so what does this tell us about viceganda. s/he’s not dumb — it takes smarts to do stand-up comedy, even the bastos kind — surely she knew she was crossing a line. is it a measure of his/her contempt for social and moral no-no’s? or was she testing the limits of her audience, among them “ma’am charo,” and the fouler she got, the louder they laughed. no one walked out. all is fair in the network war?
We cant read it. what did he say?
oh, never mind. i figured it out.
rape jokes are hard. rape jokes that mock the victim, even if the victim is a celebrity is not a good idea.
So why are they saying they are marginalized. If I said the same things, I’d probably be dead.
you’re right. kill that faggot. joke joke.
It shows that stars can become detached from sensitivity if they are awash in light bulbs and cheers. I rather suspect that all of us have such moments of detachment from other people’s pains, but Vice did it loud and long and in front of a huge audience.
she apologized. it was quite eloquent and clear.
when tosh did it, he “half apologized” over twitter. when dane cook did it, im not sure he apologized.
it would take a gang to rape a fat woman. yan ang joke ni vice pangit, in case nakalimutan niya.
The twitterati who were so incensed by all this? Wouldn’t be caught dead watching this character. Those who would? Were watching that concert and laughing along. Nga.
2.8 million followers on Twitter. This was enabled. The masses she plays to enabled this.
Those in the media, those in entertainment, those with 2.8 million fucking followers on Twitter have a responsibility na ha. To enlighten — to educate — as much as entertain. To serve as examples, be models. The people who put her on the air have this responsibility too. And those who sponsor and advertise with them support their actions — this character’s actions — din.
This’ll blow over as something the twitterati will consider beneath them and their loftier concerns. But, really, they should be calling for boycotts and firings.
like a worried facebook friend says, ginagaya na siya ng mga bata.
sorry that link is suddenly private pala. try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ_IWCo-PAc
So the joke suggests it’s ok to gang rape a fat victim. Is that it? Tasteless to the point of crudity. And perhaps that says it all.
There is no way a decent human can apologize for that.
Unfortunately, perhaps the advertisers, the media moguls, and the silly audience are in a conspiracy to sanctify rape of fat folks. So, people like Vice think they can get away with whatever.
No need to go on and on. Shut him (her) down, in the name of decency and delicadeza. But our capital is the gates of hell. Perhaps there is neither decency nor delicadeza any more.
you’ll need a team to find her sweet spot.
orlando :) yes, “no way a decent human can apologize for that” … he’d have to crawl and beg and grovel and plead insanity. and it’s not only jessica he should be apologizing, or trying, vainly, to, but all decent pinoys who are horribly offended and scandalized. as for abs-cbn, and the sponsors/advertisers who buy into his shows: parang hindi nila alam, or okay lang sa kanila? that vice ganda is really pangit, because his kind of humor is crass, and mean, and has an absolutely harmful influence on our young. do they all have to stoop so low, get so down and dirty, to make their millions? they do the filipino public a gross disservice.
Oh, common,kids, i mean, folks. Even the former decent Senator Raul Manglapus, made a mistake of “joking” about the rape victims enjoying their predicament. Which is better having a pre-censorship of content by entertainers or being penalized like Ariel Oreta who commented that “to make this society great,we need bicycle” earning him a jail during the Marcos rule. I think sincere apology shows is enough to show Vice was made aware of his mistake. I donot make value judgement on the crass materialism of his act which was normal to the situation being delivered.
jojie,
i never thought u and i would agree on anything :) like you, once an apology is given, im good with it. and her apology was eloquent, clear.
argh
It was a fat joke in the “she’s so fat ….” genre, as in “she’s so fat you’ll have to roll her in flour to find the wet spot”. Vice’s mistake was the rape bit because rape is not a laughing matter. Anyway he admitted his mistake and apologised so it’s time to move on.
yeah, the rape bit was a distraction. there’s a big discussion in the west about making jokes on sensitive topics. rape is a tough nut to crack. generally, the object of the joke shouldnt be the victim (but it can be yourself), and there has to be some kind of other redeeming quality, like cleverness/non-obviousness.
That discussion was so big, it made me yawn.
Yeah, Louie CK had a rape joke on his show. He was the victim of the date rape.
To Gabby, he/she is clever? not obvious?
I wasn’t born yesterday; I could have croaked today. If he/she were born tomorrow, it would be neat to have died today, because what you don’t know can’t hurt.
Okay. So we’re obvious and he/she is shubtle, and makes tons of money for nameless folks. Sounds like the infernal PCOS, the kind Dan Brown sees as opening the gates of you know where.
no, vice was NOT clever. thats my point – that its hard to make a good rape joke because its hard to find a clever spin to it.
her rape joke was not good.
orlando, does that make sense?
“Postscript to a vice” by Conrado de Quiros http://opinion.inquirer.net/53849/postscript-to-a-vice
“Vice Ganda’s false apology” http://www.radikalchick.com/vice-gandas-false-apology/
The entire Jessica Soho clip, not an out-take featuring the rape line, is here :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ_IWCo-PAc
(transcript deleted)
And everybody focuses on the rape joke, taking it out of context completely. Nowhere did VG mention the rape in a real life context. It was a reel not a real rape, and as mentioned earlier, rape scenes are common in bold movies.
thanks for transcript but no thanks, dirties up my blog. he was getting all the laughs he wanted, he could have done without the rape joke.
http://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/30586-the-rape-of-jessica-soho
the vid is gone! anyways, when critics argue “perpetuation of a culture of rape”, these flicks and other elements of culture are what they are talking about. the jokes accept the fact that “rape scenes are common”, and perpetuate it.
better (might i even say “good”?) jokes, challenge the existing power balance/cultural balance. they mock it. ask “why ARE rape scenes so damn common?” in clever way.
merely agreeing with it, and asking “ok, what happens when a large woman gets raped?” takes all this cultural/sociological foundation for granted, and goes for the lazy joke about weight.
on the other hand, i love freedom of speech there is much to be said about anything done in a comedy show is expected to shock. but note that even in the US, these kinds of jokes get alot of heat.
generally, there is nothing in free speech that says people should be spared from the implications of said speech. comedians should be expected to push boundaries, but when those boundaries “push back”, that should be fine too (within limits).
doesn’t using the title “The Rape of Jessica Soho” fall into the trap of raping Jessica with words? certainly it will mean hits for the website, but that’s a phrase that will forever be on the internet. the subject here was Vice Ganda joking about rape. that title, drama and all, objectifies the victim of that joke all over again, and forever, even as it defends her.
Talaga naman melodramatic ang essay ni Patricia Evangelista. Dun sa sympathetic portrait niya of Jessica, she wrote, “that woman (Jessica) is not typical of the rest of the camera-ready long-legged darlings of prime time.”
Teka long-legged ba si Mel Tiangco at si Korinna Sanchez?
And to compare the joke to what happened to Sheryl Cadapan and Nicole is really going overboard. What happened to those two women is no laughing matter, no matter what the context. One can say Ms Evangelista elevated the joke on Ms Soho to the level of brutality but at the same time putting those incidents in the same bag brings down their truly horrifying brutalization to the level of comedy.
Finally she seems as outraged over fat jokes as she is about rape. She thinks fat jokes are sexist. But fat jokes do not distinguish between sexes. It’s obesity and not gender that fat jokes target. In America the current butt of fat jokes is male: Gov Chris Christie of New Jersey. Late-night comics lamented the stomach surgery he had to control his eating because fat jokes are easy and his surgery will force them to work harder. The latest joke about Christie involves his asking about the funeral arrangements for New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg. Christie was reportedly more concerned over whether or not there was going to be a buffet at the senator’s wake.
There is legitimate disagreement over the Jessica jokes. I can understand where the outrage comes from – those types of jokes accept things as they are and so perpetuate despicable behavior – so I am sorry for putting down those who were outraged as humor-less and anal-retentive. I laughed at the joke because it upended the premise of rape scenes in bold movies. That’s what I saw and not the big picture that those who were outraged saw.
just occurred to me. most guys are saying move-on, or something to that effect. makes me wonder about vice pangit. me pusong babae ba ito, or s/he’s just another move-on guy, na nagbibinabae lang dahil bumebenta.
Move on is the most sensitive thing to do for Jessica Soho’s sake, as Katrina recognizes in observing that Soho has become the center of attention rather than Ganda.
We compassionate liberals get torn between two views, one that an artist ought to be free to express, the other that we ought not be abusive of women. Vice Ganda hit both wickets with his particular pitch, being both extreme and abusive. I thought his apology was weaselly nonsense. I also think any lessons to be learned have been learned, and that the Philippines has actually taken a step toward a growing awareness that public media have a role to play in guiding the nation toward higher ideals. Like, leave the garbage humor in the wee hours of the morning, don’t put it up front to define a way of behavior for young people.
I hope so. I get tired of the “F” word blaring from my radio as I drive my kid to school.
yes, i see where you’re coming from. i guess i’m critical of the move-on discourse when it’s coming from people who are quick to accept that apology, no matter how lame.
Yes, and I see where you are coming from. I’d move the discussion to media self-regulation and the failure of media owners to properly set standards that are wholesome for young Filipinos. I put Wow Wow Willie into the same bucket of entertainment that takes audiences down the low road when he is ridiculing kids or ogling women. I think media self-regulation fosters exploitative content. To make a buck, anything goes.
JoeA@#:
“I think media self-regulation fosters exploitative content. To make a buck, anything goes.” Thats what makes our freedom of speech/expression” a false sense of democracy. Our media entertainment is just a copycat of Hollywood comedy bars,sitcoms,etc. dishing out shows that usually fall short of moral standards, anything that tickles or tear jerkers pwede na sa mga sponsors.
Right. Freedom in a democratic sense does not mean “anything goes”. It means we agree to live by rules that most of us believe make us a more wholesome, prosperous, kinder nation. Generally unrestrained speech does that . . . to the point that it insults or hurts or demeans the feelings of too many people. Rules are needed to stop Vice Ganda obscene utterances from getting to my kid’s television or newspaper.
“Vicious Ganda” by Romeo D. Bohol http://opinion.inquirer.net/54045/vicious-ganda
hold on, the problem with romeo’s argument is that laughing is a smoking gun for agreeing with the premise. laughing at the thought of someone being raped, does not mean that you believe that someone should be raped.
right, angela? i mean, surely, you’ve laughed at mean jokes before right? that doesnt mean you believe that joke should be made real, right?