Jerry Sadowitz

Well, you are free to go ahead and start one.

Same for me @Signalbox
Being on the 'wrong side of history' was an eye opening moment

I can see how cancel culture has been slowly spreading. I hadn't heard about the RCB council cancellations. This cancer against free speech is very worrying. I don't know if they were all left-leaning councils but I am becoming very disillusioned with left wing authoritarianism

I have to say over the last couple of years I've become much more acutely aware of the importance of free speech. I've always believed in the idea but being on the receiving end of cancellation (for the first time in my life) has been a sharp reminder that it also means standing up for things that I personally find offensive. I haven't heard of Roy "Chubby" Brown before. It's interesting that he was also accused of being “racist, homophobic, and misogynistic”.

RCB is a hugely successful comedian, Jerry Sadowitz is nowhere near as well known.

So what? There are many people more famous than Sadowitz with no threads about them on FWR. You seem to think “this thread exists and a thread about RCB doesn’t exist” is an observation worth making, why?

RCB is a hugely successful comedian, Jerry Sadowitz is nowhere near as well known.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9959985/Roy-Chubby-Brown-cancelled-Fans-blast-woke-decision-axe-comics-Sheffield-gig.html

Hard as I look I can't find any thread in FWR reguarding Roy Chubby Brown's cancelled shows ten months ago.

Do you expect threads on FWR for every minor news event that has a tangential relationship to feminism? No doubt if someone had started a thread on it there would have been some responses.

Why were they cancelled @Plantsandthings ?

Perhaps I should point out that the reason why this is a feminist cause is because societal norms change all the time.

Hard as I look I can't find any thread in FWR reguarding Roy Chubby Brown's cancelled shows ten months ago.

There are loads more venues than there were last week
Maybe it's all a fake outrage to sell more tickets!
Go woke go broke in reverse

I guess JS is probably famous enough to weather the storm. One gets the sense that the bigger the online tantrums and the more extreme the accusations the more people will be intrigued and attempt to book tickets at other venues. (I'm assuming here that there haven't been any accusations of sexual or racist abuses happening outside of his act). The weak point always seems to be the risk of the venue cancelling rather than audiences being unprepared to buy tickets.

Think the Pleasance's actions really symbolises the Fringe's ongoing transition from truly subversive comedy to prescribed, diluted and boring.

And as for Josie Long, she has her own prejudices but seems to think her sh**e doesn't stink.

Perhaps I should point out that the reason why this is a feminist cause is because societal norms change all the time.

If you don’t defend this then you are buying into the same tactics that we’re used to ban The Life of Brian by the church in the 70s. And the same reasoning used to ban To Kill A Mockingbird in lots of Southern states and all that LGBTQ+ literature as well. Because it is two sides of the same coin (things I don’t like and disagree with are harmful and need to be banned).

Again, who gets to decide? Are we happy to have films censored in China? What level of punishment is okay for saying socially unacceptable things?

Perhaps the Pleasance could produce a list of which words are not acceptable to be used on their stages?

A bit more comment here from the Pleasance.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/20647881.pleasance-defends-decision-cancel-jerry-sadowitz/?ref=rss

'In a new statement, the Pleasance said they "chose to pull Jerry Sadowitz’s second and final show" after becoming "aware of content that was considered, among other things, extreme in its racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny.

"We will not associate with content which attacks people’s dignity and the language used on stage was, in our view, completely unacceptable."

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.

"We have received an unprecedented number of complaints that could not be ignored and we had a duty to respond. The subsequent abuse directed to our teams is also equally unacceptable.

"At the Pleasance, our values are to be inclusive, diverse and welcoming.

"We are proud of the progress we have made across our programming, which includes significant investment and support for Black, Asian and Global Majority artists, LGBTQ+ voices, those from working class backgrounds, and the strong representation of women.

"We do not believe that racism, homophobia, sexism or misogynistic language have a place in our venues.

"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."

The Pleasance said they do not "vet the full content of acts in advance" and while they knew that Mr Sadowitz is a controversial comedian, they "could not have known the specifics of his performance."

"The Pleasance has staged his work numerous times over the years, but as soon as we received complaints from those in the building which caused us great concern, we knew we could not allow the final performance to go ahead.

"The arts and comedy in particular have always pushed the boundaries of social norms but this boundary is always moving.
Our industry has to move with it.

"However, this does not mean that we can allow such content to be on our stages."'

[emphasis mine]

There is no mention at all of penises. This seems to be about language and the use of certain words.

The Pleasance has quite an unusual set up for Fringe, this is taken from elsewhere

The Pleasance isn't a venue as such, but - during the Fringe at least - a constellation of around 20 performance spaces operated by a London-based theatre company (actually, a charity) that calls itself "The Pleasance" and which I presume derives the majority of its income from the Fringe run.

The theatre trust derives its name from a building called "The Pleasance", which out of Fringe time is used by the Edinburgh University Students' Association as space for its societies. The theatre and cabaret bar (which serve as venues during the Fringe) get some use by touring comedians and others outside the Festival, as well as student groups. (I have performed in the theatre, in fact). That building is on a road, also called "The Pleasance", and next door is the University's Centre for Sport and Exercise, which converts into performance spaces during the Fringe that are also operated by "The Pleasance" theatre trust under its brand.

A few blocks away is the Potterow Students' Association building, which gets taken over by "The Pleasance" theatre trust under the branding of "The Pleasance Dome". More recently, as "The Pleasance" theatre trust's Fringe operation has grown, it has had acts perform in the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, this nothing to do with the University or the Students' Association. I had assumed only the biggest acts would perform at the EICC but I'm assuming it has smaller spaces as well. I don't know, because I've never seen anything there, and probably never want to. I suppose it's possible that punters and/or staff are used to more mainstream acts appearing at the EICC, which could result in the anything-goes "spirit of the Fringe" being a bit out-of-kilter there. I suppose it's also possible that staff taking exception to the content of a show could have a harassment case, but one would have thought venue managers would have had that worked out long ago.

There are loads more venues than there were last week
Maybe it's all a fake outrage to sell more tickets!
Go woke go broke in reverse

'the galliest thing of all, the gall mother lode, is in the Pleasance’s claim to “champion freedom of speech”. Now there’s some faux liberal pish for you. You can argue that comedians should have unfettered expression. You can argue that comedy needs to align with certain values. They’re both defensible positions. But they’re not compatible positions. If your theatre will only host comics it agrees with, it can’t claim to be a beacon of free speech.'

Nailed it.

If you want to buy tickets for his tour and see it for yourself. Here's the link but buy soon he's selling out fast.

www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/jerry-sadowitz

Not, as I have seen reported this morning, The Pleasance ringing round his venues to get his tour cancelled

what in the fuck. I hope that’s not true! Though it has the “unbelievable but somehow completely predictable” quality of things that turn out to be the truth.

Not, as I have seen reported this morning, The Pleasance ringing round his venues to get his tour cancelled.

Is that true?! Makes even more of a mockery of their statement. That's appallingly vindictive.

I note the nearest date to me is in a commercial theatre, not Arts Council funded or affiliated with a uni. I really hope they tell the Pleasance what they can do with themselves.

haha no still not working, Times link must be broken

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b5290db8-1ccd-11ed-add4-d333562d46fb?shareToken=49791255880f7bffe50e020749aaa1b5

The article is still there for me. Does this work?

Policing comedy is no way to fix society

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b5290db8-1ccd-11ed-add4-d333562d46fb?shareToken=59e784ceaaa7c7bbb96f4eb067b4dfed

So the building the Pleasance uses is part of Edinburgh Uni? Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

SARAH DITUM
Policing comedy is no way to fix society
The banning of an ‘offensive’ Edinburgh Fringe performer shows that free speech is losing out to liberal consensus
Sarah Ditum
Monday August 15 2022, 9.00pm BST, The Times
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Alittle while ago, I decided it was time to introduce my teenage daughter to Victoria Wood. Some of it was a hit: who can resist Let’s Do It, with randy Freda begging reluctant husband Barry to “beat me on the bottom with a Woman’s Weekly”? Some has aged out of comprehensibility: how do you explain Acorn Antiques to someone whose idea of a soap opera is Keeping Up With the Kardashians?
And then there was the debacle of Alternative Tango, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1997 and released on DVD in 2006. Wood sets up the song by describing an article she’s read about political correctness, and listing some of the epithets that are being shunted into the realm of the unspeakable. “So I’ve written this song,” says Wood. “Hope it doesn’t offend anybody. Well, I don’t mind if it offends somebody.”
In the first two lines, Wood — lovely, friendly, national treasure Victoria Wood — deploys a variation on the N-word, and the P-word. My daughter looked horrified. Because the shift that Wood was mining for comedy has happened. Using racial slurs, even if you’re using them only to disavow them, is absolutely taboo for contemporary sensibilities.
“Slurs have become our profanity,” writes the linguist John McWhorter, “repellent to our senses, rendering even words that sound like them suspicious and eliciting not only censure but also punishment.”
This weekend at the Edinburgh Fringe that punishment fell abruptly and mercilessly on the stand-up Jerry Sadowitz, whose run at the Pleasance Theatre was cancelled after audience complaints that the act had made them “uncomfortable and unsafe”.
Jerry Sadowitz is very much not Victoria Wood. His present tour is called Not for Anyone, and is billed as a mix of “highly offensive stand-up and sleight of hand skills” — Sadowitz is an accomplished magician as well as a torrentially misanthropic comedian. One of his past routines began with: “Nelson Mandela, what a c*. You lend some people a fiver and you never hear from them again.” That’s about as repeatable as he gets.
Not, of course, that the Pleasance would ever want to dictate what comedians can or can’t say. “The Pleasance is a venue that champions freedom of speech and we do not censor comedians’ material,” said the theatre’s director, Anthony Alderson — before continuing: “The material presented at his first show is not acceptable and does not align with our values. This type of material has no place on the festival.”
The show that got Sadowitz cancelled apparently included showing his penis, using a “racial slur” about Rishi Sunak, and sundry derogatory comments about women. Sounds nasty. It also sounds like exactly the kind of material Sadowitz has been doing since he began gigging in the early 1980s. It takes some gall for the Pleasance to pretend they had no idea what he was like until someone dropped by the box office in a state of affront.
It also takes some gall for anyone to buy a ticket to a Sadowitz show expecting a comfortable evening. The theatre’s brochure promises “less hate fuelled swearing and [to] focus more on faux liberal pish in order to appeal to the middle class and their disposable income and personalities”. There is perhaps a tiny clue here, even for people who’ve never heard of him, that an abrasive time is in store.
But the galliest thing of all, the gall mother lode, is in the Pleasance’s claim to “champion freedom of speech”. Now there’s some faux liberal pish for you. You can argue that comedians should have unfettered expression. You can argue that comedy needs to align with certain values. They’re both defensible positions. But they’re not compatible positions. If your theatre will only host comics it agrees with, it can’t claim to be a beacon of free speech.
With Sadowitz, one of the problems is that it’s hard to imagine anyone “aligning” with his act’s “values”. Even he sounds unsure at times about whether what he does is justified. He’s expressed dismay at having inspired bad-taste comics such as Frankie Boyle, saying in interviews he would never have taken up comedy if he’d known he’d end up giving “some very nasty people a good living”.
Unlike Boyle, Sadowitz has never moderated his comedy to suit panel-show tastes. Unlike “blue” comedians such as Jim Davidson, whose jauntily bigoted material got left behind by the mainstream, Sadowitz has never turned to the DVD market. There’s a perverse purity to what he does.
“My stuff comes from the fact that my life has been miserable,” he told an interviewer in 2011. “I would rather be happy and have no act. Some would say I’m unhappy and still have no act.”
It’s particularly strange for the Pleasance to cancel Sadowitz for being offensive in the week that Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed for, effectively, offending Ayatollah Khomeini with The Satanic Verses. Perhaps it seems absurd to bracket a comedian’s penis with an award-winning novel, but that’s the point about free expression. It doesn’t depend on a worthiness test. The right to offend is valuable on its own terms. If you put decency over comedy, comedy will be the loser.
Standards change, and a word that Victoria Wood could once sing in the Albert Hall is now too shocking for a known shock-comic to say in a Fringe venue. But racism didn’t go away because its language became taboo, says McWhorter. Instead, it became “something to hide, to dissemble about and, among at least an enlightened cohort, something to check oneself for and call out in others”. It’s easier to police art than to fix society, and maybe Sadowitz’s ultimate crime was to rub his audience’s face in the vanity of their linguistic decorum.