Well, I think intent matters. But it's not an inexhaustible source. There are things that need to be taken into account—for example, if you're driving at 100 mph through the inner city and you end up killing someone who's crossing the street, you certainly did not intend to kill that person, but you did accept that such a thing could realistically be a consequence of your actions. Essentially, you cannot reasonably make the case that the possibility of such a thing happening never occurred to you. I think it's the same with comedians crossing into dark topics like rape, slurs, et cetera: you can drive at 100 mph through the inner city, and you might even reach your destination without any entrails getting stuck in your window washer, but it's a pretty big risk that you're taking, at the potential cost of people other than yourself, even if your intention is simply to be a wonderful person.
This, again, raises a lot of questions. At this point we're not even talking about works that are deliberately incendiary, but works that do so unintentionally. In such a scenario, how accountable is the artist for the END USER'S RESPONSE, when it was very clearly NOT the artist's intention to cause the response that the user had.
An outstanding example is the Werner Herzog film
Stroszek. Most people agree that this is one of the best films of the 1970s, a really heart-wrenching piece about alienation, and how people just can't find a place in society. That's all nice, but it's a well-known fact that singer
Ian Curtis from the band Joy Division watched this movie shortly before committing suicide. Considering Stroszek ends with the main character committing suicide, it doesn't take much consideration to identify a connection here.
NOTE: I should mention, for the sake of clarity, that, while Stroszek does feature a prominent suicide, it does so very impartially and without anything that I would consider a glamorization of it. It doesn't actually show the suicide itself, merely showing the title character hopping on a ski lift with a rifle in his hands, the suggestion of it coming afterward.
This is an extremely literal example of what you just said, and I would have a difficult time saying that this movie never should have happened because it potentially prompted a person to commit suicide, who in all likelihood may have committed suicide anyway. The analogy you make here is pretty good, but as it is rather far reaching, it does blame, rather directly, Werner Herzog of murder. I simply disagree with this. To me, intent and the maturity of the presentation play an immeasurable role in how much you can truly blame the artist for the real-life consequences of the work.
While I do not completely disagree with what you're trying to say here, and feel that an artist ought to be careful and considerate with their works, and invest due consideration in what may come from their creation, I have difficulty being completely sympathetic with people who misinterpret works that far beyond the intent and presentation of the creator.
You can make a pretty good case that this risk is unacceptable, and that any reasonable person should make the personal decision to avoid it for that reason.
Sure, you can make a good case, but not everyone is going to agree with this relative to their perception of the function of art. I would rather see a world filled with mildly-offended people than one with saccharine, offense-free art. Sometimes creative expression needs to be upsetting or offensive, and while I wholeheartedly agree with someone wishing to be cautious on these grounds, I simply do not have respect for a creative person who would avoid these risks on principle, when their works would call for them to otherwise take them there. Not to say I think they shouldn't be careful when they get there, but avoiding it all together is not a solution I would ever personally advocate.
Even then it could be a bad thing to do because it might trigger an episode for someone who's suffering from post-traumatic stress from having been raped or sexually abused in some fashion. And a pretty decent amount of women have been. The question then becomes if it's worth going out of your way to take that into account.
No. There are a wide variety of subjects that could provoke post-traumatic stress reactions in the audience. It's nearly impossible to make a mature work of creativity that accounts for every potential concept that could trigger such a negative reaction. The suggestion of cancer, just to name an example, is a subject that could be devastating to the wrong viewer at the wrong time. Akira Kurosawa was likely aware of this when he made Ikiru, but he elected to make it anyway, and it's as beautiful a film as could ever possibly exist. One oughtn't seek the life of a creative person if these obstacles are of concern to them.
I should mention, however, that I'm answering this question independent of RAPE, on the broad level as to whether or not an individual ought to take into account the possibility a viewer has a preexisting condition going into the work. On a literal level, I do do believe that rape is one of those areas where individuals need to be extraordinarily careful, to the point where I think most people probably aren't serious enough with creative expression to even go into it. So, in essence, my answer actually is YES, mainly because I think it is extraordinarily difficult to present rape tastefully and informatively, though I say this also for the reasons of artistic integrity and basic human decency, not specifically because of the impact it could have on people with painful experience in this area.
I could hold this to a couple other concepts as well, ones violent and prevalent enough for it to be common, but for the most part I do not think this is an issue that should truly weigh down any creative person. It's simply not practical.
You certainly would never intend for anyone to be taken out of their escapist entertainment and back into a deeply anxious and stressful situation, but if that is the result of your actions, the fact that you did not intend for it to happen makes little difference.
You're possibly talking to the wrong person here, as I personally see art less as an escape and more of a method of seeing the world through different eyes and better understanding it. For the most part, I think it's the responsibility of the individual to intelligently examine what it is they're about to use as their escape, and try to understand if this is something that would confront issues that they themselves are not prepared to confront. There's A LOT of really mindless, inoffensive stuff out there, and many easy methods to identify the content of works in question. I don't have a great deal of sympathy for people who wander in the wrong direction, find themselves upset by something a little bit more frank. If it is a personal necessity for someone to avoid anxious and stressful creative performances, and to use creative entertainments as an escape, it is medically negligent on their part to not do research beforehand.
I do want to stress here that this is most definitely my opinion, and not something I necessarily hold the rest of the world to. I've given up trying to decide whether or not my perception of the integrity of art is unhealthy, or simply just very strict, but it's where I've found myself, and I feel it's unrecognized enough of an opinion that I ought to share it. It's a little cold, sure, but I place a substantially higher value on free artistic expression, and what can ultimately be gained from that freedom, than I do protecting people from emotionally jarring experiences.
You will notice that I did not respond to the entirety of your message, and this is because I really do not fundamentally disagree with your concern, and these issues. This is something that must be considered in the process of developing a worthwhile creative presentation, that hopes to have some worth or function to the audience, be it in comedy or drama. The problem I see here, and I think it should be obvious by now, is that I don't see a radical distinction between this concept and some reasonably intrusive degree of censorship. The lines drawn here are too ambiguous, too subjective, to have any personal worth to me. Good taste and appropriate context is what this issue is fundamentally about, and this is not something that I feel two people could realistically agree wholly on, or even endeavor to define in some firm, clear way. It depends on a lot of chaotic factors, and as far as I'm concerned, that's really where this debate ends for me.
Lastly, I suppose it is worth mentioning that I do not distinguish these basic rules of creative expression between comedy and any other creative venture. While some of the foundations are somewhat different, comedy is just as much a form of artistic expression as anything else, and it otherwise seems disrespectful to the essential human function of humor to treat it otherwise. As I've said before, I do not expect anyone to agree with me, or particularly care if anyone agrees or disagrees with me, but as questions keep getting addressed to me, I feel I should respond with what I think is a valid viewpoint not being seriously articulated. It helps me come to more cohesive terms with how strongly I feel on these issues anyway.
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