“It’s hard to overstate just how common jokes about men being sexually assaulted are in entertainment media,” host and producer Jonathan McIntosh says in the opening of the latest episode of Pop Culture Detective.
“Most popular comedic actors engage in this type of humor. Jokes are typically designed to demean, humiliate, control, or emasculate a male character for being the victim, or potential victim, of sexual violence,” McIntosh continues.
The clips are multitude and shocking in their quantity when presented all at once like this—it’s particularly jarring to see Kevin Hart repeatedly delivering sexual assault jokes in light of him not hosting the Oscars . But the most powerful parts feature actor Terry Crews.
Crews was one of a handful of men that have been vocal about sexual assault. Crews even testified in front of Congress—in support of the Survivor’s Bill Of Rights— but even he found himself widely derided by many other actors.
This is the first of two video essays on this topic. Part 1 focuses on humor involving men sexually assaulting or harassing other men. Part 2 will examine media in which women are depicted as the perpetrators.
Sexual assault of men played for comedy is so normalized in entertainment that you may not have even noticed it shows up everywhere. And I mean everywhere.https://t.co/wrFQibAHyy
— Jonathan McIntosh (@radicalbytes) February 11, 2019
Pop Culture Detective are a series of critical video essays looking at media through a critical lens with an emphasis on the intersections of politics, masculinity and entertainment hosted by McIntosh.
Watch Sexual Assault Played For Laughs below.
