Rape Is Hilarious, Part 41

by Shaker Elena

[Trigger warning.]

As I was walking home from work yesterday, I passed a bus that had a huge ad with the words "Deaf Girls Can't Hear You Coming," and pretty much nothing else – there was a bit of type below the ads, much smaller and not legible from a distance.

I guessed that it was an ad for a movie, and fumed for a while about how totally and completely out of line it was, and how it made me feel unsafe just reading it – just knowing that some advertiser somewhere is writing an ad targeted to rapists, or would-be rapists, with the added disgusting bonus of combined disability fetishism and ablism. I didn't catch on to the deliberate double meaning of 'coming' until I read others' reactions to the ad online – but I believe there's no way that both meanings were not intended by the creator of this ad.

I looked it up when I got home, and found two references to it on Google, which is how I discovered, not really to my surprise, that the ads were courtesy of Tucker Max and his new movie, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I believe I'm lucky in that my only encounter with the movie and the man behind it has been in the multiple posts denouncing it here at Shakesville, most recently on Tuesday.

One of the mentions was on the Chicago Tribune's blog site, by columnist Eric Zorn, who seems to have had a similar reaction to mine, if less angry. The other one is on the Chicago Reader website, and is mostly about another ad, almost as bad (equally bad? I don't think it's worth ranking this crap) – "Strippers will not tolerate disrespect . . . HAHA, just kidding!" Ugh.

Both sites' comments sections have arguments between people who find the ads offensive, and others (possibly trolls sent over by Tucker Max himself?) who are pulling the "it's just a joke," "it's not about RAPE, it's a double entrendre, idiots," and "I'm a woman, and I think Tucker Max is HILARIOUS" triad of defensiveness.

What I don't understand is how the CTA ever thought it was OK to run those ads in the first place.

Some of the people commenting on the above websites have complained directly on Tucker Max's website, but I don't see that as being anything but a waste of time. If you want to call the CTA to complain, you have a couple of options: The contact information they give for advertising is a woman who seems to work for a outside company:

Natalie Tomasella, Sales Manager
Titan Worldwide Chicago
Email: natalie.tomasella@titanoutdoor.com
Phone: (312) 629-1680

I haven't tried her, but today I called the CTA's main contact line, 888-YOUR-CTA (888-968-7282). They instructed me to send a letter to Richard Rodriguez, the CTA board president. His address:

Chicago Transit Authority
ATTN: Richard Rodriguez
567 W. Lake Street
Chicago, IL 60661

Work those teaspoons, Shakers.

[Rape is Hilarious: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Twenty-One, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Three, Twenty-Four, Twenty-Five, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Eight, Twenty-Nine, Thirty, Thirty-One, Thirty-Two, Thirty-Three, Thirty-Four, Thirty-Five, Thirty-Six, Thirty-Seven, Thirty-Eight, Thirty-Nine, Forty.]