Shrill

by Lindy West

  It was such a transparently irrelevant tangent that I was momentarily speechless. Rape jokes couldn’t possibly contribute to the trivialization of rape, because Columbine? It was the rhetorical equivalent of distracting the audience with a squeaky toy. My speechlessness didn’t matter, though, because Jim was forging ahead:

  “I think the next time somebody walks through a museum and sees a painting that they find highlights or perpetuates a thought that they find objectionable—even a thought that they should find objectionable—then they should take a towel and throw it over the painting. Or I think the next time that person goes to a movie and there’s a rape in a movie, they should stand up and hold a board in front of a screen so nobody else can see it. Now, if you did that, people would—what happened to Giuliani when he went after the Brooklyn Museum of Art! People were like, ‘You fascist! You’re going after art for something you don’t like!’ But if you get mad at a comedian for telling a joke you don’t like, people are like, ‘You go girl.’ It’s either all okay or none of it’s okay. I understand why rape is an offensive, awful thing. No one is saying it’s not. But sometimes comedy does trivialize what is truly horrible. The roughest set I ever saw a comedian do is Joan Rivers—I saw her at the Cutting Room a few years ago—and I think she’s one of the most underrated comics ever [applause] and she did a brutal set. She talked about 9/11, she talked about AIDS, and I mean it was rough. And she had zero respect for the boundaries of society. And we all knew why we were there, and we all knew why she was taking everything that hurts us and everything that’s sad, and everything that’s miserable, and just turning it upside down and looking at it, and we all walked out of there the same as when we walked in. Nobody walked out thinking, ‘Hey, AIDS is hilarious! AIDS isn’t sad and terrible! 9/11 is irrelevant!’ We all walked out feeling the same about those subjects, but the relief of comedy is it takes things that aren’t funny and it allows us to laugh about them for an hour, and then we have the rest of the day to look at them like they’re as horrible and sad as they really are.”

  At this point, I had genuinely lost the plot. I stammered and grasped for words. What does Giuliani have to do with rape jokes? How was criticizing comedians on Twitter the same as throwing towels over paintings? Isn’t a towel kind of small? Wouldn’t a bedsheet do the job better? Also, how many art museums traffic in explicit rape apologia and then brush off any criticism by scoffing, “Calm down, it’s just art”? Again, context matters. Hanging a giant swastika flag in a Holocaust museum, as a historical artifact, is not the same as painting a giant swastika on the wall of the Brooklyn Museum and titling it, “Kill All Jews.” Culturally, we’ve evolved to the point where that second piece would never make it into a museum, because we, as a society, have made a decision about which ideas are good and which ideas are bad. We don’t have to convene a panel of Holocaust deniers to sign off on that fact in the name of “free speech.” That’s the difference between commenting on rape culture and perpetuating rape culture; choosing to be better, collectively, and caving to the howls of misogynists who insist that sexist abuse is a fair and equal counterpoint to women asking not to be abused.

  As for Jim’s Joan Rivers anecdote, I’m glad he saw Joan do a great, dark set once. But it’s bafflingly presumptuous (and, I’d wager, deliberately disingenuous) to assume that he knew what everyone’s opinion on AIDS was when they walked into and out of that theater. There are plenty of people who consider themselves compassionate, moral, and kind—who have a gay friend and support same-sex marriage—who still, on some level, think of AIDS as a deviant’s disease that gay men deserve because of their promiscuity. No, a few off-color AIDS jokes aren’t going to implant prejudice in anyone’s brain, but they can damn sure validate and stoke any prejudices that are already lurking.

  People like Jim desperately want to believe that the engines of injustice run on outsized hate—stranger rapes in dark alleys, burning crosses and white hoods—but the reality is that indifference, bureaucracy, and closed-door snickers are far more plentiful fuels.

  At the time, the Steubenville rape case had a monopoly on the news—at a high school party in Ohio, two popular football players digitally penetrated an unconscious sixteen-year-old classmate; one also exposed her breasts and put his penis in her mouth. Multiple teenage partygoers took photos and videos of the rape, which they then shared gleefully on social media, accompanied by a proliferation of rape jokes. In another video, friends of the boys reflect on the rape, joking about how “dead” the victim was. “She is so raped right now,” one kid says. “They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson raped that one girl.” The boys’ coaches and school administrators attempted to cover up the crime. Media coverage of the investigation and trial repeatedly lamented the loss of the rapists’ “bright futures.” The victim’s identity was leaked and her character flayed on live TV.

  I practically begged Jim to understand. “Maybe there’s a woman [in the audience] who’s wondering whether she should report her rape,” I said, “and she’s sitting there, and everyone’s laughing at the idea of how funny rape is, not in a way that is releasing any tension, but in a way that is causing tension, tangibly. Tension that filters out into the world, where we now live in a country where teenage boys think it’s totally cool and hilarious to just put their fingers in the vagina of a passed-out child and then videotape it and put it on the Internet.”

  Jim cut me off. “And people reacted appropriately.”

  “Really?”

  “People who saw that were disgusted by that. I’m not talking about the school that covered it up, but the fact that society looked at that and all of us were repulsed by it.”

  “All of us were not repulsed by it. No. A lot of people supported those boys.”

  Kamau backed me up. “Have you been on Twitter lately?”

  There was the crux. It’s easy for Jim and his fans and all the young comedy dudes to pretend like rape culture doesn’t exist, because they have the luxury of actively ignoring it. Confronted with a case like Steubenville, he only bothers to look at the parts that reinforce his worldview. He brushed it off with a shrug, because he can, and barreled on:

  “Your Twitter picture is Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum’s first role was a brutal rapist in Death Wish. Now I’m not saying anything against Jeff Goldblum, but—”

  At this point a producer brought up a screen grab of my Twitter profile—featuring a sweaty Jeff Goldblum in repose, erotically dying from dinosaur bites, in Jurassic Park—on the screen behind us. They knew this “point” was coming. Jim must have told them in his pre-interview. They were prepared.

  “—he picked up a blackjack and he said, ‘you rich C,’ and he called her the c-word, and they beat her to death in Death Wish. Now, we all understand, ‘Oh, that’s an actor doing a role.’ But why, as an artist, do we give an actor a pass for convincingly playing a brutal rapist, but go after a comedian for making fun of something and mocking something? Like, why do we allow an artist to do something convincingly—what’s going to affect a rape victim more? Seeing that rape acted out properly? Or hearing some comedian make fun of it?”

  Bad-faith bullshit. Fuck this, I thought. Are you supposed to like and sympathize with Jeff Goldblum’s character in Death Wish? When people go to watch it, is Jeff Goldblum physically in the room with them pretending to rape people? Does he sometimes break the fourth wall, point into the camera, and say, “Hey, Karen Ferguson, wouldn’t it be hilarious if everyone in this theater raped you right now?” Why is it a given that seeing a rape acted out is more traumatizing than hearing the concept of rape turned into a joke? Who appointed Jim Norton the arbiter of every rape victim’s feelings? If moviegoers just had to deal with the fact that any movie, at any time, could have a random rape scene spliced into it, out of nowhere, that might be a parallel example. A parallel example is not a movie CALLED DEATH WISH, with a rating on it that literally warns you about what’s in it, that you’ve presumably gone to see deliberately because you watc
hed a trailer and decided, “Yes, this is up my alley.”

  For fucking fuck’s sake.

  “We don’t have to choose between those two things,” I said, cold. “If someone went and saw that movie and they were offended by it, they are more than welcome to complain about it, which is all that I’m doing right now. It’s about accountability—if you want to make that product and stand by that, that’s fine, but I get to call you a dick, I get to call you out. And if we all agree that it’s just a crutch, a hacky premise that people use because you want to get a reaction, you want to shock people, like, why does my vagina have to be your crutch? Can’t you use something that’s yours? Why do you have to come into my oppression and use me for your closer?”

  “I think the best way to end this is for Lindy and I to make out for a while,” Jim joked over Kamau’s outtro—deliberately sexualizing me for a laugh at the end of a debate about the dehumanization of women in comedy.

  Then it was over. Guy had been right. The time did go too fast, and I didn’t get to my best material. I felt pretty good, though. Mostly I just wanted to sleep.

  My hotel room didn’t have FX, so I couldn’t watch myself. I was grateful.

  It’s About Free Speech, It’s Not About Hating Women

  The first day, it was just a few tweets here and there—regular Totally Biased viewers, plus the small number of my fans and Jim’s who made it a point to tune in on cable. These broke down pretty uniformly along preexisting ideological lines: Jim’s fans thought Jim “won”; mine sided with me. Everyone seemed to feel that their previously held opinion on rape jokes was validated, and, seemingly, no minds were changed. “Maybe this’ll just be a blip,” I thought as the chatter subsided, honestly a little disappointed. I agreed to do this debate because these ideas are important to me (and, in my opinion, to the development of a more civil, inclusive world)—I wanted to have an impact, maybe shift the conversation, just a hair. I felt good about my performance; I’d held my own against a TV veteran on his turf. You don’t go through that much stress to let it just vaporize and blow away.

  The second day, my phone buzzed me awake.

  Bzzt.

  no need for you to worry about rape uggo

  Bzzt.

  Jesus Christ this woman is about as fun as dry rape. Lighten up Lindy!

  Bzzt.

  you are really annoying. Don’t worry no one would ever rape u. Worry about ur Health & the heart attack that’s coming #uglycow

  The debate had gone up on YouTube, and Jim had posted it to his social media accounts.

  I love how the Bitch complaining about rape is the exact kind of Bitch that would never be raped. Bitch have you looked in the mirror?

  There were hundreds and hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe. I had never encountered such an unyielding wall of vitriol. They flooded in, on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, my e-mail, the comments on Jezebel.

  Who the fuck, in their right mind, would want to rape you?

  I had been trolled before—for confronting Dan, for mocking men’s rights activists, for disliking Sex and the City 2—but nothing like this. Nothing could compare to the misogynist rage of male comedy fans at being challenged by an unfuckable woman.

  I wanted to rebut every one, but didn’t. There was no point. This thing was alive.

  She wants to get screwed so badly I bet you all the rape she is shaking her finger at is exactly what she wants.

  You cannot “want” rape.

  That big bitch is bitter that no one wants to rape her do some laps lardy holly shit her stomachs were touching the floor

  Rape is not a compliment.

  No one would want to rape that fat, disgusting mess.

  Rape is not a gift or a favor or a validation.

  lets cut the bullshit that broad doesnt have to worry about rape

  Fat women get raped too.

  You’re fat, ugly, and unfuckable. You don’t have to worry about rape!

  Are you sure?

  There is a group of rapists with over 9000 penises coming for this fat bitch

  There is nothing novel or comedic or righteous about men using the threat of sexual violence to control noncompliant women. This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoors, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay out of the world. If you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like.

  She won’t ever need to worry about rape, ever!

  I don’t know any woman who hasn’t experienced some level of sexual predation, from catcalls, to unwanted advances at bars, to emotional manipulation, to violent rape. I certainly have—even “unrapeable” me. All women do need to worry about rape.

  Don’t disrespect ppls way of calming themselves down. Embracing the sick idea of rape keeps some from ever actually doing it

  You are a rapist.

  What a fucking cunt. Kill yourself, dumb bitch.

  No.

  Why is it almost all women that hate men are the most unfuckable people ever.

  I stepped off the plane in Seattle, my phone vibrating like a pocket full of bees. The local comedy scene had started in on me at this point: I was a cunt, a fraud, a failed comic, I knew nothing about comedy and had no right to comment on it. (Strangely, they’d had boundless confidence in my expertise back when they were kissing my ass for a mention in the paper.) Someone made a “parody” Twitter account called “Lindy East” (wow, you guys really are comedy experts), its avatar a stolen photo of me, my neck and face grotesquely inflated into a massive gullet. One guy—someone I’d never met personally but who was a regular at the same clubs I frequented—wrote on Facebook that he wished I’d fall down a flight of stairs. (Let’s call him Dave.) People I knew “liked” Dave’s comment—one was a regular at The Moth, whom I had to intro with a smile onstage a few weeks later. But it’s just comedy. To worry about my safety was a form of hysteria. Insulting, if you think about it. Can’t a nice guy just defend his art?

  Jabba has nothing to worrie about, not even a prison escapee would rape her.

  I was determined to show my face at the open mics that week—to make it clear that I wouldn’t be cowed or chased away. “I’ll be at the Underground tonight if anyone wants to talk,” I wrote on Facebook and Twitter. I’d have Aham with me. Nothing would happen. We’d be safe. I hadn’t done stand-up in at least a year, so I threw together a few new jokes: “When people want to insult me, it’s always ‘Jabba the Hutt.’ Which is really insulting. To Jabba the Hutt. The dude is an intergalactic warlord. He owns a monster. I’m a feminist blogger, you guys.”

  Aham and I went to the open mic, did our sets, had fun, and went home.

  There is no way a straight dude would fuck or even rape that ugly heifer. What an annoying cunt.

  Nearly a year later, a mutual friend would show me his text exchange with Dave about that open mic night. Unbeknownst to us, Dave was convinced that Aham was going to attack him over his “fall down the stairs” comment. “I’m a big boy,” he wrote (sic throughout), “and I can fight my own battles and take any punches thrown at me but Ill be honest until we squared that away I thought for sure I was going to get in a street fight with that guy. I worked out for two hours just visualizing the fight before the Underground that night, I had a switchblade on me, a 9mm in my trunk and I was ready for anything.”

  Dave brought a knife and a gun to a comedy show. Because of a disagreement about whether or not comedy clubs are safe for women. Because the way people talk onstage has no bearing on how they behave in real life.

  It’s so pathetic, the tough-guy posturing, but so sinister, because, to put it plainly, that’s how black men die. Insecure, pee-pants white men assume that any disagreement is a life-threatening situation. Dave assumed Aham was dangerous, and was prepared to shoot him with a gun, even though Dave was the only one in the equation who’d issued a threat of any kind. I’ve only had a handful of moments like that in my life—where I could
see how thin the veil was between my happy, intact world and its complete destruction. How few steps there were between the mundane and the unthinkable. You can see why people stay quiet. Can you see, yet, why I speak up?

  Wouldn’t the best ending be that Jim Norton rapes the fat girl.

  Everyone hates rape. Rape is illegal. There is no rape culture. Everyone takes rape seriously. Everyone was horrified by Steubenville. Everyone knows when you’re joking and when you’re not. Famous men laughing about rape has no effect on the way their fans speak to women they don’t like.

  My detractors paint me as some out-of-touch idealist, but Jim’s the one assuming that all comics approach their art with good intentions—that they’re all just trying to make people laugh. That’s simply untrue. It’s also deeply naive. There’s not a single comic working today who’s not doing it to fill a personal void; that’s why it means so much to them. The idea of someone else laughing is not remotely a good enough payoff to devote your life to something so difficult. Anyway, if Jim’s assumptions were true—that comics always have virtuous intentions and people can always tell when someone is joking and when they’re not—then we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

  Holes like this make me want to commit rape out of anger, I don’t even find her attractive, at all, she’s a fat idiot, I just want to rape her with a traffic cone

  “Hole” has its own entry on OApedia, an Opie & Anthony fan wiki: “Hole is the Opie and Anthony term for the woman who sits in on and ruins most radio shows. The hole opens her mouth saying God-knows-what, adds nothing to the conversation, and chastises the guys for being politically incorrect.” But no, I was told, these people weren’t representative of comedians and comedy fans. They were anomalous Internet trolls, and the Internet isn’t real life. Except for the guy from real life, the comedian, the one with the gun.