Jerry Sadowitz

[Bearsinmotion]

Is anyone following this?

Really strange - the Pleasance theatre have cancelled Jerry Sadowitz’s show at the fringe, citing audience walkouts and complaints of extreme misogyny and racism. But have not quoted what was said that was so offensive even to him. Both Sadowitz and people who were there have questioned the walkouts. The show had many, many warnings about offensive content, and that he was going to be getting his cock out, which he did, as do other comedians at the Fringe.

there are a few comedians supporting him on Twitter, around the defence of free speech. But what stood out to me in the language was that audience members felt “unsafe,” yet I have not seen a single person say that was them. Graham Linehan has written about it here. Just wondering if it was related to the TRA frenzy as Glinner implies, with manufactured outrage or whether Sadowitz genuinely went too far this time.

I used to love Jerry back in the day, and he was one of the few calling out Jimmy Saville when it counted, so I want to believe he’s not been targeted for once again calling out those doing real harm…

I also have ABSOLUTELY NO PATIENCE with people who use the word 'unsafe' when they mean 'upset' - THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Staff were not 'unsafe' because a comedian used offensive language, they were hurt, or shocked, or scandalised. But 'unsafe'? No. They were in a nice indoor venue with other staff around. And doors they could walk out of if it all got too much.

Absolutely right.

Years ago now I saw a comedian as part of a comedy evening, dead now, who billed himself as “unapologetically offensive” and I suspect rather saw himself as being a Sadowitz type (though without the wit).

He told a rape joke as part of his act and I didn’t laugh. He noticed me not laughing (I was not front row) and decided to make a big deal about it, ending up with him encouraging the audience to wait for me after the show and beat me up.

I didn’t feel “unsafe”, I didn’t even leave.

What I did do is walk up to him in the bar afterwards and politely asked him if he’d considered that he might, that evening, have joked about a rape victim being beaten up for not laughing at a rape joke, and if he felt that this was OK. He blustered a bit about satire, and I asked him if he thought every single audience member who was laughing at it was because they understood it was satire, or could it be that in fact he was encouraging something much nastier.

Anyway so much for unapologetic because he was very apologetic by the time I’d finished with him.

(As an aside, Rhod Gilbert was also on the bill in one of his earliest ever gigs after going full time into comedy, and he was in the bar and overheard me confronting this comedian, and made the point of coming over to me afterwards and saying he thought I was absolutely right to challenge it, have always liked him ever since)

Is there actually any evidence whatsoever that an actual as opposed to theoretical employee of Pakistani origin worked at the venue or objected to anything that was actually said? Or are you getting outraged on behalf of something that was quite possibly not said, in a context that is not known, and on behalf of a person who almost certainly doesn't exist, or we would have heard from them before now?

No outrage, I'm just looking at it in an employer/employee legal sense.

Also it's a purely hypothetical employee.

It goes even deeper than that. There's been a lot of pressure put on the 'big 4' to raise their wages - and they have, to be fair - but not in any way that compensates for how expensive accommodation is in Edinburgh over August. I saw a job for a content creator for one of the big names which was something like 60 hours per week for £600 - you're not going to be able to find accommodation for that.

So even people who are getting jobs on their own merit are doing it from a background of financial privilege. Very few people can afford to work at the Fringe.

No one can reasonably expect to go through life without encountering situations that they may find annoying, hurtful or upsetting.

Brown people should not be encouraged by white people to adopt mental fragility as an identity.

The pervasiveness of the idea that people with more melanin in their skin are somehow inherently less robust when faced with unpleasant words entrenches an association of inferiority when compared to white people.

Racial slurs can shock, anger and upset but at the end of the day we mustn't let a stranger's words (and in the context of an offensive comedy show no less) have so much power and influence on our minds.

"Unpleasant words", Nonni are you fucking serious?

Remind me not to appoint you as HR manager.

No, I don't think you can assume any of those things are true. There are members of minority groups that don't mind hearing jokes with those kinds of words, there are people who have been sexually assaulted that will laugh at jokes relating to sexual assault, there are religious people who are happy to laugh at jokes about religion, etc.

Especially, in every case, if the jokes are enlightening, which is not incompatible with them being shocking.

Anyone speaking on behalf of all these people as if they are of one mind is speaking out of turn.

Is it not reasonable that a Pakistani employee who works at a conference centre shouldn't have to, nor be expected to hear JS calling Rishi Sunak a p%%i live on stage?

That's not really the point. If he did that then he deserves to have his gig cancelled.

The vast majority of people who have seen his act seem to think he is being ironic and holding a mirror to to the dark parts of society. Up until now no-one has thought he was serious and intended to be racist.

If that's what he was doing then anyone, Pakistani or otherwise, might like or dislike his humour but it's not the same thing as Roy Chubby Brown.

If the pleasance genuinely thought he was a racist I would have expected them to be much more specific in their reasoning.

Yes I'm fucking serious. There's a big difference between being surrounded by an aggressive group of skinheads in a street and called pki and watching an offensive comedy show where presumably all kinds of people and topics are being insulted / mocked (and this hypothetical brown person seems totally ok with all of that - maybe even laughed at some of the lines), and then someone else who isn't even present is called a pki as part of a joke (it's not even clear what the context of the joke was - something about Tories using the word?!).

Now it might be jarring and offensive to hear it, but it's insulting and infantilising to think that any and all South Asians are inherently incapable of distinguishing between the two scenarios.

South Asians are not a hive mind and stop behaving as if they are. One person might get so upset upon hearing the word irrespective of the context, another might get annoyed but shrug it off, and another might laugh at the joke because they get the underlying message or simply found it funny.

Stop assuming that there is only one kind of reaction a brown person is capable of having when confronted with slurs and unpleasant situations.

A guy passed me in the street once and muttered something about me being a fucking p*ki. It happened so quickly I didn't have time to even register the whole sentence. I didn't faint or feel 'unsafe'. I briefly felt angry and irritated - also surprised, like wow did he really just say that out loud?!.... and then I pitied the guy for his ignorance and racism. I also wondered what happened in his life to shape such views and behaviour. Soon after that I moved on with my day and my life. The incident is a footnote among my memories. Because ultimately the word is not a reflection of me, it's a reflection of the person who uses it on me.
In another situation and context, I might have felt differently, who knows. Who cares. The point is stop assuming all brown people get terribly upset upon hearing a racial slur and are incapable of distinguishing the context within which it's said.

I wouldn't want the job any way. The fact that I've just had to spell out basic facts about not making blanket assumptions about people based on skin colour or ethnicity is evidence that I wouldn't have the patience to deal with the scale of such ignorance as a full-time job.

👏 nonnymouse

Well said NonnyMouse

I think I might have got angrier'n you did on your behalf, Nonny. What an idiot, and I'm sorry you had that experience.

And thank you for an eloquent, insightful post.

Appreciate the reply Nonny and sorry if I misinterpreted your initial post. The context of words is what we have been discussing this entire post, after all.

Context is everything, isn't it? If Sadowitz said "Rishi Sunak is a p" that's rather different from saying "The Tory party is full of racists who think Rishi Sunak is a p".

I have no idea what he did say, by the way. We're all operating in the dark on this, unfortunately.

Chortle have reproduced sadowitz's statement and the full pleasance statement. Plus this which is useful:

"The only report about the exact nature of the offensive content was one punter telling the Scottish Sun: ‘He called Rishi Sunak a "p*'"; said the economy was awful because it is run by "blacks and women".

...

It is unlikely the nudity would have been the trigger as several Fringe shows feature such scenes. "

To me, the pleasance's lack of clarity and detail about exactly what got him cancelled is very serious. They are failing in their responsibility to sadowitz, the audience, and freedom of expression in comedy more generally. It will have a chilling effect beyond this because of the lack odlf detail.

www.chortle.co.uk/news/2022/08/14/51467/pleasance_staff_abused_after_jerry_sadowitz_ban

There is a note perfect Stewart Lee routine (actually an entire half hour show) where he nails the matter of context. Really it should be shown in schools. (Much like that note perfect Guardian advert from the 80s about perspective).

It centres around a 7 word phrase he heard that he refuses to quote as it was "racist, sizist and blasphemous"

"... and yet the irony is I have used every single one of the words in that phrase in the past 20 minutes but none of you found them offensive because of their context."

And he's right.

Just restating my view there's no such thing as magic words.

From chortle. The Pleasance’s latest statement reads, in full:

‘As previously stated, the Pleasance chose to pull Jerry Sadowitz’s second and final show.

'Due to numerous complaints, we became immediately 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.

‘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.

We don’t vet the full content of acts in advance and while Jerry Sadowitz is a controversial comedian, we 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.’

Is it not reasonable that a Pakistani employee who works at a conference centre shouldn't have to, nor be expected to hear JS calling Rishi Sunak a p%%i live on stage?

Is it not reasonable that a Pakistani employee who has competed hard for the opportunity to usher at one of the biggest comedy venues in the world's biggest art festival, for experience and prestige rather than financial reward, would have had a wee peek at their rota, thought 'this might be a really difficult show for me to cover', spoken to their shift manager and got a swap to one of the 40 other shows on in that hour?

There is a note perfect Stewart Lee routine (actually an entire half hour show) where he nails the matter of context.

See also Tim Minchin's song Cont, which is brilliant as well.

There's a comedy singer from Australia called Kevin Bloody Wilson. He's not to everyone's taste, but there is a similar story about one of his songs.
He was playing a gig in Canada and was told by the venue that there were certain words he would be banned from saying on stage, one of which was "Cnt".

He opened his show that night with a song he had written called "You can't say C*nt in Canada".

The whole song is about why some words are offensive and some aren't.

There's a good video just been put up on GB News with Dan Wootton and Jim Davidson where he talks about being cancelled as a comedian for racism, homophobia and sexism.

There are a number of things which i find alarming in the Pleasance full statement. It gives me an uneasy feeling about how things have shifted and i think more comedians should be worried about this and say so. The Pleasance are making a bad mistake here. I will pick out a few things:

1. In general the lack of detail & instead using catch-all phrases. Speech codes, rules and lines are one thing. But when there's no detail no one can use this to judge how to stay within the line. Sensitivity about language plus vegueness about is bad for the arts. The chilling effect will be much broader than this one case.

Everything else has to be read alongside the lack of clarity.

2. It doesn't match other witness accounts - js said no one walked out, the sun's witness didn't say there were wàlk outs, others on twitter didn't see any, and no one has come forward.

3. "felt uncomfortable and unsafe to remain in the venue." Taken alongside the lack of detail this terrifies me. No comedy venue should be worrying about audience feeling 'unconfortable'. As for 'unsafe', it is possdible to be unsafe at a gig. There are examples in this thread where i would have felt unsafe, where it was directed at one person. If similar scenarios were what caused the cancellation here the Pleasance should say so. But there's no suggestion that anything was directed at an individual. It is more likely that 'unsafe' is being used in its modern sense - eg safe (but not enjoyable).

4. The previous statement talked about the opinions not aligning with pleasance's values. They've dropped that here for 'We will not associate with content which attacks people’s dignity...'
   So now I am free to believe that the Pleasance does associate itself with every opinion, and shares the values of every character, who is presented on its stages.
   This is a mistake. Especially when it's likely that staff have pushed for this. The next time some staff dont like an act, how will managers defend it? They will either have to say it matches their values or ditch it. A longer term approach would be to say we don't expect acts to align with our values vand we don't expect to want to be associated with every routine performed.

Cont...

This is a great point. It currently feels quite a radical attitude though (especially on the left). The idea that minorities (and also women) need to be protected from challenging opinions / jokes / situations in relation to their minority characteristic has become predominant especially in liberal / left circles.