Feb 20, 2011 19:40
It happened again.
There's a podcast on iTunes called How Did This Get Made?, sponsored by Earwolf. Each episode focuses on another awful movie, and they discuss what exactly was happening and what made it so hilariously bad. The most recent episode (Episode Four) was based on The Last Airbender.
I know how badly that movie was made. I have lots of friends who watched the cartoon, and I know how horribly the cast was whitewashed, and I know that M. Night Shyamalan should probably take a nice long vacation to think about his directing techniques. So I knew I was going to like this podcast, is the point I'm trying to make.
And I did. It was really, really funny; they brought up the casting issues, the ridiculousness of the Earth tribe not being able to escape from a prison made out of dirt, the general strangeness of the concept itself, and all the other things everyone hates about this movie.
The last five minutes or so they save for reader comments. This time, they tasked the readers to give this movie backhanded compliments. Several people said things I agreed with.
Someone sent in "At least I wasn't raped while I watched it." The panel cracked up. One of the people on it said "well, I was," and it turned into a joke that lasted the rest of the episode.
It was only five minutes, but it was enough.
What do you do when people who produce something you otherwise enjoy make rape jokes? Make gay jokes? Make race jokes? I don't know what I would have done if this kind of cruelty (because that's what it is. That's all it is. It isn't funny if you actually think about what you are actually saying) had happened outside of the podcast. But since it happened on the actual recording itself, I refuse to listen to it anymore.
It's sick that people still think this is funny. It's sick that people ever did.
media,
rape culture,
your jokes aren't funny