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…

This thread has become a wealth of fascinating information and perspective, thank you everyone! 😁

I'll report it to MNHQ and get it taken down immediately then ...

Meanwhile, over in another plush theatre elsewhere in Edinburgh, Tim Crouch proclaims it's all over, we are done, we are all fucked to 5 stars reviews in a packed theatre and standing ovations. If you've got MH problems probably best one to avoid - guidance 14+ .

You see, the reason why the Fool disappears from King Lear halfway through is because he can’t take it any more. Or at least Crouch, the actor supposedly playing him in that plush, corporate-sponsored playhouse, can’t. A world gone mad, on the brink of collapse, with debased royal figures feeding on themselves and everyone else, those in power ignoring all rules of civility and civilisation, cruelty and intolerance abounding – this is not a world he can bear.
And this, Crouch says, is the world we are all living in. We thought it was all OK, we thought the arc of the moral universe was long but it was bending towards justice. We were wrong.

www.alledinburghtheatre.com/tim-crouch-truths-a-dog-must-to-kennel-edfringe-2022-review/

They are scared of damnation by an unjust, unforgiving god, that's why. They fear an eternity in hell, with all the fervour of a medieval peasant, except unlike the peasant, they know the hell they dread exists and they have seen the face of the god who deals the punishment. It is called 'Cancellation, Social Ostracism and Forced Unemployment" and the god is the Mob itself.

I read a really interesting article last year, unfortunately I cannot remember where it came from, about the idea that modernity and the death of religion was supposed to free us from guilt. Freud and Nietzche created a world where we could lay all that down and simply work out our problems and move on.

Instead what's happened is that we still have the guilt but there is no mechanism at all to lay it down and move on. It's not only to the 7th generation, if you were wrong or your ancestors were wrong there is nothing for it but to continuously repent in the public sphere.

I think it’s notable that lines of work that are quite precarious (publishing, writing, acting, comedy, social media influencer, even we now know, being a barrister), where you’re often self employed and need some sort of personal brand, have been the ones to pick up genderism most strongly. They’ve also been the most vicious in enforcing orthodoxy

no psychological safety in those professions it seems

Most of those jobs/roles entail looking at society in order to analyse, respond, react to it. So it may be that those people are just more aware of and sensitive to social trends.

They aren't being all that analytical though. Maybe that represents a failure in education.

Hm. Some of the first to speak up against it also come from those fields.

I agree that critical thinking and analysis need to be taught more widely, and yes, ideally from school age. There is a great tendency to present one orthodoxy as fact, supported by various narratives.

Schools are pretty good at picking a subject and pushing it as a campaign, rather than presenting facts and encouraging children to research and come to their own conclusions. I think often this is an attempt to get children to be 'good citizens', which is fair enough, but offering ready made opinions/solutions is jumping the gun a bit.

Then again, maybe creating 'good citizens' is about obediently following doctrine more than proactively researching and evaluating information.

modernity and the death of religion was supposed to free us from guilt.

I've seen writing about secularism and humanism operating like religious systems from John Gray, and Mary Harrington, probably others whose names I forget!

I agree with that. There is a strong quasi-religious fervour at work, but there are no true priests, and so no official path to seek atonement.

The 'sin', whatever it was, is never forgiven.

When people stop believing in God, they will believe anything

to paraphrase G.K. Chesterton.

A long way from the start of this thread, but I woke up realising that the same language was used by the Pleasance about Sadowitz as by the YMCA about 80m year old Julie. "unsafe" and "not aligned with our values", and these linked with lies. Lying about what a woman said, and her history of abusing staff, without evidence, and lying about the behaviour of the audience - walking out and complaining, comtrary to the evidence.
Why are these behaviours the same in totally different contexts, and where are they learned?

unsafe really means upset or offended. It’s another way of saying I don’t want to think about it.

Content warnings used to come on CD cases and Video game boxes because there was swearing or violence and there were age ratings on films to denote the content. Porn films used to be sold behind the counter. There used to be vicars protesting outside of really dodgy venues or films. And it used to be more that older people from religious or moral groups were pushing for these warnings and talking about values - not young people wanting warnings and protection from their own art, music, movies, groups etc. It’s quite a strange twist.

It’s a way of controlling you. The abusive behaviour of minimising and maximising (double standards), Turning behaviour back on you, making you doubt yourself, putting other people off helping etc.

It's the use of the same language that concerns me.

I agree with you Treacle. It's like there's a script.

I find "not aligned with our values" a really chilling phrase.

Why should everyone else be 'aligned' with someone else's values?

But they aren't spelling out those values - which in the case of the YMCA should be obvious, but are obviously not Christian any more. And the Pleasance didn't read Sadowitz's background?
So who is scripting these puppets?

That’s exactly what stood out to me Treaclemine, which is why I posted - I didn’t know if it was related to the gender identity debate or not when I posted but the language just seemed so familiar with other threads on here. I did wonder if the absence of any quote from Sadowitz was because he cleverly paraphrased so repeating what he said wouldn’t help the cause like Ricky Gervais did…

But yes, people “felt unsafe” and that was enough to cancel a notoriously offensive comedian who seems to have been making similar comments for years suddenly doesn’t align with the venues “values”? 🤔

It's odd, isn't it?

The same phrases are used to describe very different sutuations, the experiences of the injured parties, and the apology issued.

I completely agree that the ‘unsafe’ and ‘not aligned with values’ is a script. Probably originates from somewhere like the Denton’s document or that terrible American Diversity and Inclusion consultancy that was giving illegal HR advice to Maya Forstater’s think tank bosses. I wonder if we can track down it’s start point?

One of my oldest friends was a contestant on Jerry’s TV panel show ‘The People Versus Jerry Sadowitz’ back in in the late 90s.

She said it was as terrifying as he was brilliant and that he treated her impeccably after the filming was over.

I suspect this will be a wake up call for quite a few comics and comedy writers as Jerry has always been almost untouchable until now and while he gave up TV some years ago and regularly has his work scraped from YouTube, he’s seen as a comedians comedian and has continued to be quietly successful. Sadly my local date on his upcoming tour is already sold out.

Pretty much every word out of Jerry’s mouth is offensive but he’s also clever and often profound. A sort of Scottish Bill Hicks, a bit like Jimmy Carr but with a strange sense of vulnerability - I can’t remember where I read it but someone described Sadowitz’s jokes as ‘all punching up’ because his on stage persona is so pathetic and his self loathing is even greater than his general misanthropy.

Sadowitz is a brilliant card magician and has written a number of books about sleight of hand magic. I believe he helped Derren Brown get his first TV show and was also ‘Piff The Magic Dragon’s’ entry point to magic (and indeed my friend who was once on Jerry’s TV show went on to be a successful offensive/irreverent comedian/variety performer in her own right and until covid had a long term Las Vegas residency).

(Weird fact, Sadowitz played the Ebeneezer Goode character in The Shaman’s pop video for the single - something he reportedly regretted because he hadn’t picked up on the drug reference until afterwards)

m.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJdUJg4wOk

oh! Also Jerry was telling his audiences that Saville was a paedo as far back as 1987:

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2216358/amp/Jimmy-Savile-allegations-Why-did-listen-Jerry-Sadowitzs-howl-rage.html

Yes, it’s a conscious choice by Sadowitz himself. He also reportedly asked reviewers to avoid quoting him from 2008 onwards,

This year, veteran comedian Jerry Sadowitz has drawn a line in the sand. In an open letter to arts editors across the land last week, he wrote: "Dear sir/madam. This email is a request to all newspapers/magazines, that if they feel they must review my show in Edinburgh, could you PLEASE not quote the actual material in the review? A very important element of comedy is surprise, and it can often make the difference between a show that works and one that does not."

source:www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/jerry-sadowitz-plea-reporters-not-quote-his-material-2462719?amp

presumably the lack of YouTube clips is part of the same strategy.

in other news I copied and pasted a few of the Pleasance’s buzzwords from their two statements into google

‘align with our values
Unacceptable
Dignity
Uncomfortable
Unsafe
Inclusive
Diverse’

The top few hits were articles about the Pleasance kerfuffle and the next few were:

buffer.com/resources/inclusive-language-tech/

www.zendesk.co.uk/blog/start-using-inclusive-language/

www.leru.org/files/LERU-EDI-paper_final.pdf

www.bain.com/insights/the-fabric-of-belonging-how-to-weave-an-inclusive-culture/

www.angloamerican.com/~/media/Files/A/Anglo-American-Group/PLC/sustainability/our-strategy/our-code-of-conduct-english.pdf

so it must be coming from American Equity, Diversion and Inclusion training.

the first page of Google hits from this side of the pond were

AQA exam board:
www.aqa.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-standards/equal-opportunities-policy

And this from the Welsh Government: gov.wales/workforce-equality-diversity-and-inclusion-strategy-2021-to-2026-html

I feel a bit… stepford wife-brainwashed now.

I saw this line about "values" in an article about the police:

Police will be sacked for abusing women

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7ff3eb0a-1d99-11ed-add4-d333562d46fb?shareToken=257c788a0b2dcd19f231b11f4cfe3b86

"Marsh [head of College of Policing] said the new guidance made clear that officers who committed crime or “don’t respect our values” should not be allowed to serve."

Obviously officer who break the law shouldn't be there. Obviously officers who abuse their power shouldn't be there. But what "values"? These ones?

"“The sex/gender identification of individuals will be based on how they present or how they self-declare, which is consistent with the values of the organisation.”"

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b2a2960e-0e91-11ec-868a-b68487b876a6?shareToken=ca047458f6ff7fbd6d7b36c5430ac250

#nothankyou