It made me cringe. I hope they steer clear of future rape "jokes". I agree, usually 'the Office' makes tongue-in-cheek jokes and observations about race/gender/etc., but this just wasn't funny to me. Unfortunately, 'Family Guy' continues to make liberal use of such "humor" and I have completely stopped watching it.

That was icky. I don't know what that joke was even directed at. Making fun of women who use their past rape experience as an excuse? Didn't know that was a big topic of social discussion, or one that needed to be "skewered" in a sit com.

(And I usually like The Office, though not as much as the British one)

Agreed, this was not funny and way out of line. The actress that plays Kelly is one of the writers, too, so I found this line especially surprising.

"the office" is one of my favorite shows, so i was totally shocked by this un-funny "joke." i havent had a chance to catch up on feministing in a few days, so i dont know if this has been discussed... but this episode followed an episode of "private practice" (which is, admittedly, a much less evolved show) in which a woman from afghanistan lies about being raped because she has been sleeping with her american boyfriend who is not her betrothed and wants the doctor to re-virginize her. what's going on with this sudden surge? sick.

I agree that it was cringe-worthy. I suspect that the writers were thinking of some absurd way for Kelly to try and get out of being caught being unethical, but didn't consider the implications for rape victims. I think it was more of a misstep than an intentional "skewer" as AgnesScottie seems to suggest. Not that this excuses it.

There's no video in this post for me. Could someone paraphrase the "joke"?

I think there can be a good joke about rape, actually. There IS such a thing as dark humor. If the joke causes a person to think and “shudder” at the same time they’re laughing, it may very well open their eyes.

Information is delivered in a variety of ways---why anyone would want to stifle avenues to truth is totally weird to me---and shallow.

I think that because Kelly's character is usually the more stereotypically "ditzy" female (overly interested in the lives of celebrities, crying over Ryan the temp, etc.), it's an over-the-line joke. In season four, she fakes a pregnancy so that Ryan will get back together with her. It seems that the implication is "ditzy" females are also women who fabricate rape stories -- wtf is that about?

I LOVE The Office. This joke was just off. It's the first time The Office has ever made me cringe at a joke, so I think they just made a serious judgment error this one time. I don't think they'll do it again. Rape is never funny. I guess they could've done it an ironic way, to emphasize the complete wrongness of it, but they didn't do that this time.

I saw that, and I've been trying to figure out what the joke is even supposed to mean. Was Kelly raped and trying to use it as an excuse, or making it up and trying to use it as an excuse, or is it "funny" because Michael falls for everything at least once, or? It wasn't funny, and compared with the rest of the show, I don't see how they could have meant it to be funny.

Yeah, I jumped out of my chair after this aired to go blog about it because I was so uncomfortable. I kind of couldn't believe it when no one really mentioned it the next day. The joke was just completely out of nowhere and didn't line up with the characters. I wonder if the writers were trying to be outrageous...? The US Office isn't really known for that--even race discussions were cushioned by Michael's obvious ignorance. I mean, the British Office had a rape joke that was, well, funny, so dark humor can be accomplished without perpetuating stereotypes.

For those of you who don't know, the woman who plays Kelly on the show is actually one of the writers. Not that it makes the offensive joke any better. But really though, you have to look at the joke in context. This a character who has a history of making up stories to get her way. Offensive or not, it's the kind of thing her character would say. Besides this show isn't exactly known for being PC. (i.e. THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!)

If anything - this highlights the issue of context. I am a diehard Office fan and therefore biased but I wanted to try to cast some additional light on the scene. Kelly is an ego-centric airhead. Mindy Kaling (the author and actress) is brilliant and witty. The odds are good that she wrote that line with a full understanding of the potential consequences.

Various Office boards have been going over this line since 10:01 on Thursday night and the consensus seems to be hate it because they used the word "rape" or laugh at HER, understanding that The Office isn't making a social statement about false claims of rape. Kelly got in trouble and thought she was about to get fired. In the past, she has faked a pregnancy, stalked two employees and written up bad reviews because they didn't go to her party, accused a co-workers 14 year old daughter or flirting with her boyfriend, and lied about issues big and small. The comment was in line with Kelly who saw no problem with buying a tape worm to lose weight. It seemed like, at that moment, she was reaching for something really big to try and get herself out of trouble. In addition, on a past episode, another character was flashed in the parking lot. Every other character on the show came to the character's aid, responding as you'd hope. No one was saying rape is funny. Kelly is an idiot for attempting to use such a life-changing event as an excuse and she was properly shot down by her boss. Kelly went right to a statement that she thought would distract her boss (who was distracted by a compliment to his tie) and she failed.

Happy Feminist: this is the rape joke from The Office in Britain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nyCIqJP_4s

You need to watch the clip to get the context. It's not offensive at all, I don't think, as the point is David Brent's complete crassness and obnoxiousness.

I have to say that I don't really think the American Office's joke is offensive either, as it's at the expense of the character, not at rape victims - although it is a difficult line to tread.

vandynd: hit the nail on the head. Context is everything.

It really is a horrific joke... though I can see how it was meant to be funny and I have to admit I was a dunderhead and had to spend a split second to understand exactly what was wrong with it (I'm too acculturated to regressive jokes about minorities and women by Family Guy and South Park), but then I had to slap myself in the forehead... It was meant to be a huge and obvious non-sequitir -- and, I get the feeling, an obvious lie -- but it's just too important a topic to be flip in this way. Too many women are still shamed or afraid to come forward, or put through hell after they do -- there's still a societal imperative to impose a narrative of "somehow, she was asking for it". The mainstream would rather accept a "loose woman" than a man who would do something so vile, especially men who are otherwise "normal" -- family men, fathers, pillars of the community, basketball stars, etc.

I mean, think if she had said, "Someone shot me yesterday." That kind of makes me giggle. It's just such an obvious attempt to distract from her wrong-doing. But it is too important an issue for such a regressive joke -- like (on a wholly different magnitude) her saying "Is this because I'm Indian?" The joke is funny to a certain group because it confirms what they "knew" -- minorities use their color/status as an excuse. I don't think those are particularly funny, but of course the rape one is just really far over the line. I see what they were trying to do... it clearly falls into the category of "supposedly subversive joke supporting mainstream ignorance of a real problem that the "we make fun of everybody [oppressed and oppressors equally]" types enjoy.

Truthfully, I wasn't bothered by this. The Office has a history of having it's characters make questionable observations, jokes, and statements, and it's always been clear to me that they are making fun of the type of person who would say such a thing as opposed to the intended butt of the joke. If Kelly had said "I was raped" and Michael had just rolled his eyes, I would have found that offensive. But the fact that she has used this excuse before (and uses it in the same way she says "I love your tie"), not to mention the fact that Michael has fallen for it before, saved it for me.

I had a friend in high school who was dumped by her boyfriend and as revenge spread a story about how he had raped her. She confided to me a few years later that she had made it all up, and just didn't want him to date anyone else. Sadly enough, I encountered another example of this in college. Basically, this DOES happen sometimes. It has never changed my perceptions of people who claim they've been raped - it's a huge, harmful, damaging lie to make and I generally believe that people are better than that. But I think there IS a very small contingent of women (and possibly men, although I've never heard of a particular case) who use this to their advantage. Seeing as Kelly's used a fake unplanned pregnancy to her advantage before, I think the point that the writers are trying to make is that she IS this type of person.

I can understand how others find it offensive, and I'm not trying to discount anyone's viewpoint, just offering up my own experience :)

I think there is a general consensus that jokes like this are largely unacceptable. This marks are significant change from years past when this sort of thing was routinely viewed as acceptable. Now if we could only get people to stop using prison rape as a punchline, since studies show its victims are typically young prisoners unfamiliar with the prison system and serving time for often non-violent offenses.

Axel - just out of curiosity, would you opinion change if you found out that the person who wrote the line had been raped?

Disclaimer - I have no clue who wrote it. Just hypothetical.

They weren't making fun of rape. They were making fun of Kelly, who is a stereotypical antithesis of a feminist. Just because someone says "rape" in the middle of a joke doesn't mean it's a rape joke. You aren't supposed to laugh about the fact that she was raped. I think it's more a comment about how you should never cry rape, which I think is something that women can all get behind. Crying rape just makes it that much harder for actual rape victims to get the help they need.
I agree with other commenters that it's about the context. If you know much about Kelly, you'll get it.

I agree with greylibra. I probably would have been more offended if it weren't for the fact that I know girls who have lied about being raped in order to gain attention from others.

Saw this. Love The Office. Still thought it was awful. Actually, the worst part for me wasn't Kelly saying "I was raped" - though that was definitely bad enough - but Michael's response that "You can't just say 'I was raped' and expect all your problems to go away." A punch in the stomach for all the survivors with PTSD who honestly do need some extra accommodation in their lives. Not to mention all the survivors who are afraid to speak up for fear that people won't believe them or will think they're trying to make excuses for their current problems (especially the case with childhood sexual assault survivors, I find).

I understand the context of the joke, and I still think it was way over the line.

Am I the only one reading this post and cringing? The Office has a robust history of offensive jokes toward gay people, people of colour, fat people (do you remember that painful episode in which Michael tried to force an overweight employee onto a table, causing the man severe humiliation and forcing him to quit? How about all those horrifically racist jokes about Oscar, Kelly, and Darryl?). Nary a Feministing post. I absolutely agree that we need to train our feminist light sabers on rape jokes - whether we ultimately decide to slice them up or not - but I'm sick of stuff like race playing second fiddle. We're a little uncomfortable about Kelly crying rape even when it could arguably fit her character (as other commenters have pointed out, she has a history of selling out feminism) but we haven't deconstructed some of terrible things Michael has said and done although they, too, could arguably fit his (idiotic) character. In fact, that, to me, is one of the real problems with the Office - it wants us to despise Kelly, yet sympathize with Michael. Because Kelly knows what she's doing, yet Michael is innocently "ignorant". For how long can we defend his racist, sexist, and everything-ist behavior as being "uninformed", and the Dunder Mifflin corporate culture that allows him to continue with a wink and a roll of the eyes?

To me, the light treatment of Michael is what's really scary here. Because it furthers the more insidious and pervasive idea that this shit isn't as bad when it comes from a friendly face.

As a sidenote, I think the show has made it quite clear that Kelly doesn't represent "most women", she represents a severe outlier of women. And it takes an outlier, in real life, to make a false allegation of rape. Just as a takes an outlier to report their actual one.

I love The Office, but that joke definitely led to my husband and I exchanging an uncomfortable look. We did not laugh, so I think the joke failed, even though I see the point many people are making about the fact that the joke is more about the kind of person Jelly is. I just would rather they had used some other obvious manipulation instead of "I was raped". At any rate, it was far less offensive than what I've seen on The Family Guy, which I used to love and can no longer watch.

I think what's telling about the joke is that Jim, Dwight and Michael don't react to her comment. And what's even more telling is that Kelly looks away and then clearly goes to a default excuse that she's used before and that she is making up. In the past she's been known to cry to get her way, but she didn't even bother to act like it was a big deal, which is proof that a.) she has tried that before b.) Michael HAS fallen for it before and c.) she's just trying to get her way. In the scene following this one Michael lets her off the hook for forging the bad reports because no one's been to his parties, and he understands why she's upset with them. He tells her to fake cry and instead they sit there and giggle. It's about proving that Michael understands how she feels and that he wants her to tell the truth, not so that she can get in trouble, but so he can let her know he cares and can relate. It's actually a rare redemptive moment for Michael. The fake rape isn't the point, Kelly and Michael connecting is.

The scene isn't about rape, it isn't about the joke, it's about the characters. It's actually a moment of growth for Michael, if you think about it in comparison to his previous behaviour regarding sexual harrassment, because by blowing off her statement it proves he's reacted to that statement in the PAST like a real human being. We see Jim and Dwight ignore the comment and we know that when he says she's done it again in an exasperated tone, that it really is an inappropriate excuse that has been treated properly in the past. It's also likely that in the past Michael would have made a joke, probably along the lines of "you asked for it" when she said that. While his comment is insensitive it isn't out of line with HER character. Is it right to use rape as a tool for his character growth? Maybe not. But The Office isn't about what's appropriate.

Kelly's character is consistently shown doing things that are ethically questionable. I think that is one of the points of her character. The show walks a line between using her actions as humor and criticizing her actions. I suspect there was a conscientious choice to have her, again, make the unethical choice to try to get out of trouble.

I don't think this particular rape joke was funny.

But I think rape jokes can be funny, depending on the angle one takes. I do stand up, and I've got two rape jokes, but they're not about being raped because I don't own that experience. They're about being out in the world and having that fear and paranoia that I think a lot of women have.

And I'd like to think my jokes have made people (read: men) think about what it's like to live in a world where even being out at a certain hour constitutes asking for it.

With this one, the rape joke, combined with the awkward comedy style (and I don't mean that as a negative, I mean they draw a lot of humour from awkwardness and awkward situations), meant there wasn't a big enough humour pay out to justify using something major.

I've never seen The Office, so I may be missing something. But it sounds like the majority of commenters are arguing that this particular rape joke is okay because the character is ALWAYS portrayed as a crazy, lying slut, and the show is totally "politically incorrect" anyway. Am I really reading this on a feminist blog?

I found that very annoying. I don't really look at The Office but I'm sick of people trying to use rape as a joke. It seems like the clip was kinda referring to women that cry rape or ones that no one listens too and I find that extremely irratating. I just hate how comedy tries to make something as serious as rape seem light and I don't see how anyone could laugh at that clip.

As an enormous "Office" fan I'll try to play devils advocate here, and agree with some of the sentiment above. Incidentally when I saw the episode and heard that line the first thing I thought of was Feministing. But, like a recent episode of The Simpsons where Nelson told Millhouse he was "super gay", the characters are so established at this point, that the context is in place for a line like that be obviously satirical. Of what? In this instance, it's Kelly's complete lack of a moral compass, or any kind of adult way of dealing with problems or getting what she wants. In an earlier episode Kelly said that Princess Diana's funeral was the saddest funeral ever...that and her sister's. I don't think the rape line looks too good if you're not an avid viewer of the show, and certainly rape is not something that should be bandied about lightly or used for a laugh, but again I think it was merely a line to further illuminate Kelly's willingness to say anything to get what she wants (albeit an extreme one), as deplorable as it may be. Even within the context of the episode it serves that purpose, (Spoiler) as Kelly falsifies customer surveys as revenge for those who didn't show up to her America's Got Talent party (End Spoiler).

It's definitely going to thud for some people, and it's incredibly difficult to say that anyone not liking the line is wrong, but I don't think the writers intended for the joke to be about rape, but rather about Kelly's lack of conscience, which even the least self aware character on the show, Michael, finds abhorrent.

A few comments have said that the show portrays Kelly as a "slut" and I just wanted to clear that up with my take. I just want to quickly point out that the show doesn't "slut-shame" and doesn't really label Kelly as a "slut", but rightly criticizes her for her lack of morality (not linked to her sexual behavior). Regardless of how this joke was taken or meant, it had nothing to do with sexual promiscuity or any judgment on sexual behavior.

I *really* did not like this joke.

The characters on The Office are supposed to be normal people, like exist in your life, only a little bit more so.

Which means that the office thinks there are women out there who chronically cry rape to get out uncomfortable situations. Now before anyone gets all "Duke!!!!1!!" at me, I'm sure there has been a woman or two like this, but everyone who's paying attention knows that rape is an underreported crime, not an overreported one.

Comparisons to the fat jokes on the office don't apply, since those invite you to laugh at Michael, who is being a jerk. This joke invites you to laugh at rape victims, if they're people you already think are silly.

I think this joke could be funny (in the context of "The Office") IF we lived in a society where rape was always taken seriously, and the victims are not doubted by default.

I can see why people are defending it as a joke, because they probably DO take rape seriously and it works for them the same way it would if Kelly said something like "I was kidnapped".

But the defenders should keep in mind that when others get offended by this, it's not just because they're oversensitive. This "joke" reinforces the idea that women who have dealt with multiple abuses are probably "kooks" who are mostly making it up. It adds to the silencing effect. This may be a "small" thing, but the many "small" jokes like this are like single drops in the tsunami of anti-woman sentiment out there.

I think the purpose of the joke is not Kelly's statement but Michael's response: "You can't expect all your problems to go away just because you say you were raped. Not again." Michael is an extreme narcissist who has a lot of confusion about political correctness. He believes that black people are fun and sassy and that Mexican is a derogatory word. Just as he saw being temporarily "disabled" in The Injury episode as a means for everyone to help him and give him whatever he wanted, he believes that rape, even if it is real, solves all your other problems. Suffering means that people pay attention to you and feel sorry for you. The Office is not making fun of rape victims, but of a real societal view that people claim rape just to get attention. Michael is supposed to be stupid, so his idea that being a victim of a crime is somehow a good thing is the object of the joke here, I think.

I think it's worth noting that this episode aired just after an election in which one of the candidates repeatedly responded to criticism by bringing up his time as a POW. The show is making fun not of the experience of being victimized, but the ludicrous idea that it "solves your problems."

I understand why the scene is offensive to some, but I think the purpose of the joke is not Kelly's lie but Michael's reaction: "You can't expect all your problems to go away just because you say you were raped. Not again." Michael believes (and, from "Not again" clearly believed at least once in the past) that your problems go away if you're the victim of a trauma. He's stupid and has a confused relationship with political correctness, so I think it's his reaction, not rape victims, that we're supposed to see as idiotic.

Michael once burned his foot and pretended to be disabled on the theory that people would be nicer to him. He's a narcissist; he thinks suffering is good because people give you attention. That's what we're supposed to be laughing at, not Kelly.

It's worth noting that the episode aired just after an election during which one candidate repeatedly responded to criticism by pointing to his experience as a POW. Clearly, McCain's campaign, and many commentators too, thought that his totally unrelated campaign "problems would go away" if he talked about his horrific experiences. People making fun of that were not making fun of his experience as a torture victim, but of the wrongheaded exploitation of it.

I am a big fan of the office but for the first time I was not amused AT ALL. Both my mother and I were deeply offended by this "joke"

Now I know why people love the British version better...

I actually thought this joke was brilliant social commentary. Kelly is the embodiment of everything wrong the patriarchy does to young women - she has taken on every trait that society, consciously or not, expects of women. As a young, impressionable woman she has become exactly what our society wants her to be - an infantalised, shallow, manipulative whiner who only cares about celebrity gossip and getting a man. She is the classic victim of gender roles, of the beauty myth, of all the bullshit the media feeds us - she represents everything that's wrong with society's attitude towards women! She's fallen for every vapid little distraction that's been socialised into her and it's worked perfectly because no-one takes her seriously, not even herself. And to have someone like that, such an extreme archetype of the current societal "ideal femininity", take such a laissez-faire attitude subject to rape, speaks volumes! Kelly's self-respect has been lowered so much by patriarchal society that she would casually lie about being raped to get her way. She conforms so much to gender stereotyping that she sees no way to get out of this situation other than faking the ultimate damsel-in-distress scenario. This scene demonstrates brilliantly how a woman can be manipulated into serving the patriarchal agenda. I could write a fucking thesis on it.
Of course, I understand why people are angry about this joke. Rape is a sensitive subject, and justifiably so. That's part of why it's so funny though, because it has such a stigma attached and it causes such discomfort for the viewer. And because obviously Kelly lives in a twisted, sugar-coated fantasy world where rape isn't very serious or perhaps doesn't even exist. And because patriarchal society constructed this fantasy world for her. It's a very dark joke, and I don't expect everyone to find it funny, but I did.