“I promise it’s not a trap.”
I made arrangements to fly back to New York the following week. Now, the thing about Totally Biased was that it was a national television show, and the thing about me was that I was just some fucking lady. Aside from one bizarre time when the Canadian prime-time news had me on to make fun of James Cameron, I think because the anchor had a vendetta, I had never in my life been on television. I didn’t have, like, a reel. I wasn’t trying to be an actor or a pundit. Me being asked to be on TV was exactly the same as, say, you being asked to be on TV. Or your math teacher, or your dog, or your mommy. It was bizarre and terrifying, but I agreed, because, hey, maybe I could make a difference. Maybe I could win and comedy would open up just a crack more to female comics and audiences.
My segment was going to be framed as either comedian vs. feminist, or feminism vs. free speech—neither of which, Kamau told me, was his preference, but you had to package things a certain way on television. Fine by me, I said, tamping down my anxiety about debating whether or not it’s a good idea to glorify the victimization of women onstage within a framework that explicitly excludes women from even being capable of comedy. What does just some fucking lady know of television?
Totally Biased taped in a haunted hotel in Midtown—the set a penny-bright, Technicolor diorama, while behind the scenes was this sort of moldering, dripping, Soviet gray dungeon tower. I gave it fifty-fifty odds that I’d be kidnapped by a masked, erotic ghost on my way to the bathroom. I had a quick sit-down with Kamau and Guy to go over my general talking points. “The time is going to go faster than you think,” Guy warned me. “Don’t save all your best shit for the end—you won’t get to say it.”
Producer Chuck Sklar took me aside and told me that Chris Rock was coming to my taping. “He doesn’t usually come,” he said, “but he kind of hates this whole rape joke thing. Thinks it’s whiny. So he’s curious to see how you’re going to do.” First of all, solid pep talk, boss. Thanks. Second of all, what the fuck?
One flawed but instructive plank in the debate over rape jokes is the concept of “punching up” versus “punching down.” The idea is that people in positions of power should avoid making jokes at the expense of the powerless. That’s why, at a company party, the CEO doesn’t roast the janitor (“Isn’t it funny how Steve can barely feed his family? This guy knows what I’m talking about!” [points to other janitor]). Because that would be disgusting, and both janitors would have to work late to clean up everyone’s barf. The issue isn’t that it’s tasteless and cruel (though it is), but that it mocks the janitors for getting the short end of an oppressive system that the CEO actively works to keep in place—a system that enables him to be a rich dick.
In a 1991 interview with People magazine, Molly Ivins put it perfectly: “There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity—like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule—that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel—it’s vulgar.”
Punching up versus punching down isn’t a mandate or a hard-and-fast rule or a universal taxonomy—I’m sure any contrarian worth his salt could list exceptions all day—it’s simply a reminder that systems of power are always relevant, a helpful thought exercise for people who have trouble grasping why “bitch” is worse than “asshole.” It doesn’t mean that white people are better than black people, it means that we live in a society that treats white people better than black people, and to pretend that we don’t is an act of violence.
Here’s the reason I bring this up: I’ve always been told that “punching up” was a concept coined by Chris Rock. That attribution might be apocryphal—I can’t find a direct quote from Rock himself—but my enduring comedy hero Stewart Lee said it with some authority in a New Statesman column about why right-wingers make terrible comedians:
“The African-American stand-up Chris Rock maintained that stand-up comedy should always be punching upwards. It’s a heroic little struggle. You can’t be a right-wing clown without some character caveat, some vulnerability, some obvious flaw. You’re on the right. You’ve already won. You have no tragedy. You’re punching down… Who could be on a stage, crowing about their victory and ridiculing those less fortunate than them without any sense of irony, shame or self-knowledge? That’s not a stand-up comedian. That’s just a cunt.”
Are rape jokes so sacred—and misogyny so invisible—that the dude who literally invented the model for social responsibility in comedy can’t imagine a world without them? I never got an answer. Rock didn’t come to the taping after all.
Backstage, before we got started, I met Jim for the first time—he told me he loved my “How to Make a Rape Joke” piece, said we agreed more than we disagreed. “Duh,” I joked. “I’m right.” We had a good rapport. I felt jumpy but righteous.
When we got onstage, my heart sank quickly. In my intro, to an audience that largely had never heard of me, Kamau explained, “She’s a staff writer for Jezebel [who’s] called out everyone from Louis CK to Daniel Tosh, and now she’s ready to put Jim on blast.” The majority of Totally Biased viewers would have no idea who I was, and they heard no mention of my lifelong comedy obsession, the fact that I’ve done comedy, that I write about comedy, that (at least at the time) I was most widely known in my career for writing humor. They had no reason to assume I had any standing to critique comedy at all.
Before the debate had even started, I was framed as combative, bitchy, shrill. I wasn’t there to have a constructive discussion, I was there to put Jim “on blast.” “Call-out culture” and putting people “on blast” are both loaded terms that the anti-social-justice right loves to throw scornfully back at activists. To unfriendly ears—of which, I’d soon learn, there were many pairs listening—the terms connote overreaction, hysteria, stridence. “Comedian vs. feminist.” I felt uneasy.
Kamau addressed his first question to Jim. “Jim, do you think comedians should be able to say anything they want to say without any repercussions?”
Silently, I thanked Kamau. Whether intentional or not, the question was framed in a way that forced Jim to concede a few points right off the bat. Everything has repercussions, obviously. The audience laughs, or they don’t. They come see you again, or they don’t. They buy your album, or they don’t. You get booked again, or you don’t. He couldn’t possibly deny that with a straight face.
Jim nodded enthusiastically, eyes wide. “If you’re trying to be funny, I think! Everybody knows the difference—Michael Richards said something in anger. Reasonable people can sense when you’re trying to be funny and when you’re trying to be angry. I think, like Matt and Trey said on South Park, it’s either all okay or none of it’s okay.”