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.

👏👏👏👏

GC but also Jewish and disagree with using the Swastika as a GC symbol

i must have missed this one? WTF?

This thread is a dumpster fire.

Do you mean this one, or the FWR one where you made similarly weak and unpersuasive points that lacked evidence and with which people disagreed?

His 'joke' apparently is;

Q: "How do you crucify a sp*stic?" A: "On a swastika."

The liberal in me trying to justify that is

a) he is Jewish b) he wants the racists in the audience to laugh c) there is an implied callback to the fact that the Nazis exterminated disabled people along with minorities and the Jews. d) figuratively it invoked an awful picture that it could be true and makes us imagine that horrific preposition e) he wishes to use taboo language to break boundaries, establish his otherness and status as an outsider f) he personally thinks it funny. as a 'straight' simple "joke".

Who knows what goes on inside his head - he has eschewed fame and fortune for just making do and from comments, I have read elsewhere pushes friends and people away from him so cuts a lonely figure but is very pleasant by all accounts on one to ones.

I would no longer go to see him not least at 61 most comedians are no longer funny just blathering about shit and I would rather avoid an uneasy hour in a darkened room watching him work out his demons. In earlier centuries it would be like going to lunatic asylums to laugh at the inmates.

Laurence Fox posted a "witty" remake of the Pride flag into swastika form.

To be fair with that flag business- I'm not a fan of LF- the whole sharp lines and angles of that flag, and the overkill flagging up of that london street, was reminiscent of something really scary.

It was like a scene from a dystopian movie, without anyone messing with it at all. I actually assumed it was photoshopped at first. LF was making explicit something I was subconsciously uncomfortable about.

So that’s the joke from his night at The Pleasance? Offensive, undoubtedly. But not any different from the rest of his set. If I went to his show, I’d expect exactly that sort of thing (which is why I wouldn’t go to his show, although I might have done when I was younger). It’s a very retro joke too. There used to be books you could buy ‘100 Jokes About Dead Babies’, where that sort of thing was passed around at school. Pre social media, of course.
It’s a case of reflecting on yourself and your values when you listen to that sort of material. You really check your thinking when you laugh along at a set and then BAM, something comes up on a subject that hits you personally. I experienced that when I went to see Frankie Boyle. That’s what a decent offensive comedian should do - and early on, FB was good at it, not so much now.
Some of Ricky Gervais’s stuff makes me squirm. It’s meant to and choosing to watch it means you sign up for that particular flavour of offence.
Now, if that material hit home to an individual and it’s their personal line they don’t want crossing then I do sympathise to an extent. Especially if it was a member of staff who couldn’t walk out. However, that is their job and the venue’s responsibility is to staff that show with people who can deal with it.

Prophets, jesters, fools, were traditionally people who speak truth to power. People who say the unsayable.
People who challenge and subvert the official story.
It's uncomfortable and unpleasant to be around. They cause trouble.

Jerry fits neatly in that category.

Well that lame joke doesn’t cause trouble. It’s not particularly funny or though-provoking for starters, and I find it hard to believe that’s the one.

Also interested to note that pp felt the need to add an asterisk to the word ‘spastic’ - Scope did not rename from The Spastic Society until 1994, so it’s a not such a perjorative term for those of us who were beyond the playground by then.

Quite. One woman’s meat is another woman’s poison etc…

This is an excellent point - thank you for making it.

😂

I shall rephrase. The asterix is used because that word along with its diminutives is considered disablist, precisely because in the preceding years (pre 94) it was being used as a playground slur. Kids, who have picked it up from their parents, still use it. Lizzo and Beyonce were criticised for using a diminutive, as they were unaware the word is a slur in the UK.

it’s a not such a perjorative term for those of us who were beyond the playground by then.

I beg to differ.

I’d be surprised if it was that joke either; undoubtedly offensive as it is. Did the statement from the Pleasance mention ableism?

That's a fairly old Sadowitz joke I think, it's been mentioned as an example of his humour below. I believe he's noted for not repeating material from one show to the next.

@JemimaPuddlegoose I'm not seeing what you're seeing, and I'm on both threads. Yes, nudity should be mentioned in the Fringe text, we've agreed on that (I'm not sure on which thread though as we're on both), but you cannot seriously be advocating for a safe-space Fringe because someone might accidentally nip into a JS show to get out of the rain and be accidentally made to feel unsafe.

It didn't and i would have been ASTONISHED if it did because let's face it, no-one thinks jokes about disabled people are, to quote the kids, problematic in the least.

Given they seemed to be playing offendabingo, I would have thought they'd have started with it, and ended with "zionis"t ....

That's long been the case, but I hope that the tide is finally turning as evidenced by Beyoncé and Lizzo being very publicly rebuked for using ablist slurs and changing their lyrics (Lizzo apologised fully, Beyoncé not so much).

That's long been the case, but I hope that the tide is finally turning as evidenced by Beyoncé and Lizzo being very publicly rebuked for using ablist slurs and changing their lyrics (Lizzo apologised fully, Beyoncé not so much).

Which is all very well, but what about the fact there is a cultural divide too ? There are plenty of words in daily use in the UK that USians find offensive. Midland meatballs being the obvious. God alone knows what they'd make of "The Black Country" (where Lenny Henry is from). And the reverse applies.

That's before we start on a main course of words in non-English languages that can cause offence. Especially if your language tutor or foreign talking friends have a sense if humour .... (Jasper Carrot telling Americans that "bollocks" was a UK word for pimples springs to mind ....)

Strangely, US mainstream culture have been tolerant of the use of a couple of obvious ablist slurs way after the UK has judged them unacceptable. There are a couple of episodes of Buffy where sympathetic characters use ablist slurs which have been censored for UK broadcast for decades. The claim that the insults aren't offensive because they aren't intended to refer to people with disabilities is the same kind of bollocks as "oh when I use the word "gay" to mean "rubbish" I'm not referring to homosexual men it's just a random insulting syllable that happens coincidentally to be spelled and pronounced the same".

Well true. So many people don’t bat an eye at ableist slurs, sadly

It's all very well being professionally offended about ableist slurs. However, take it from me, the less able are far more offended by steps, blocked accesses, broken lifts, no access to transport and the total lack of provision they experience every fucking day of their life.

Girl in wheelchair: Why can't I access that venue ?
Venue: We spent the money on a course for staff to be inclusive.

Is the TL;DR from an email trail I have