This is my rant (slightly in the form of a letter I want to write):
To Whom it may concern,
I attended your comedy night on Wednesday, December 19th
and would like to bring a few things to your attention.
I came with a group of 6 girls and sat in the front. We expected some heckling, and can take a
joke. However, there are a few things
that happened that crossed the line.
The first, a comedian came on stage and spent his entire
time berating my friend for texting. Who
was she texting? A woman whom that same
comedian had drugged and raped. Why was my
friend texting? to avoid looking in his face.
He recognized her and I am guessing he suspected who she was
texting. He tried to grab her phone,
physically touching her and screamed in her face. He called her names that no woman should ever
be called, said things to her that would get any normal person fired, and spent the rest of his set screaming in her
face. His anger was real. Hosting a venue in which it is ok for a
registered sex offender to publicly harass someone is not ok.
The next comedian continued the “joke” by calling this same
friend to the front and telling her to stay behind him “this is what you get
for texting”. He “joked” about gang
raping her with seven of his friends. He
continued with the direct name calling and invitations until she walked off the
stage. Following the performance, he
tried to give her a hug, said something like “I’m sorry, it was all in fun.” He then said something along the lines of “but
I was serious about the rape, and here are some of my friends…” He used to word “rape” while physically
touching her and after his set. How is
this not sexual harassment?
One of the interesting things about this event is that I really don't think this would have been tolerated in another city. Why is it ok here?
The last comedian tried to lighten everything up and did seek us (I had been called out as well, by another comedian for being Mormon, this was light-hearted, however.) out and apologize. He was appalled. At least we weren't the only ones...
