Comedians defending Jerry Sadowitz

[FenlandFuckwit]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-62533592

His latest gig has been cancelled after he told racist jokes and got his dick out. Why are other comedians defending his right to do this? This behaviour is not ok, AIBU to think this is indecent and disgusting behaviour and the venue were correct in cancelling him.

Well I guess you can’t complain that he was shoving his penis in women’s faces if it isn’t his penis.

All this talk of penises on stage reminds me of Mary Whitehouse and the farcical "Romans in Britain" prosecution (so beautifully piss-taken on Not The Nine O'Clock News). Maybe it was his thumb ?

I don't know. You might have been standing at the back. Behind a pillar.

Quite.

I had read it was a prosthesis, which did ring a vague bellend of it being wiggled back in the day. But my memory is hazy, I thought I had seen him mid nineties but he was on hiatus for four years, so it must have been circa 98 in Edinburgh.
An audience member on FB said he had raged against every group, no one was safe or offlimits.
Would a prosthesis = not ticking nudity box? Jordan Gray, who is doing very well this year has nudity ticked on theirs. Still a shock for some late and live audience members to see both breasts and penis on display last Friday.
I like their act and context, so was fine. Pearl clutchers might not.
Jen Ives simulates sex with Graham Linehan doll at the end of their show and berates JKR for being transphobic. Not an opinion I share, but I would not censor Ives either.

Can I also say that as a survivor of serious sexual assault that I feel totally safe at a Jerry Sadowitz gig

I've seen a show by a brilliant female performance artist / comic Bryony Kimming's invited us to cut our pubic hair with scissors put it in an envelope and she then made a moustache using sellotape to sing her final number a cheating heart ... no trigger warning back then.

Comment on FB:
"Show was mental. Offended everyone white, black Jews, Muslims, women and men. Scots and English didn't get off lightly either. Not pc but utterly essential in this bland, pc, alphabetically challenge gender world. Free speech/hate speech, I'm not sure, when everyone gets a skin's and you hate everyone and everything where is the discrimination?"

gets a doin' (not skin's - auto correct) I think the poster means when the act loathes everyone, including themselves, it is as much about lashing out as punching down as he is at his lowest ebb. Theatre of imploding man exploding. I wouldn't go these days, Doug Stanhope is about my limit now, but Sadowitz has a fan base, including those travelling to see him (and not necessarily a Taking-Al-Murray-literally type crowd either).

He's a troubled brilliant man who is borderline but functionally mentally ill manic depressive and his therapy/ prison is to go on stage to try and find some relief which never seems to come. Maybe he is the awakened woke one crying into the wind ?

I've known Bryony for years and she's very, very careful to trigger warn all her shows as comprehensively as possible.

She also has a therapist working on all her shows to ensure that they're "safe spaces" and if you read any interview with her, she talks constantly about the need to create safe spaces for the audience and the need to put the wellbeing of sexual abuse survivors first.

For example, here's a Twitter thread where she says that she wishes she could delete entire projects that she'd made in the past, not because of anything to do with the content, but because someone else who worked on those shows was later exposed as being a rapist.

twitter.com/LucyEllinson/status/1407473584080044033

I don't know why you're dragging my friend's name in but please stop, you're chatting rubbish about her. If you knew anything about her at all you'd know how evangelical she is about about safe spaces, trigger warnings, and she's far more hardcore than I am when it comes to censorship. She literally tweeted "it's not safe for this work to still exist" in reference to play texts with perfectly unobjectionable content purely because someone responsible for their creation was exposed as an abuser. Which I personally think is insane but that kind of attitude is the norm in theatre.

Offended everyone white, black Jews, Muslims, women and men. Scots and English didn't get off lightly either.

Still no answer as to why he was so careful to single out trans people as the one group he didn't make jokes about.

I'm glad for you, but as a child rape survivor I would feel extremely unsafe, and I know at least one person who's also a survivor who did go and see his show and felt very unsafe due to the way he targeted her.

Rape survivors are all different. Clearly his show does make some rape survivors feel unsafe.

Is this just an issue with comics? If I watch Game of Thrones and see someone's dick, can I complain about that too?

Interestingly. the male GoT performers campaigned for more cock. because there was so so so much female nudity and it was obviously skewed. Good for them.

I know at least one person who's also a survivor who did go and see his show and felt very unsafe due to the way he targeted her.

But surely- it’s pretty well known what his shows are like. Surely, it’s up to intending audience members to do their due diligence.

I go to a lot of theatre (part of my job), but I’d probably not choose to see Sandowitz. .

Sarah Ditum's column is very good. I will also post on the FWR thread where some posters have popped up!!

Policing comedy is no way to fix society.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b5290db8-1ccd-11ed-add4-d333562d46fb?shareToken=32cf6c91696c5d428857b590df56af4dd_

We do not know the actual content and context so all is speculation. The venue's disconnect, however, is advocating free expression - at the same time as saying the material crossed a line.
You need to be very clear on what line has been transgressed when offence taken can be subjective or open to interpretation.
Nineteen years ago, a rape victim walked out of a Sadowitz gig, when he expressed admiration for rapists, because they "have to work in the dark."
This is voting with your feet - nobody has to be subject to material they hate or where they feel triggered, targetted, unsafe or hurt.
You do not "take a punt" on a Jerry Sadowitz show - not at £22.50 a ticket. Nor do you sit in the front row unless you are brave, foolhardy or a comedy virgin, who does not know the written rule that the front row means you are fair game.
No one is forcing you to sit and stay there though, especially if you discover the material is not what you hoped for.
This is why people have questioned whether it is audience or staff, soliciting the cancellation. The latter may have fewer options.

unwritten rule

I watched- started watching- game of thrones and felt unsafe..... so I stopped watching it. I'd read the books ok. I came back in for the last couple of episodes. I didn't campaign for it to be stopped, or indeed to stop the rest of my family watching it.

I would hate a JS show. I find most comedians too sour, the humour seems so cruel. I can see the cleverness, but find it distressing.

I actually really dislike drag and find it offensive.

I'd never try and stop performers catering to an adult audience.

I didn't know the front seat rule! Luckily I wouldn't be there anyway! My pearls get clutched a lot, sadly

From the Sarah Ditum article: "It also takes some gall for anyone to buy a ticket to a Sadowitz show expecting a comfortable evening"

Some on this thead would do well to heed that, instead of demanding our outrage for a situation their anedotal friend chose to put themselves in.

This is so weird to me. like some strange flashback. I refused to go and see Sadowitz in Edinburgh in the 80s and had quite a fiery argument with pals about why I found him offensive. I've just been reminded the 80s was 40 years ago and it is like stepping into a wormhole in time.

I still wouldn't go and see Sadowitz as I would still find him offensive. But I find a shit ton of stuff offensive - I could get into a fiery argument about Mrs Brown's Boys for example. But, you know, I am not ruler of the universe and arbiter of what others are allowed to enjoy.

When did society become so uptight and controlling in the last 40 years? I'll defend Sadowitz against all this 'unsafe' bullshit. It is a venue in Edinburgh, not Kabul when the Taliban marched in. Some people need to adult up.

@JemimaPuddlegoose thanks for the clarification. She is indeed brilliant and her show that year was one of the 10 best things I would hazard a guess that I've seen at the Fringe ever. I wasn't aware of the passionate, thoughtful, empathic person behind the art. I am now.

Sorry but what does ‘unsafe’ mean in this context. Do you mean that you may feel some emotional distress/upset or are you suggesting that you would feel in physical danger?

I don't actually like the word "unsafe" used in the context of emotional distress. It's not pleasant to feel distressed but it should not be put on a par with people in real physical danger. People's emotions should be their own to manage.