He is never serious, it is all satire. Jokes are supposed to cross lines and if you can't deal with that then I feel bad for you. I know I am going to get flamed out for my opinion but I don't care anymore.

it has to be either funny or insightful or both. Tosh does neither. A (male) friend of mine put it perfectly: "Tosh is in the same league as Dane Cook for me - I can't tell if they're funny because they've never told anything resembling a joke."

Rape jokes aren't satire, it barely rises to the level of playground trash. Hopefully he'll be a has-been like what's his name who called out the racist "joke" to another audience member a few years ago.

Rape victims? People who don't find the hilarity in gang rape?

I'm sorry but anyone who sees something funny about gang rape is a pig. I may get deleted by a jury for that comment, but I don't care anymore.

That's what he does, push boundaries. And he does help people too...

http://blog.al.com/entertainment_source/2011/05/comedian_daniel_tosh_jokes_abo.html

And as for the thought elsewhere... CC will not pull the show, it is their highest rated program... beating out The Daily Show and Colbert Report consistently. For them it's about money. But if it helps, Tosh says he's retiring in 2013.

he seems only to pick on folks who are relatively powerless. Look at the list posted as to the "everyone" who comes in for his "humor:" women, especially rape victims; southern hillbillies (now there's a highly powerful and relevant demographic!); minorities; gay people.

What "boundaries" is he pushing, precisely?

Aside from all that, this time he went beyond making tasteless jokes about disempowered people in general. He chose a specific member of the audience and encouraged people to gang rape her. This is of an ilk with Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a whore and demanding she post sex tapes on line so he could jerk off to them. As with Tosh, Limbaugh was defended as "an entertainer" who "pushes boundaries" and "isn't afraid to be politically incorrect." And then there's the "he's popular so he must be right" argument. "Limbaugh is the most popular voice on radio, therefore he is a god!" "...the highest rated program" therefore what? Everything he says is golden? "Ann Coulter's books are all best sellers!" So that must mean we have to stay silent when she calls 9-11 widows "witches" and "harpies?"

Making a comment on how "funny" it would be to see a woman gang raped in public isn't "edgy"--it's repulsive. It certainly isn't "fearless." Contrast that to a woman, in public, calling this jerk on his asshattery, even though she knew there was a possibility she was setting herself up for abuse. That's what I call "fearless."

Daniel Tosh is a liberal.

I'd ask what about George Carlin or Richard Pryor then?

What is the line after which pushing boundaries has gone too far?

since no one was actually hurt. I would beg to differ on no one taking it seriously- the woman certainly did.

Whatever happened to Michael Richards again? Doing well, is he?

Clearly the audience wasn't incited to do anything. They realized he wasn't seriously asking for someone to rape someone else.

As for Michael Richards? I haven't the slightest idea what he's up to. I'd also contend he wasn't popular the moment Seinfeld went off the air and has maintained that unpopularity ever since. His "incident" was clearly negative press. As to whether it actually made him more unpopular... I'd say based on how seemingly unpopular he was before, that it is, without evidence a baseless claim and equally a moot point.

urging his audience to gang rape someone for its comic effect.

Ditto for Richard Pryor.

"Daniel Tosh is a liberal."

So what?

And here...



Liberal so what? If a Jewish comedian makes fun of Jewish people, it's considered fine. If a liberal makes fun of groups that they are known to support, is that not the same thing? Or is there a double standard by which it's ok to insult Jewish people but not ok to insult women in comedy?

And what about Lisa Lampanelli? She is also a shock comedian. She says lots of things about Black people and lots about women. Gay people too. Does anyone actually think she means them? Certainly not.

Because she's liberal and we know she's kidding.

(male, from what I hear), who seems to be shouting out shit just for the hell of it, just to grab attention. And yes, Carlin responds by saying he wants to see the guy raped. How disappointing. Not one of his better moments.

All I heard Pryor say was, "I'm gonna slap you in the mouth with my dick"--after someone (also male) heckled him about his mother. Crude, also disappointing, but hardly in the same league as "Wouldn't it be funny if someone gang raped her right here in front of me?" Tosh. And neither of them started the confrontation by stating how "rape jokes are always funny."

But it doesn't matter. Even if Carlin and Pryor said exactly the same thing as Tosh, in exactly the same circumstances, I'd still think it was gross. To me what matters most is what is being said, not the name of the particular person saying it.

I think it's interesting how male comedians use rape for comic effect, as opposed to, say, lynching. One apparently is acceptable, even to "liberals," while the other evidently is not. Just ask Michael Richards.

And you seem to think it matters that Tosh is "a liberal" and therefore should get a pass for saying things we'd be outraged about if said by a conservative. Or that if someone we otherwise admire does it, then "it" must be all right, no matter how ugly it might seem coming from another person.

To me that's just plain hypocrisy.

Between Liberal Comedian X and Rush Limbaugh even when they say the exact same thing. Why? Because we know that Liberal Comedian X does not actually, literally want XYZ to happen to ABC person.

If both of them said... someone please punch that woman in the side of the head...

We realize that Rush Limbaugh is a misogynistic asshole.

What if the person is liberal? Do we still believe that they meant what they said literally? Or that they were, as you said in regards to George Carlin... "angry"?

I suppose what I'm asking is this:

Do you think Daniel Tosh actually wanted to see this woman raped?

what Daniel Tosh "actually wanted."

What he actually said was, first, "Rape jokes are always funny" -a statement with which I assume most if not all rape survivors would disagree. And when a woman DID disagree, he responded by using the prospect, the image, the existence of rape to get her to shut up. How this is different from, say, threatening an African-American heckler with "a good old fashioned lynching" or a Jewish heckler with "how about a trip to the ovens?" I really can't see. Would you be equally complacent about somebody on stage saying, "Lynched black man jokes are always funny" or "gassed Jew jokes are always funny?"

I'll repeat: I don't give a good god damn if someone making such comments is liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat, Stalinist, Social Democrat, Jehovah's Witness, atheist, recovering Unitarian, lapsed Whig or whatever. The comments are disgusting, and I would imagine downright frightening to most anyone who has ever been confronted by the reality of gang rape.

Really, it's not that complicated a point.

The intent of a person's words are far more important than the words themselves.

Dr. Tiller? Because even though I think Billo is partially responsible for that, I doubt it was the actual intent of his hate speech. Intent makes the doctor no less dead, though.

Or looked at from another angle: if some jerk had actually gotten up and assaulted the woman, would it have mattered that Tosh "didn't really mean it"?

His intent, as far as I can tell, was to humiliate a woman he didn't even know by placing the imagery in their heads of her being gang-raped. It wasn't a joke, it was a temper tantrum because she didn't find his rape jokes funny and called him on it. Obviously she took it seriously. Any way you want to twist it, Tosh is still 100% in the wrong and still a jackass.

"His intent, as far as I can tell, was to humiliate a woman he didn't even know by placing the imagery in their heads of her being gang-raped. It wasn't a joke, it was a temper tantrum because she didn't find his rape jokes funny and called him on it. Obviously she took it seriously. Any way you want to twist it, Tosh is still 100% in the wrong and still a jackass."

Would it have been funny if he publicly encouraged a gay man to be raped? Or a black woman by white guys? How about if he encouraged people to go home and rape their child? Would that have been a freaking laugh riot???

It is WORSE that a so-called liberal comedian said it. You half expect this from a conservative.

They could potentially be funny. Context is what is important. Going back to Lisa Lampanelli... she makes gay jokes all the time, yet gay people like her.

They don't exist. This includes incest jokes. I know Sarah Silverman has also done this in standup, and a woman delivering them still doesn't make them jokes. Ever.

And, calling for the public gang rape of a strange women sitting in front of you? You do realize that is assault, right? Never a joke. EVER.

We live in a rape culture. That is a fact. I am a feminist, but don't hate all men. As a matter of fact, I love men who don't hate women. LOVE them! But this is a learning experience. Who will be on the right side? I won't get into it too deep, but it appears that our present culture is okay with advocating gang rape towards female hecklers. I have read comments which suggest that Tosh critics, themselves, deserve nothing less than rape. Free speech and all that...

His show is all sexism, all the time

That's just about as incorrect as you can get.

It's all un-PC all the time.

He rags on women, EVERY minority there is and then some, southern hillbillies, Lebron James, and he spends an inordinate amount of time playing himself up as gay.

If the only thing you can see is him ragging on women, then I'd go to an eye doctor, cuz you can't see very well. If your eye doctor gives you a clean bill of health, then go see a neurologist, because you don't seem to be processing the other gratuitous broad-brush offenses very well.

...unless, of course, you don't think it's a broad-brush offense when he gets shots of his [small] audience split up into hispanics on one side and "anglos" on the other, then he says something unkind about hispanics and gets a quick shot of his audience with the "anglos" all cheering and stomping, and the hispanics sitting there stone-faced, that is. In which case I'd ask you why you're anti-hispanic.

I don't understand why it's still on the air.

This may be your lucky day. Viacom - parent company of Comedy Central as well as a handful of other cable channels - has gotten into a micturation contest with DirecTV over the fees for carrying its package, and hence one of the largest outlets for Comedy Central is now blank.


But seriously ... you watch South Park, which satirizes [what would appear to be] your brand of feminism on a fairly consistent basis, and you run screaming from Tosh? Seriously?

Is mockery rendered harmless when dispensed by poorly animated grade-schoolers with foul mouths? About the only real difference [beyond the animation] is that Tosh is generally more blunt about it.

Too kind.

Last time SP satirized feminism, Wendy beat the crap out of Cartman. So you make a point, but it might not be the one you intended to make.

And I will concede that Tosh is a racist and homophobic asshole as well as a sexist asshole. How you think this makes him better, I don't have a clue.

Enjoy your stay at DU. Try the pizza, it's delicious.

Sounds like a talentless flash in the pan one-trick-pony.

back when it was called Andrew Dice Clay.

I get into these arguments with my brother too. "He offends everyone!!11" Yeah, well when everyone gets bored of rubbernecking and the sideshow displays that he can dish it out, but can't take it, that's pretty much the end.

Which seems to be this guy's shtick.

Which is why I have also never liked someone like Sarah Silverman.

and is starting to resemble GD.

Please remember the SOP:

A safe community for discussing of problems inherent to women in society and to work together to try to resolve such problems and issues.

Some posters have veered a bit too far away from the SOP.

Gormy Cuss
host of the Feminists group