Rainn Wilson combines date rape and Led Zeppelin in hee-larious Twitter joke
By EJ DicksonFebruary 21st, 2012, 2:30 pmComments (19)
Although a lot of people think Rainn Wilson's character on The Office — moon-faced narcissist/beet aficionado Dwight Schrute — is funny, Wilson himself has always kinda reminded me of that creepy dude in your ninth-grade English class who was always either making snarky comments about the teacher's pit stains, or jerking off to The Scarlet Letter's naughtier passages in the back of the room. Which is why I felt kind of validated but mostly horrified to see Wilson tweet the following earlier today:
Nice one, Rainn! Joking about being date-raped to Led Zeppelin is a fab way to curry favor with female viewers of your upcoming spin-off, which is rumored to be premiering on NBC as a mid-season replacement next year. (And, to make matters worse, "Whole Lotta Love" isn't even one of the best Zeppelin songs. If you're going to make an asshole of yourself by joking about a soundtrack to be forcibly penetrated to, at least pick something off Houses of the Holy.)
To be fair, Wilson has since responded to the backlash resulting from the offending tweet, apologizing by tweeting: "Apparently my poorly conceived date-rape tweet upset a lot of folks. Not a good topic to joke about. Sorry & won't do that again." So it appears that Wilson has learned his lesson about TUI (Tweeting Under the Influence, with the influence in this case being profound stupidity). But he has yet to issue an apology for the fact that he spells his name with two Ns, so we still have that to hold against him.
Commentarium (19 Comments)
Hey Hooksexup, get off your fucking high horse. Just because you guys are a bunch of politically correct assholes with no sense of humor doesn't make rain Wilson a bad guy for making a joke. comedy is mean spirited sometimes. But hey what I know.
Mean-spirited is one thing. Sick and fucked up is another. Sorry you don't know the difference.
Oh whatever. +1 so-what. You never know how Hooksexup'll respond. One day they complain about others taking a comedian too seriously and the next they're doing the same thing.
Sick and fucked up are always the best jokes. The rest have been done before. If someone, somewhere doesn't cringe, then you're not being funny (See: Frank Caliendo).
"Who doesn't love a good rape joke?" said no one ever
Exactly. Nothing else needs to be said. Too many morons in this world.
what about the clown one
I think the takeaway is less "offensive jokes are always morally repugnant" and more "context is key."
He's a celebrity. he made a joke about date rape on twitter. it wasn't personal. it hurt nobody. it was mediocre. let's not jump all over his shit.
No kidding! He used himself as the object of the joke, so why should women be offended (are men never raped?)? To "that's what," sick and fucked up is often the basis for (frequently good) comedy, poking fun at convention and people's comfort level. I know the difference because I can laugh at the sick stuff but not at mean-spirited humor that exists only to humiliate others who are easy targets.
I love how immature assholes always try to bring up shit like "Men being raped," in issues like this. Really asshole? You know a lot of men who have been date raped? I'm not talking about pedophile priests' victims and non-consensual jail sex, but actual straight men being raped out on a date with a female.
To all you women out there, I promise you we're not all as stupid as most of these posts would indicate we are.
Especially your post - because some people know that men date men.
You're ridiculous. What exactly is your point? That sometimes me on dates rape other men? Obviously, moron. But there's no comparison to the incidence of date-rape between males/females to males/males so why even bring it up? Oh yeah, to try to show that you're not an insensitive d-bag because hey, men sometimes are date-raped, too! Moron.
You're still here? I thought you'd be out buying Led Zeppelin records to give gifts to the men you sometimes rape on dates.
It was a joke, he shouldn't have had to apologize. Rape is a bad thing. Jokes are a good thing. Rape jokes aren't rape, much like holocaust jokes aren't the holocaust and dead baby jokes don't kill babies. His joke wasn't misogynist or sexist, and it was actually quite tame in comparison to many contemporary stand up acts.
In comedy there is nothing that is sacred. All topics are valid. That's the way it should be. If we start cencoring certain topics in comedy, it's the start of a slippery slope. However, people should smarter about who there audience is.
agreed.
Leave Zeppelin out of this, their greatness shouldn't be sullied by one lame joke.
What are his politics? This will help me determine my level of outrage.
Now you say something