What has Stewart Lee done?

[concernedfriend500]

I see lots of people on Twitter are slagging off Stewart Lee because he listed a lot of non-woke folk like Graham Linehan in his "pedal bin" of people he doesn't like. What is his public stance on the Trans Rights campaign though? I've not heard/read anything but I've probably missed it.

This whole thread is Stewart Lee bingo. 😄

Comedy is riddled with wokey people who can't think past hashtag-be-kind.

It's become hack.

I'd pay good money to go and see someone do jokes about gender. There is huge potential in the material, but as the protected caste has a curious collective absence of humour or ability to self deprecate then it is a bold comedian who takes on this massive social change as a topic.

Bloody shame.

People talking about trans things are really only on Comedy Unleashed, run by Andrew Doyle who does Tatania.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes like the Scarlett Letter?

I'd pay good money to go and see someone do jokes about gender. There is huge potential in the material, but as the protected caste has a curious collective absence of humour or ability to self deprecate then it is a bold comedian who takes on this massive social change as a topic.

Dara O'Briain (echoed by and echoing SL) made a comment that you can't do jokes "about Muslims" because the shared knowledge that you need to make jokes work doesn't exist in the room.

I think the same could be said of gender issues. Yes a lot of people on this thread might just about find the funny. But they are the 1% in a theatre full of people who have paid for Mrs. Browns Boys.

Good point, Serendipity

I guess what I mean is, I'd pay good money to be in a room of women off this board with Mary Bourke doing a set about gender and mumsnet.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

Good point, Serendipity

I guess what I mean is, I'd pay good money to be in a room of women off this board with Mary Bourke doing a set about gender and mumsnet.

God me too! I hope some comedy night promoter is reading (randomly!) 😂

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

Good point, Serendipity

I guess what I mean is, I'd pay good money to be in a room of women off this board with Mary Bourke doing a set about gender and mumsnet.

I'd go!

@WWDD

This whole thread is Stewart Lee bingo. 😄

Oh yes, he relishes it when people are pissed off by him, and he likes collecting evidence for it on his website, a catalogue of times he's upset people and they've dared to respond.

Being able to predict that people will be hurt by what he does doesn't make the things he says and does excusable.

SL's fans are just like the bully's chums and enforcers joining in with the laughing even when they don't quite get the joke themselves, scared to get on the wrong side of him in case the bully turns on them too. He acknowledges that and makes it part of his act. And the circle jerk continues, perpetuating abuse that has real consequences.

Don’t forget the “you’re not clever enough to understand him” line.

I can understand and still think he’s a tedious, manufactured and unfunny arse.

But that's what he WANTS you to think!!!!11

Ugh. Truly clever people generally do not need to go around telling everyone how clever they are.

@undertheblanket

I've seen Stewart Lee live so I'll save you the bother if you haven't:

He plays a character of a miserable tedious misunderstood comedian who looks down on his fans. And his fans lap it up and say he's a genius for doing it. His fans argue that if you don't like it, or if you feel bullied by it, you simply haven't understood the complexity of the comedy. Or you can be safely dismissed as a Tory and/or a racist. I don't think he realises how many people on the left see through him.

It's total crap. Isn't it interesting how it's only rich white men who get away with this "inhabiting a persona" shite? Imagine reporting harassment to the police and them telling you to get over it because your harasser was just joking and playing a character. But this is what he's doing, he's harassing people (including people barely in the public eye at all, who he has never interacted with), not just with his lists, but by obsessively criticising them on a personal level in his live shows, turning his rabid fans onto them, and publicly declaring them to be non-U.

He's a nasty person. "It's only a joke" isn't good enough when real people get hurt.

Thank you for nailing this.

I was told I just didn't get that the rape jokes are ironic. It's just a persona. I'd been a fan for years, so it was especially galling to be told the joke was over my head, that Lee's style is just too clever and nuanced.

The men in the audience - the pack - understood the joke, however. They were more enlightened.

It's pretty ironic, but this is all I can think about.

Bloody hell, that Stewart Lee's let himself go

(I should explain that that's a joke about a Stewart Lee joke about Stewart Lee, and not me commenting on his appearance or anything)

I've been to, and liked, most of his gigs except the Joe Pasquale one which I didn't find funny. He basically does one kind of joke, and if you like that joke you go and watch him because he does it quite well, and if you don't, you express your annoyance at his one shtick and he uses that as funny material for his next outing of his shtick.

Threads on Stew crop up on here fairly regularly. I don't think he'll get it or admit to getting it. His wife did an article where, iirc, she assumed the gender of the penis person who flashed her, but hasn't been cancelled yet.

Having a look again, you're absolutely right. All the names entirely in red are women. Men are in black (except Graham Linehan, whose last name is red).

So he does know what a woman is

I don’t have anything insightful to add, apart from the fact that the link to his website, and the lists that followed, were really really boring to wade through!

I don’t have kids, but I’d imagine that even a parent being presented with that by their PFB would struggle to get to the end and be able to summon up a vaguely enthusiastic response.

And thanks for some of the insight into his act, definitely one that I won’t waste my time on if I come across it.

I've always been a huge SL fan and was gutted I missed seeung Content Provider live at our theatre as DS was tiny then. This year I booked tickets for Snowflake Tornado for my birthday and was looking forward to it but after reading this thread I'm not sure how good it will be

Everything's OK when it's ironic, of course. When it comes to rape jokes, men are enlightened and women need to lighten up. As always.

So the new routine is called Snowflake Tornado? I’m wondering if this is a build up to that.

So the whole bit will be about the people who didn’t come because they found him offensive, how shit and stupid they are, and how mumsnet is a pile of poo (yes you can use that quote, it’s funnier that your usual ramblings).

It would be a shame if the half empty auditorium just sat in stoney silence…

Apparently it's two half-shows, one having a snowflake theme and one having a tornado theme, rather than one long show.

@undertheblanket

Everything's OK when it's ironic, of course. When it comes to rape jokes, men are enlightened and women need to lighten up. As always.

That was why I wasn't laughing at his last show. He did a really long bit about James Bond going around raping. And because he uses repetition I just sat there with him saying "rape" repeatedly while I thought about the women closest to me who had been raped, and wondered how much more unpleasant the experience was for other women in the audience. It doesn't even work at any level because James Bond seduces women who are willing partners. So he spent a whole load of time describing consensual sex as rape.

I usually find him funny.

lovely that's exactly what I thought on that tour and how I responded.

@lovelyweathertoday - I have read I think two James Bond books and in one of them Ian Fleming wrote 'the sweet tang of rape' after one of Bond's sexual encounters.

I read no more.

I think I'm going to give the new show a miss, only I've just spent £50 on tickets (£10 booking fee alone!) and no refunds

I was asked to book - but I point blank refused because he was being a bit of a tit before. Glad I didn’t - who wants to sit through a 2 hour ramble about why women are nasty and why they are wrong, stupid, overreacting, demonstrating why he is so wonderful (and so much more intelligent), etc etc etc.