Why say "it rhymes with Grape"?

There is a scene in 21 Jumpstreet where Dave Franco' character Eric says "do you know what they'll do to me in prison it rhymes with grape" and it made me curious as to why it was phrased that way.

In Knocked Up a similar joke was made "it rhymes with smabortion" which I believe I read was done due to censors. However the repeating setup for the joke has me curious if this time it was due to censors or if it was just considered a funny setup that bared repeating. So was it censoring or continuing a joke?

dialogue 21-jump-street

Best Answer

Opinion: It was a funny(?) joke.

Although a similar setup was used in Knocked Up, the truth is similar setups have been used in plenty of comedy movies.

Whilst I understand your query regarding the censors, it seems difficult to imagine why censorship would be an issue, the main reason I can think of being:

There is a colossal amount of crass language, violence, partial nudity and drug taking in the film. Why would all this be considered acceptable but a line about rape wouldn't be?

It seems more likely to me that it was a funny line that works in the context of the scene as it seems so abhorrent that he can't bring himself to utter the actual word, instead resorting to childish rhyming (suggesting the mere thought of it makes him regress to his inner child in fear).

Whether it was a homage to his (extremely popular) line from Knocked Up is something I can find no reference to online, but solely in my own opinion, I can't see how this was a censorship issue.