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…

The Pleasance has been a venue for fucking ever. They KNOW who they are booking when they book JS, and if they don't, they have no business putting on comedy shows at all. Sorry, but this is bullshit, Jemima.

@JemimaPuddlegoose

Are you by any chance someone who works for The Pleasance who has come here to anonymously put their side forward?

I’d have a lot more respect for your opinion if you were open and honest.

He had performed at The Pleasance for decades. How could they not know the general content of his show? He has form for getting his dick out on stage.

I don't think that's on - I'm pretty sure Jemima is a regular poster.

I'm 100% convinced that the problem is Pleasance staff, not the audience.

So you're calling the audience members liars? Or accusing the people who have tweeted or spoken to the press of... what, lying about having attended the show?

Edinburgh is not "half nudity and menstrual blood." My former boss used to be in an am-dram company in Barnes which is the poshest, most straitlaced place in the world and they take productions of Ayckbourn plays to Edinburgh Fringe. There are hundreds of shows at Edinburgh that are productions of Hamlet, po-faced one-woman shows about the performer's own life, poetry, circus, dance, mainstream comedy, children's shows, all sorts.

You can easily attend Edinburgh and see shows every day without ever seeing anything 'adult' or 'edgy.'

Plenty of people go to Edinburgh for the first time, plenty of young people go. Every year you have dozens and dozens of uni students or drama students making their first trip. Tourists including foreign tourists who happen to be visiting Edinburgh in August come without even knowing there's a festival on and decide to take in a show just because it's there.

The idea that everyone at Ed Fringe has been going for 30 years and just goes to see edgy comedy is just not true.

People go for all sorts of reasons, with every possible interest, and every possible level of knowledge, and they see every possible show.

That's why acts should make sure the info they write in the form is accurate. It's very very weird to defend not mentioning that your show includes exposed penises!

And it is not like he is an unknown. Just because you didn’t know who he was before this week doesn’t mean he isn’t well known on the comedy circuit.

The Pleasance really fucked up here. If they’d let the second night quietly go ahead and then turned down next year’s booking then there would not be all this attention. Only the ignorant think banning something actually makes it go away.

It is human nature to desperately want to know something you’ve been told is forbidden or secret. It was a stupid move on their part.

That's why acts should make sure the info they write in the form is accurate.

Yes they should. On that point we agree. And if it's correct that they've failed in this, then I also agree that it needs to be rectified. But I don't see how it's a reason to ban the show.

Nudity should be flagged, I agree.

The issue that bothers me is the Pleasance talking about his 'opinions' being unacceptable, and that being a reason for cancellation. The show was flagged as being offensive and likely to upset people. Are comedians to submit a list of words for approval before taking the stage?

That is what I want explained.

@JemimaPuddlegoose is right that the nudity isn't mentioned in the Fringe website.

So what you do is broadcast a content warning before the show starts. You allow a couple of minutes for anyone who finds themself in the wrong show for them to leave. If anyone walks out (and again, people walk out of Fringe shows All The Time) then they are free to complain and ask for a refund.

Tomorrow, you make the content warning even clearer, you tell people in the queue, you give plenty of opportunities to not go ahead and offer refunds. You take that up with the comedian after and maybe decide that you can't afford to put them on again next year.

What you do NOT do is cancel night 2 of a 2 night run. That's fucking madness, a knee jerk reaction that's now got the whole world talking about the Pleasance as anti-free speech and - more pertinently perhaps - a promoter and producer who won't get behind their artists, who will cut and run at the first sign of trouble.

To put that into context, the Pleasance is one of the biggest platforms in Edinburgh. They are forming taste. It's like the thing in the Devil Wears Prada about the colour blue - orgs like the Pleasance have a huge impact on our popular culture and on what can and cannot, should and should not be said.

That's why this is important and imo, that's why the Pleasance is in the wrong.

I do not work for the Pleasance in any capacity nor have I ever worked for them.

For full transparency I have worked on two shows that were performed at Pleasance London in the past, however that had no bearing on my opinions or involvement in this thread, other than having certain specific knowledge about stuff like the pleasance artist login. I certainly don't feel any particular loyalty to them because of that.

If anything I've tried to hide and downplay that because to be frank if people found my posts here (many of which are GC) they would probably lobby for my own work to be cancelled by calling me a t**f. If I appear to be "varying" about my level of knowledge, it's because of that - I started out trying to downplay my knowledge then lost my temper and said things in haste.

I know I'll get accused of making this thread all about me but if you search my previous posts you'll see that I've been on MN for a long time and am often very vocal about being biracial and being a CSA survivor, which yes does make me "oversensitive" about issues around consent. I frequently post about both racism, and issues around consent, and the need for informed consent around anything to do with nudity or sex - just do a search, I post about this all the flipping time!

My only "agenda" is that I don't like racism, it worries me how often I see GC views used to push right wing views or stuff like racism (this is something I've posted about a hundred times here) and I find men exposing their dicks to be pretty vile. But I'm also anti-censorship so I grudgingly admit his show has every right to exist, but that it should be performed with adequate content description, since obviously people did attend based on the inadequate Edfringe.com show listing.

@JemimaPuddlegoose I've seen you posting before and some of the stuff you've taken the trouble to put on this thread has been very informative, thank you.

There is something about this phrasing thar suggests to me that "content" here refers to something other than Jerry's nudity.

On the other hand, it's a hasty comment to a journalist, and probably shouldn't be treated as if it's been carefully phrased for a courtroom.

So you're calling the audience members liars? Or accusing the people who have tweeted or spoken to the press of... what, lying about having attended the show?

It doesn't seem to be the audience members who have complained, though. No one seems to know exactly what happened. JS says there were no walk outs and the show went well.

Exactly @PrimAndProperViperish because where does that end?

Who decides? Because a healthy liberal democracy is made up of a range of opinions and beliefs (some of which completely contradict) each other.

If you don’t like a book, don’t read it. If you don’t like a comedian, don’t buy the tickets. If you don’t agree with someone then feel free to says so but respect their right to have that opinion.

I find it deeply worrying that some in the left in particular are adopting the old Catholic Church model of dealing with those who don’t adhere to the same belief system or share the same morality- shame, excommunicate and persecute. It’s culty.

You can easily attend Edinburgh and see shows every day without ever seeing anything 'adult' or 'edgy.'

Yes, I know. There are loads of different Festivals going on in August - drama, dance, books, childrens' etc. But if you go to the Fringe, you do expect to see some fringe stuff, edgy stuff and definitely adult stuff.

But I'm also anti-censorship so I grudgingly admit his show has every right to exist, but that it should be performed with adequate content description, since obviously people did attend based on the inadequate Edfringe.com show listing.

I agree that nudity should require a content warning but I still don’t understand how you could give a content warning for the racial abuse you say women in the audience suffered? I’m obviously missing the point somehow. Nobody deserves to be racially abused even if they are warned about it first.

Okay @JemimaPuddlegoose that is fair enough. Thank you for taking the time to explain. I just get very suspicious of people hunting at inside knowledge online because it is so difficult to verify the truth.

As I have said in other posts. I don’t like the guy or his comedy. And I won’t defend racism, ever. If he said what he is reported have said then his a knob. But I do think that too often situations like this feed the alt-right’s sense of grievance. As painful as it may be it is better to let people say it out loud and then see them for who they really are and then open a conversation with them about why they are wrong/stupid etc.

Just shutting him down has turned and in such a secretive way has caused him to become the victim of this, rather than the people in the audience he abused. As I said- The Pleasance could have handles this better.

The other thing that worries me is this.

CONTENT WARNING - Below I will mention/discuss CSA.

What if someone said Sadowitz' act contained material about paedophilia? Used the word 'child-bender'? Does that mean is should be banned? That's a nasty term. Sounds alarming.

Here's the context:

We cannot ban discussion of or mention of unsavoury things, or ban certain words because they are offensive, in part because that can render us unable to counter bad things, or question them, or even point them out.

I'd be fully prepared to call an unnamed source in the Sun a liar, to be perfectly honest! In all likelihood that quote will have come from the journo's imagination.

And no 'audience member' I've seen anything from on Twitter has been an identifiable, credible source. Things are still as mysterious as they were yesterday!

I agree. Can we put MaChien in charge of the Pleasance please.

Edfringe.com currently has 129 shows listed under the category "Children's shows."

Not "other festivals", The Fringe Festival.

There's tons and tons of stuff on at the actual Edinburgh Fringe Festival that's dance, mainstream theatre, Shakespeare, am-dram productions of Ayckbourn, children's shows, shows aimed at babies, etc. etc. Not at other festivals that happen to be going on in August in Edinburgh, but at the actual The Fringe itself.

It isn't true that Fringe is all adult or edgy, is really isn't.

Only 583 shows on at Fringe this year are labelled as 18+, and that's out of more than 3500.

I actually do agree with MaChienEstUnDick post, that would have been the appropriate way to handle things.

And was this show labelled 18+? Is that correct?

I accept graciously for all.

I agree with everything said above about The Pleasance being old hands at this and having hosted him many times would know what to expect.

This is why I think it is the penis situation that has got him banned, there's nothing outrageous enough that he hasn't said before and they would have been expecting some nudity - but this time he took the penis exposure too far (or too close).