The opening joke was a domestic violence joke. I got 5 minutes into this special and immediately turned it off. The point of the joke was to say that a woman being physically harmed was funny; to make a mockery of the dehumanization and degradation that men inflict on women. The comedian even went so far as to claim that if the woman in the joke could cook, she wouldn't have been brutalized as badly.
I understand that comedy is subjective. I know all about dark humor, and about how sometimes the shock of a punchline is what makes it funny.
What I think people fail to understand, however, is that it's not okay to poke fun at a demographic that you are not a part of. It’s not okay to use someone else’s experience as the butt of your joke.
Domestic violence is not funny. Abuse is not funny. Harming another living being is not funny. If you have to stoop to a level of making a mockery of something that takes the lives of thousands of people in an extremely violent and terrifying way, you aren't funny. If you have to use a joke about violence to pander to men, you are not funny. It is never funny to make jokes at the expense of someone being harmed.
15 year old me deserves better than to be used as a punchline. Survivors everywhere deserve better than to be a punchline. People who have lost their lives deserve to be honored and remembered, not used as a punchline for a pathetic joke that clearly missed the mark.
Imagine looking a survivor in the eye and trying to explain to them why you found their abuse and trauma comical. Imagine explaining to families that have lost their loved ones to domestic violence that you find violently harming others to be quite funny. Imagine looking at a 15 year old girl and trying to explain why her boyfriend hitting her is funny to you, and that any reaction she has to your ‘joke’ is her being dramatic.
This boils down to a lack of awareness and a lack of empathy for those affected by domestic violence. I am thrilled that Matt Rife has never had his life touched by domestic violence. I am happy for him that he has never feared for his life from someone who was supposed to love and uplift him. I am glad that he is blissfully unaware of the ramifications of domestic violence.
However, I should not have to expose the details of my abuse to deserve to be respected. I should not have to appeal to someone's humanity to make them understand why making jokes about abuse aren't funny.
In this instance I will gladly be labeled as “triggered” or “easily offended” or even a “snowflake”, because there is a bigger issue at hand here. When you make jokes about violence against women, or violence in general, you normalize it. You send a message that as long as it can be used to make a profit, violence is okay and approved by society. By making these jokes you increase the stigma and shame surrounding survivors of abuse. You are actively contributing to the problem. I've also noticed that the only people who jump to call me any of these things are the people who want us to accept and tolerate disrespect under the guise of a “joke”.
Respectfully, I have survived too much and worked too hard for my experiences to be dismissed in a cheap shot of a joke. I did not fight for my life and fight for a place to share my story so that my experiences could be boiled down to a 2 minute joke with a laugh track superimposed to give the appearance that it was funny.
I have never felt the need to target someone else’s trauma in an attempt to make the people around me laugh, or to gain their approval. If you are in a position to influence those around you and this is how you choose to do it, what does that say about your character? What kind of legacy do you want to leave? Who do you want to be? What kind of statement are you making for the people who look up to you?
Practice empathy and compassion and do better.