So for those of you who haven’t seen this weekend’s SNL, Rihanna was the musical guest. Since she’s too awesome to be contained to the stage, they brought her into the digital short with Andy Samburg. They also had her do this hilarious sketch where she was giving an interview about the beating she suffered at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, Chris Brown, except she kept on getting interrupted by Brown beating her some more. HAHAHAHHA.
Oh, wait. That’s not what the sketch was, because that would be completely fucking insane.
Instead, the sketch was about Tiger Woods being repeatedly beaten by his wife, because when you reverse the sexes, domestic violence is less of a horrifying problem, and more of a zany premise for a movie that ends with a lot of laughing around a kitchen table and resigned sighs about those “crazy broads.”
I know female-on-male domestic violence isn’t as huge of an issue as male on female violence, but it is an issue, and not merely a punchline. Men are generally stronger and more aggressive than women, so when a woman attacks a man, it’s somehow seen as a novelty, or a joke, or even “cute.” However, the guy I saw in the ER this morning, who was being questioned by a sheriff’s deputy about the fight he had with his wife or girlfriend, while a terrifying amount of blood was pouring down his face, would probably disagree.
Look, I don’t think SNL is evil because they decided to do this sketch. I don’t even think that they should apologize, or anything like that, because their job is to make jokes, not to be completely unoffensive. They certainly aren’t the first ones to joke about the alleged incident between Tiger Woods and his wife, and they certainly won’t be the last. My problem with it is the lack of common sense that they seemed to display.
They would never, in a million years, do a Chris Brown/Rihanna sketch, so why, with Rihanna in the studio, serving as a physical reminder, would they think that this sketch was a good idea? But then again, in an episode that featured exactly two funny things, both of which were UPS commercials, I guess I shouldn’t expect that much.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Dec 07, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Rihanna is an idiot, and that’s all I have to say about that.
This is a news story, everyone knows what really happened is that Tiger Wood’s wife when ape shit on him, and that is funny. They aren’t going to delay being funny because the singer is an idiot.
I would imagine that in the writing room Tiger does not generate much sympathy, where as Rhianna generates tremendous sympathy.
Nobody likes a puto is my best guess.
Kona and I were at the ER with our son on Sunday, and I’m glad he’s young enough that we didn’t have to explain the situation to him. If you’d seen the guy sobbing in the wheelchair in front ER, towel held to his face, puddle of blood pooling on the ground, explaining to the police how his wife bashed in his head, you’d have a much more visceral feeling of how domestic violence is never funny. Ever.
I could be angry about people’s response: “harharhar…she hit him…harharhar…that’s funny! What’s the big deal?” But, really, should I be surprised? I mean, this is a culture that still thinks rape is funny (as long as it’s prison rape.) Brutality is always fair game as long as the victim isn’t part of a protected class.
To be clear, domestic violence is never funny. Niether are the other things that Luke listed, I guess my point is, as it relates to SNL is that the perception is that Rhianna, the sweet girl, caught her fella cheating and took a disgusting beating for it. Tiger, catted around on his lovely (pregnant?) wife, making her and the kids look like fools and perhaps she scratched his face a little. I’m not saying it’s right by any stretch, but you have to admit that the perception changes the reaction of people.
And I personally feel sorry for everyone involved.
And Kona and Luke, I hope your boy is feeling better!
*POST AUTHOR*
I totally understand what you’re saying. My reaction came from the reports that Woods’ wife may have beaten him with a golf club, which is really serious. But the point is, we don’t know what happened, so it’s really weird for me to joke about what could be a serious situation.
Oh, and our son is fine. It wasn’t anything big, but our doctor sent us to the hospital b/c it was Sunday, and their office was closed. Thanks!
I didn’t like the sketch, but not because it was about domestic violence. It wasn’t very funny/well executed (except Jason Sudekis’ Wolf Blitzer impression). I also have to disagree with the assumption that domestic violence/ rape is never funny.
Now, I am in no way condoning the real life actions of rape/domestic violence. They are horrible despicable acts when they are committed by any person regardless of gender. But it isn’t the job of comedy/comedians to be as inoffensive as possible. Through humor we highlight problems within our society, between individuals, and can even raise awareness of norms and mores. Also humor is an important outlet/stress reliever. If we can’t joke about something, how can we move past it as a civil society?
I agree that it isn’t in good taste to do jokes about domestic violence in Rhianna’s presence, but how far from her orbit are those jokes allowed to be made. I think it would be worse to use humor about domestic violence behind her back. You have a right to be offended by this kind of humor, and yes even the SNL writers have a right to make terrible jokes that might insight this offense.
To the person who said domestic violence/rape is never funny I would use a few examples I think are funny. From Arrested Development Tobias’ oft quoted Analyst-Therapist/Analrapist joke. And continuing in the David Cross spectrum of comedy I thought that the Mr. Show Cops musical which featured domestic violence humor was pretty hilarious.
In closing I would like to say that I completely understand your point of view of a double standard when it comes to gender based domestic violence humor. The good thing about soicety, however, is that we aren’t static. In the past it was completely “OK” for Ralph Kramden to threaten his significant other with a beating that would send her to the moon, but you wouldn’t see that on TV today. Unless the character doing the threatening was Tiger Wood’s wife. Well, there is always hope that things will improve in the future if we keep having discussions about it.
*POST AUTHOR*
My problem with it isn’t that they were making domestic violence jokes; it was that they were making jokes about a potentially serious act of violence that happened between two real people. That, to me is a lot different than AD’s “analrapist” jokes (which are hilarious).
I don’t believe that they shouldn’t have made the joke because Rihanna was there (and you’re right about doing it behind her back not making it better). My point in regards to her is that she should have served as a physical reminder to the writers of how awful these situations can be, and they should have, in turn, used some common damn sense.