Rape Jokes Becoming A Trend? Cannes Emcee Jabs At Woody Allen; Blake Lively Fires Back [WATCH]
ByCannes opening fared hot and high on the headlines when emcee Laurent Lafitte guaranteed that the rest of the world would remember the night. The host blasted of a controversial monologue and jabbed at Woody Allen with a rape joke. He stunned the crowd saying that Allen shot so many of his films in Europe and yet in the US he has not even been convicted of rape.
The joke was an apparent reference to director Roman Polanski, who had been arrested in the U.S. in 1977 for raping a 13-year-old girl then later on fled to Europe to avoid penance. Back in 2014, Dylan Farrow, Allen's daughter accused the director of sexual abuse, USA Today reported.
Allen just brushed of the incident and told USA Today, he felt that all comedians must be free to say any joke they wanted. He was in opposition to any kind of joke suppression because comedians are free to tell jokes. And as another comedian, he not at all passes judgment.
Lively spoke to Variety about Lafitte's joke. She said that any jokes about rape, homophobia or Hitler is not a joke. And hearing such was a hard thing to swallow for 30 seconds. She even sighted the 1940s event and thought of Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby being there and doing that. For her, it was more unsatisfactory for the artists in the room that someone was up there making jokes about something that was totally not funny.
But there is one thing Lafitte wanted people to remember, the sequence I wrote about the Paris attacks. Apparently it was so well-received but not the joke that was misinterpreted, he told Hollywood Reporter.
Are rape jokes really becoming a trend? Watch this clip where Blake Lively speak her stand:
