Daniel Tosh is the master of internet oddball viral video ceremonies for his smash hit show on Comedy Central Tosh.0. If you watch the show regularly (sorry Direct TV peeps) you know he doesn’t pull punches with his own raw brand of humor and that he’ll self-promote any upcoming stand-up performances on his calendar.
One of these recent gigs was at L.A.’s famous The Laugh Factory and Tosh got in some serious internet hot water over a complaint posted on Tumblr. Via Cookies For Breakfast a woman wrote about her unpleasant experience at the show and here is some of what she had to say:
So Tosh then starts making some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc. I don’t know why he was so repetitive about it but I felt provoked because I, for one, DON’T find them funny and never have. So I didn’t appreciate Daniel Tosh (or anyone!) telling me I should find them funny. So I yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!”
After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” and I, completely stunned and finding it hard to process what was happening but knowing i needed to get out of there, immediately nudged my friend, who was also completely stunned, and we high-tailed it out of there. It was humiliating, of course, especially as the audience guffawed in response to Tosh, their eyes following us as we made our way out of there. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said about me.
This offended audience member closed out her post by asking folks to “spread the word” and that they did causing enough damage to force a reply from Tosh himself about the incident. Here’s what he tweeted:
The owner of the club had a different recollection in regards to how the incident went down. Jamie Masada said Daniel asked the audience what they wanted to discuss, and someone shouted, “Rape,” to which said Tumblr author in the crowd replied, “No, rape is painful, don’t talk about it.” At that point Masada said that Tosh replied with something along the lines of, “Well, it sounds like she’s been raped by five guys.”
Just so you know, Daniel isn’t alone. Here’s arguably today’s most popular stand-up comedian Louis C.K. riffing on his own rape joke that starts off with Hitler but moves on to anyone (adult language etc):
So what do you think about Tosh’s rape joke? I think all things should be on the table for comedians, the greats have always pushed those boundaries. What is relevant in this particular case is the context; Tosh singled out a person, whom he claims was heckling him, in particular and joked in their presence about them being raped.
