Is it OK to Joke about Rape? Island Survivor brings National Tour to Victoria.

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Published on Friday, 06 May 2016 12:15
Written by editor


SHD

PAOV --

In the months since working with SHD on the election, I took a bit of a breather and then started working on my own project because I was trying to answer these questions:

Are rape jokes ever OK, let alone funny? What if the people telling rape jokes were survivors?



In late December, my friend Heather Jordan Ross and I had a beer after work and we were talking about uninformed rape jokes from new comedians. As comedians and survivors, we were tired of hearing rape brought up in a thoughtless way. We joked about having a show all about rape, but by survivors. At first it seemed silly, then we sketched it out, made some calls and hosted a sold-out show within three weeks.

That's how Rape is Real & Everywhere was born. Seasoned comedians who have experienced rape use humour to bring awareness and humanness to this common experience and to punch up at the issues. You might have heard about the show as it has been featured on CBC's As It Happens, Vice, and Ricochet. Here is our video that circulated on Facebook too.

Like SHD, our show comes from a few feisty artists and friends wanting to make change. It combines activism and jokes to cut through assumptions and inaction.

Audience members have told us that the show has changed them, that it is so 'F@$!ing important' and that they found it '100% funnier than being raped.' (Our audiences members are pretty great!)

This is not an SHD project but I am using the comedy writing, activism and organizing skills I learned at SHD in order to take this successful Vancouver show across the country.

Our show comes to Victoria on May 17th at The Victoria Event Centre and we are independently touring to Vancouver, Nanaimo, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown and St. John's. We are excited to get conversations started all across Canada.

If you are interested in engaging you can get tickets, share via email, Facebook and Twitter or sign up for our mailing list.

It's very OK if this is not of interest to you. If nothing else, I would like to thank you for your support of SHD and let you know where I am now investing my learning and time.

I wouldn't have believed that we could pull off this tour without knowing about the amazing grassroots support that emerges for comedy that punches up at power.

Thank you for teaching me that a good joke matters.

In solidarity (and comedy!),

Emma


Emma, SHD.ca
http://www.shd.ca/

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