I think this is definitely true, but it doesn’t just blanket apply to any joke that mentions these topics.
Jokes where people “pretend” to say sexist or abusive ideas, but the joke is that “I’m actually a nice person, I obviously don’t really mean this” (eg “no means yes, and yes means harder, amirite guys ;-)” or “if there’s grass on the wicket, it’s ready for cricket, lol”), can definitely be harmful even if not many that way. It normalises those attitudes, and can make abusers feel like they have more support from society than they really do.
But in this comic the character comes across as a psychopath, proudly announcing something that is clearly wrong, and the other one calls the police. I don’t feel like anyone is getting some message that actually it’s totally normal to have sex with ten year olds…
American History X is a very anti-nazi movie, portraying the main character’s growing realization of how horrible a person he used to be.
Yet neonazis of every nation consider that movie a rallying cry, again despite explicitly portraying the main character’s past as abhorrent and brutal. Or maybe because of it.
So while you may THINK portraying the pedophile as a psychopath may be good story and representation, a portion of people ‘laughing’ about it are because they are pedophiles and they enjoy the representation regardless of the context.
I think this is definitely true, but it doesn’t just blanket apply to any joke that mentions these topics. Jokes where people “pretend” to say sexist or abusive ideas, but the joke is that “I’m actually a nice person, I obviously don’t really mean this” (eg “no means yes, and yes means harder, amirite guys ;-)” or “if there’s grass on the wicket, it’s ready for cricket, lol”), can definitely be harmful even if not many that way. It normalises those attitudes, and can make abusers feel like they have more support from society than they really do. But in this comic the character comes across as a psychopath, proudly announcing something that is clearly wrong, and the other one calls the police. I don’t feel like anyone is getting some message that actually it’s totally normal to have sex with ten year olds…
It doesn’t matter that the representation is bad.
American History X is a very anti-nazi movie, portraying the main character’s growing realization of how horrible a person he used to be.
Yet neonazis of every nation consider that movie a rallying cry, again despite explicitly portraying the main character’s past as abhorrent and brutal. Or maybe because of it.
So while you may THINK portraying the pedophile as a psychopath may be good story and representation, a portion of people ‘laughing’ about it are because they are pedophiles and they enjoy the representation regardless of the context.