personal feelings have nothing to do with anyone else and I am only speaking for myself. I am not suggesting that other people should feel the way that I do. The statement: I'm a rape survivor, and I don't find most of these jokes particularly offensive. I also didn't find a single one of them even mildly amusing. I do think that 'rape culture' is problematic, and I can see how these casual prime-time TV rape jokes trivialize sexual violence. Possibly the (or a) reason that I don't find these jokes offensive is because humor--particularly dark/'gallows' humor--has been essential to my recovery from traumatic events, as well as bouts of depression. I DO find much of the more serious discourse on sexual violence in our culture immensely triggering. I've learned not to allow my curiosity to direct me to MRA pages in which concepts like 'justifiable rape' are promoted and defended. I'm even more disturbed that defense of 'justifiable rape' regularly occurs in news media.