Jerry Sadowitz

Its about time some wokebros got hoisted by their own petard.

LOJ got a taste of it when the TRAs turned on him.

Now, lets see what happens when the zealots go after the likes of Lee and Boyle, who, despite being clearly very influenced by JS, have been utterly silent on him being censored.

First they come for Jerry Sadowich...

Afterthought, Grabby - if I read it correctly (it wasn't quite clear) - the "young staff" didn't like or get Lee's material either.

Whatever you think of him, you have to listen, engage your brain and pay attention for the payoff of his act. Is it a generational shift, that they don't have the time or inclination to take that on board these days before judging? Does this mean even the likes of Lee can't escape the crosshairs?

JS appeared in Stewart Lees first series of Comedy Vehicle, channelling someone with the same initials in a skit about someone who granted wishes.

(If I remember the episode it would have been "upsetting" if you were a full on Catholic type person.)

I guess the Pleasance have to be careful not to narrow their options too much. They've already narrowed them a fair bit by saying that racism, homophobia, sexism and mysogyny (and by that I'm assuming they mean jokes that could be perceived to be racist, homophobic, sexist and misogynistic) do not align with their values. This must remove quite a few acts from performing there. If they throw nudity into the mix they could go bankrupt. Seems like a very odd statement for a comedy venue.

Wow, pleasantly surprised at that BBC article!

Sadowitz's statement says he was not aware of any walk-outs, so someon is being economical with le realite...

Apologies, read the article quickly and misremembered.

Of course Stewart Lee didnt comment. He has too many wokebro points and potential income at stake. He really is a total chicken shit. Richard Herring on the other hand has made some really insightful comment on JS. He appears tk both have balls and brains.

Well, presumably he exposed himself to the theatre as part of his act. Which by all accounts isn't uncommon at the Edinburgh Fringe. If he has used his act to sexually assault or harass a woman I would obviously be critical of that (and presumably the police will be involved if that is the case.) Until then I will assume that exposing his penis was part of his act. Unless I've missed it (which is possible) the theatre haven't said that him exposing his penis is why the show was cancelled. They have said it's because its content was “extreme in its racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny,”. As pp above mentioned they have then gone on to explain away their own hypocrisy: “In a changing world, stories and language that were once accepted on stage, whether performed in character or not, need to be challenged. There is a line that we will not cross at the Pleasance, and it was our view that this line was crossed on this occasion,”. Personally I don't think that either JS or RCB should have been cancelled due to a few people reporting that they feel "unsafe" and "uncomfortable".

A named, genuine audience member at last!

Stewart Lee is only mentioned, not interviewed and it says he refused to comment on JS. It mentions "young staff" leaving (Lee's?) show "who weren't offended but didn't enjoy the show".

Also poses the question whether it was audience or staff that promoted what has happened.

That new statement from the Pleasance is more slippery than a slippery thing.
Translation : we were fine with JS until student staff threatened to walk. So we jumped to cancel before we were pushed. Our 'values', when it comes down to it, are commercially driven.

BBC article about it, bit of an interview with Stuart Lee and speculation about the complainants:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-62546551

Why not? He was cancelled for misogyny I thought? Mind you I've only read about it about 5 minutes ago.

I also pick most of my threads from active convos rather than topic area. Sue me.

I didn't think it was relevant to Feminism: Sex & gender discussions.

This thread is discussing the reasons that The Pleasance have given for their decision to deplatform JS. The Pleasance haven’t given exposing his penis as part of the reason for their decision. The behaviour which they consider to have crossed a boundary, as set out in their statement, is the use of unacceptable language. There is no mention of nudity in their defence of their deplatforming decision.

@thisweekstop40 No one is defending him. If he got his dick out at a woman in the audience then he is gross.

The point is that he should be called out in that behaviour. It should be discussed. Just blanket banning stuff stifles those discussions.

And there is the inconsistency too. There are loads of comics, shows and performers all over the country who do edgy offensive humour. Are we going to go around measuring the offence on their shows and choosing which ones to cancel. What’s the yard stick here?

They added: "A large number of people walked out of Jerry Sadowitz’s show as they felt uncomfortable and unsafe to remain in the venue

I've often felt "uncomfortable" when watching comedy before but I've never felt "unsafe". I wonder what they thought could potentially happen to them?

Must have missed the thread you started on that. Sorry about that.

Has anyone tweeted or been quoted that they were in the audience and they left, were offended too much or saw other people leaving. If no-one has that seems odd.
Thanks for the article about RCB, if you swap the names it seems a very similar situation. It might have got a mention, at the time, on the wider MN.

I haven't heard of Roy "Chubby" Brown before. It's interesting that he was also accused of being “racist, homophobic, and misogynistic”

Exactly the same as Sadowitz, yet here we are defending the one who exposed his penis to a woman in the front row.

It's a strange old world.

Good points, Loobi. At no point does the Pleasance mention 'audience'. It's all 'people' and 'people in the building'.

I mean, I have sympathy for anyone who was working and was offended. That's a totally different kettle of fish than an audience member being offended.

Have had a look. I still think it was a mistake to cancel RCB, for the same reason stated about JS. I find RCB repulsive but as soon as you start banning and cancelling him you give him a cultural cache that he doesn’t deserve to have.

It makes his fans more vocal and gives them a feeling of being an oppressed minority. My highly racist aunt seems to think she is some sort of Spartacus now because her views are being banned.

I think John McWhorter (who is amazing) is right actually. Banning racist and sexist language has not cured racism and sexism. It have just made it harder to see who are the racists and the sexist and call them out on their views. The argument often being ‘well I didn’t say anything wrong’. No but they heavily implied it but in such a way as to make it hard to prove.

That’s a carefully-worded, and interestingly-worded, statement.

The complaints came from “those in the building”.

It does not say that complaints came from audience members.

It’s also interesting that they have realised that they needed to come up with a justification for why they no longer consider his material to “align with their values” when his material hasn’t changed and they’ve been booking him for years.

That was the thing that struck me about their original statement: their assertion of their values. What that told me was that: the Pleasance’s values are fully aligned with vile comments about women, given that JS’a act always (according to his fans) includes vile comments about women.

With that context, it’s interesting that they appear to have realised that they needed to explain their sudden and new enlightenment on that point. And in their attempt to defend their apparent hypocrisy / sudden change of position / previous tolerance for misogyny, they deploy “progress” and “a changing world” and moving boundaries to explain why they are now deplatforming JS.

It’s interesting that they didn’t do any thinking about whether JS might be at odds with their view that misogynistic language has no place in their venues before they booked him, and that that thought only occurred to them as a consideration to include in their defence of their decision to deplatform him after that decision had attracted questions and criticism.

It makes me wonder if the BBC are going to be inspired to take a leaf out of the Pleasance’s book and do something about the casual sexism, and vicious misogyny in the case of Frankie Boyle, which they platform. Unlike with a JS show, where no one is forced to buy a ticket, we are all required to pay for the BBC’s programming decisions to broadcast panel shows with six men and one token woman.

I think RCB is a different kettle of fish altogether.

If anyone has ever seen the documentary of his life and "behind the scenes" at his shows, he seems to hold a lot of the same opinions as his on stage persona.

It's on Youtube (or was) for anyone that wants to see it. It can be quite uncomfortable viewing.

But I still don't believe in censorship.
I just choose not to go to his shows.

Always in the name of protecting women and minorities of course. Not bothered about protecting them the rest of the time