Rape jokes are funny...

... ... or not. Depending. The point is (and I've made this point before) that people who have opinions about the political or social impact of a joke shouldn't focus on whether it's funny or not. It's a distraction, a conflation, an irrelevance, and worse, refutable. If you're attacking a comedian for telling a joke by telling them it isn't funny, they can point to all the people who've laughed at the joke, even if you didn't. If they have any experience or skill on stage, they're unlikely to be doing material that consistently fails to get laughs. So you are either: a) pointlessly attacking a joke that hasn't been worked out yet - a draft joke, still in its formation phase; or b) wrong that the joke isn't funny. In both cases, you've picked the wrong target, and the wrong weapon. Here's the truth. Rape jokes can be funny. As can racist jokes, and abortion jokes and "punching women" jokes and "men in prison being brutalised" jokes and transphobic jokes and jokes about disabled people or indigenous people and murderous hateful jokes can be funny. Funny doesn't mean much. It just means a joke gets a laugh - out of shock, or gleeful transgression, or complicity, or agreement, or irony or sympathy. This is the point at which your standard rape-joke-think-piece will point to the excellent and funny rape jokes of Louis CK, Sarah Silverman, Amy Schumer. These are examples of jokes that are funny and morally correct. The victim of the joke is not the real world victim. Those jokes are good jokes, because they are not punching down. They are also funny jokes. But they are not funny (good jokes) just because they are morally good (good jokes). Otherwise TED talks would be on the comedy channel, and nobody would be watching those horrible prank shows. What we often mean when we say "that's not funny" is, "that isn't RIGHT". Morally speaking. We believe that the fact that people (not you) are laughing at that joke (finding it funny) is a sign of something wrong in the society - that the telling of that joke valorises or encourages a wrong view. When you say a joke that offends you is 'not funny', you mean that the topic at hand is serious. That the laughter is by definition a signal of agreement, and that the joke, and its prompting laughter is harmful in some tangible way. It may be. I'm never sure how dangerous jokes are, but as someone who takes comedy seriously, I'll go with the school of thought that places them as important and weighty and society-shifting. My paternal grandfather was arrested for doing an impersonation of Mussolini from a ridge in Austria just across the border from Italy, when he was a young Jewish school graduate from (what was at that time called) Czechoslovakia. The Italian border guards ran across into Austria, dragged him back into Italy and threw him in prison. You don't cross borders to beat someone up for a joke if you don't take comedy seriously. You also don't get offended if a joke isn't funny. An unfunny joke is its own punishment. Only a funny joke demands post-hoc complaint or criticism. Nobody charges up to the sad post-bomb comic drooping in the corner of the club and says "I just want you to know that joke wasn't funny!" They know. It doesn't need to be said. In the run up to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, we can expect three articles to come out. 1) the one that goes "do comedians make money?"; 2) the one about women in comedy; and 3) the one about outrage. So if you happen to be the outraged party in a room where a joke or perspective has hurt your personal feelings or your sense of what's morally correct, (and bear in mind, I believe as strongly in your freedom to criticise art as I believe in the freedom of art to criticise society) my advice is to avoid saying "it's not funny". Here are some choose your own adventure things you can say instead: One of your jokes bothered me. From what I understood, it was (making fun of/trivialising/tokenising) (this issue/these people). You might want to (change/clarify) your (wording/emphasis/target/career choice). It (just took me out of the show/offended me/hurt my feelings/confused me) and I (couldn't enjoy it/now loathe you with the fiery itchy passion of a herpes-volcano/had to leave/am going to make a complaint to management/will give you a one star review) Chiz Punks! Alice