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 think anyone confused between criticising a work and wanting it banned is inadvertently letting their own fascist flag fly.

Most people are very cognisant of the difference between disagreement and attempts at censorship.

It's Free Speech .. I suspect I'd hate his show, too extreme for me. He's been doing his show for 30 years, no-one goes who doesn't know what to expect. It shouldn't be banned, no more than the Joan of Arc play, no more than Frankie Boyle. That's the thing with free speech - it's for everyone not just those you like and agree with.

Or Sadowitz could have just written "potentially contains nudity and discussion of racial themes some may find offensive" in the show description/content warning.

Please remember, the people who maintain and update the edfringe.com website are not the same people who programme the acts, and they have to upload show content for literally thousands of different shows. All the website content is submitted by the acts themselves (or by someone from their team), the website team literally just copy and paste the show info and content warnings from the submission forms into the website listings page. And they do it hundreds and hundreds of times over.

You cannot expect that some underpaid webdesigner who's copy and pasting thousands of different show descriptions is going to take the time to read each one, notice "hang on I personally know that act, and they've left something out!" and take the time to flag it.

The onus is on the act to ensure they submit accurate information.

I wonder if this entire thing would have been avoided if JS had just been upfront in the show description.

There's also a thread here:

Comedians defending Jerry Sadowitz http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/amiibeingunreasonable/4610857-comedians-defending-jerry-sadowitz

The venue is most certainly to blame here. They can’t have researched much about him.

To be clear- I don’t like him and would never book to see one of his shows (much like I would never book to see Frankie Boyle after having the misfortune to sit through one of his shows before) but the conversation is all relevant to the current discussions on free speech.

How far does free speech go and how and who decides what is acceptable. If you are going to deplatform and ban things then who gets to decide the criteria?

I often think that sunlight is the best disinfectant for distasteful views because it reveals them for what they really are- the ravings of an arsehole.

If The Pleasance had let it run then he would have inevitably gotten some shite reviews and we could have had a conversation about his language and views.

Now it looks like nothing but silencing and tone policing. And it makes it harder to have that reasonable conversation. Banning things never makes them go away. It only makes it more salacious.

I wonder if this entire thing would have been avoided if JS had just been upfront in the show description.

Anyone who goes to see Sadowitz knows EXACTLY what they're going to see.

And ‘I, Joan’ is the stupidest, most sexist thing I’ve ever seen. The show notes about Elizabeth the first are written in such a way as to suggest that she is non-binary because she called her self a Prince. Total misunderstanding of Elizabeth language usage and attitudes of the time period.

But the great thing about free speech is they get to have their opinion and I get to have mine. In an ideal world it would open a discussion, rather than creating another round of cancellations and bans.

I'm not putting words into your mouth, I asked you some questions based on your earlier post.

You literally said this...

"I'm honestly astounded that feminists are defended a man who racially abuses female audience members and flashes his penis at women without their consent"

You said that JS had racially abused a female audience member and flashed women without their consent. In my post I used the word "assault" and then immediately corrected it to "harassment" because I realised that was perhaps over interpreting what you had said. But look at what you actually said. How is what I asked putting words into your mouth?

Complete nonsense.

I know people who went to see his show who'd never heard of him before. That's the norm at Ed Fringe. He's hardly so famous that everyone knows his name, let alone the content of his act!

I really wonder how many people on this thread have ever done Edinburgh Fringe. I've done shows at Ed Fringe several times and have also attended numerous times as an audience member. I've seen a million shows at Edinburgh.

The culture at Ed Fringe is very much "go and see everything and anything, take a punt on an unknown comedian, see stuff you don't know." It's not like going to see a stand-up show in London where you probably research it ahead of time and only book tickets for acts you know and like. Edinburgh is messy and chaotic, you run around seeing a dozen different acts per day. You read the EdFringe website or app and make choices what to see based on that.

It's very very possible that Ed Fringe goers would end up at his show without having heard of him before, which is why it's crucial that acts submit accurate information to their show listings page.

It's not okay to blame women for going by the information that JS himself decided to submit to edfringe.com, when he could very easily have included "may contain nudity" or been more accurate about the show content.

JemimaPuddlegoose I'm still intrigued what you think should happen (if not cancellation) to a comedian who (and this time I'll ask using your exact words) racially abuses female audience members and flashes his penis at women without their consent?

the show description and content warnings that JS/his team gave to the Edfringe.com didn't include any mention of nudity or potential nudity, meaning people were not given the information necessary to consent to attend a show featuring nudity

But it does say:
"please note that I might just do card tricks and say nothing for a whole hour or I might just do the usual "screaming fascist" schtick. Or both. Patrons may wish to drink alcohol pre-show to avoid boredom, embarrassment and guilt.'

Warnings and additional info: This show contains strong language and themes some may find distressing."

It was also called 'Not for anyone'

Come on, that's a clear warning that there is stuff that will offend people. It plainly states that he might do anything.

@JemimaPuddlegoose

How do you know he didn’t tell the venue? Venues are responsible for their listings. Surely someone at the venue should have watched one of his previous shows first to find out the general content!

The venue should know that is controversial. It was their duty of care to check and out the proper warnings on the show.

I don’t agree with what he said but I defend his right to say it. Because at the end of the day he makes himself look like a dickhead. By pulling the show The Pleasance have made him into the victim in all this.

I still wonder how Frankie Boyle has avoided cancellation for so long. I have seen worse from him and people cheer him on.

This is what people find unfair- you only get cancelled if you upset the wrong people. Their is no consistency.

The Pleasance has been showing (and therefore making money from) Jerry Sadowitz since at least the mid-80s. Suggestions that they didn't know what they were getting are ridiculous, I'm afraid.

Warnings and additional info: This show contains strong language and themes some may find distressing."

It was also called 'Not for anyone'

Come on, that's a clear warning that there is stuff that will offend people. It plainly states that he might do anything.

I can't see the bit where it says he'll expose his penis a few feet away from a woman's face.

I think his penis would come under the banner of “themes some may find distressing”.

The Pleasance has been showing (and therefore making money from) Jerry Sadowitz since at least the mid-80s

wow. Are they under new management or something? That’s a worrying sign of the times.

Precisely @MaChienEstUnDick

They have been supporting him for years. This is not the first time he has behaved like this. What has changed?

Probably the new hate crime laws in Scotland that lots of people said would have a chilling effect on free speech.

The total secrecy about this makes it so obvious this is about trans. Jerry has been playing at the Fringe for decades, the Pleasance knew very well how offensive his shows are. If they genuinely wanted to protect their staff as an employer they would vet the material of all acts before booking.
If they wanted to protect those staff who complained they could have just offered them a swapped shift.
The use of language (feeling unsafe), the instant cancellation and poor excuses...
Plus he's deleted this Tweet from before the show. You can be offensive to almost anyone at the Fringe, but not the Church of Trans.

I went to an EdFringe show once where two women got DH up on stage (we had only just started going out) and did a whole skit with him where they had an embarrassing first date and she kissed him full on the lips.

Anyone who goes to an EdFringe show should know to expect the unexpected.

Then we went to Cabaret Voltaire and he got hit on and bought drinks by a group of male singers for the whole night. Probably his best run of luck ever 😆

Unless there is some actual evidence that the complaint was about alleged transphobia then I'm not interested in speculating. That isn't the issue for me at all.

How do you know he didn’t tell the venue? Venues are responsible for their listings. Surely someone at the venue should have watched one of his previous shows first to find out the general content!

Okay, at the risk of sounding like a know-all, can I please please explain how Ed Fringe model operates in practice? Can you please just read what I have to say before deciding?

Ed Fringe is a massive festival that is "open access" meaning that anyone can perform there if they can afford the fees.

The festival has over 3500 shows this year.

The way Ed fringe works is, people apply to perform and they pay the fee.
Obviously someone does read the applications when they first come in, and some venues are more choosy whereas others are purely spaces for hire that literally anyone can pay the fee and put on anything they like.

The Ed Fringe website automatically sends out an email to everyone who is bringing a show (all 3500 of them) which contains a link to an online form, where each act (all 3500 of them) fills in their show details. The form contains a section "Show description" where the act or their producer or their manager or whomever is handling their EdFringe run writes in the marketing blurb that will become the official show description. Another part of the form is a section marked "content warning" where each act/their person is supposed to write down everything that might need to be trigger warned. Nudity is absolutely something you are supposed to write in the box!

Those 3500 forms get sent to the EdFringe web development team, who copy and paste them into the 'live' website. As you can imagine 3500 show descriptions is a lot! Please understand, no one is actually reading the forms once they've been submitted. The onus is 100% on each act to make sure their show description and content warning is accurate and up to date.

The Pleasance as a venue has no involvement over what's on the Edfringe.com website. At all. I happen to know that the Pleasance gives each act a log-in for pleasance.co.uk so they can edit their own show descriptions on the Pleasance website, but the Pleasance website is separate from the EdFringe.com website, and it's the EdFringe.com website that everyone uses.

A lot of people have complained about this, it's a big ongoing problem. But in this specific situation, JS or whoever on JS' team submitted the form is to blame. Because they should and could have typed a more accurate description into the form, and they certainly should have put "may contain nudity" and "offensive content" into the content warning box, and not just "strong language and themes some may find distressing."

I agree, however those tweets would definitely be considered transphobic by some.

I've lived in Edinburgh for decades, Jemima. (Funny how on every thread you are an expert on the particular topic... ). People do go to all sorts of things at the fringe. But anyone who's into comedy will have heard of JS. And if they haven't, or haven't got the nous to google him, there's a clear warning on the show info. And they are free to leave if they don't like the show.

As for the idea that he's exposed himself to a woman - he exposed himself to everyone. Half the acts at the fringe are naked and smeared in menstrual blood. You'd be disappointed if you went to a show and didn't see a dick. I'm 100% convinced that the problem is Pleasance staff, not the audience.