Letters to the Editor
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rape
Um, I still hate the video blog.
(But at least the comments so far are about your message, not your looks! This comment doesn't count. Pretend I didn't mention it!)
My take is this:
1) Rape is never funny.
2) Rape jokes are rarely funny.
3) This skit was not funny.
On the other hand, I once had to work on a team with another writer who had been raped. She didn't claim to have been raped; she said she had strong feelings because of what happened to "a friend." But it was pretty obvious that the friend was her way of talking about something she wasn't yet able to talk about.
Anyway, the rape of a major character was a plot point in the story. This rape was definitely not being promoted; it was an act of villainy, which had happened off-screen and long ago, important primarily as a motivation driving this character. But this other writer wouldn't allow the word "rape" to be used in front of her, which was problematic since she was supposed to be working on the story, which we had inherited as part of the franchise, and which happened to include a rape.
I don't think she was faking her feelings; she really did have strong emotions triggered by the word "rape." The "friend" had been raped less than a year previously, so the trauma was obviously fresh in her mind.
The point I'm getting to is that this woman wanted a world where no one mentioned rape ever, for any reason. It really did hurt her to be around anyone mentioning rape. She wasn't able to be rational on the subject.
I have sympathy for her pain. But I also know that women who have just had miscarriages sometimes hate to hear that their friends are pregnant, and hate to see babies at the store. Yet no one is going to hide the baby until Myrna gets over her miscarriage. It's likely that some soap opera will mention miscarriage. The sufferer just has to suck it up and live in the hard, cruel world with the rest of us.
What about miscarriage jokes? Hmm.
Maybe the best approach is to be aware that this really is a painful subject to many people. Given that, it probably better be a really funny joke to justify existing at all.