The alternative is a world devoid of humour
Carl Benjamin is making new enemies. I guess that’s what he wants?
How the hell have we got to this place?
— Nicky Campbell (@NickyAACampbell) May 4, 2019
This is absolutely grotesque. Jess I’m so sorry you are feeling tired and low. The sisterhood stands with you. Courage X
— Sophie Walker (@SophieRunning) May 3, 2019
Is this what we expect a woman MP to put up with? This is the UK in the 21st century for heavens sake! https://t.co/W60Ug7uG67
— Harriet Harman (@HarrietHarman) May 3, 2019
He gave a statement to BuzzFeed:
Once again BuzzFeed position themselves as the progressive joke police. I stand behind David Baddiel’s justification about why any subject can be the subject of a joke. The alternative is a world devoid of humour, the essential tool we use to reduce the horror of events that are beyond our control.
No, it is not. That’s a false dichotomy. We do not have to choose between a world devoid of humor and a world where male political candidates talk about raping female politicians, any more than we have to choose between a world devoid of humor and a world where white political candidates talk about lynching black politicians. We can say that rape “jokes” and lynching “jokes” are right out and still have a vast world of material for humor.
Mind you, he’s got the racist “humor” angle covered too.
https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1121469244259147777
One could be forgiven for assuming he is not so much interested in reducing horror for himself as in creating horror for women.
If Benjamin deals with “horror of events that are beyond our control” by joking about raping his critics, his mechanism is worthless and I might suggest he take up a hobby. Alternatively, he is lying and knows it.
But…how else will losers deal with a world in which women (correction: women waaaaaay out of their league by every physical and psychological measure) won’t fuck them at the drop of their pants.
His chosen nom-de-twit says it all. Google up ‘Sargon of Akkad’ and this pea-brained galah’s name comes up before the Assyrian king’s does. So notoriety and pretension trump classical and historical power.
I could come up with a whole bunch of ‘jokes’ about castration I bet he wouldn’t find funny.
This guy thinks rape jokes and racist slurs are some kind of trenchant satire?
Ben, as with everything else, comedy can be highly nuanced, and I think that rape, racism, homosexuality, sexism, etc. can all be used as subjects for satirical comedy when done properly. The important factor is not the topic but the person making the jokes. For every Bernard Manning there’s a Reginald D. Hunter or a Stephen K. Amos; for every Jim Davidson there’s a Sara Pascoe or a Sarah Silverman.
AofS @7: Sure. But literally just calling people the N-word or saying that someone is too ugly for you to rape doesn’t seem like biting social commentary or especially good times.
I agree entirely. There’s a world of difference between being funny and being an absolute arse.