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…

It was. Funnily enough the show I saw with nudity last week was labelled 14+, though the nudity was mentioned on the website.

Ok now it looks like I agree with both MaChien and with Jemima. Thank god for that - I need to go and eat.

In which case why did they state 'opinions'? If they'd said he exposed himself without warning, that would have made far more sense.

That's not really the point. The point is people can't claim Fringe is inherently adult when a whopping 84% of all shows on at the Fringe this year are listed as being suitable for under 18s.

Besides 18+ covers a broad range of things.

Some examples of 18+ shows I've seen at the fringe.
A one-woman show where the performer talks about her personal experience of being raped.
A one-woman show where the performer talks about her personal experience of self-harming.
A show about the plight of refugees who try to cross the channel in illegal boats (18+ due to descriptions of drowned children).
A play written by someone who had a family member murdered due to domestic violence.

You wouldn't automatically assume that 18+ means exposed penises.

That's why acts are explicitly told to write if their show contains nudity or not in the "content warning" box.

I don't know, maybe they were hoping to downplay it as a favour to JS.

Yes I take that point Jemima and agree there should be no ambiguity about what the show involves.

I don't really get the impression they're trying to do him any favours by suggesting he should be deplatformed everywhere ...

.

twitter.com/ExcelPope/status/1558942459853422594

A short thread about a Jerry Sadowitz joke I witnessed, which will include said joke.
This is from when I went to see him live, maybe five or six years ago.
He did a whole piece to the audience about people wondering if it was OK to laugh at his joke.
Was he saying terrible things because they were funny, or were they things he really believed?
The audience felt confused. Guilty, even.
He explained he had a solution. He indicated to a table at the back of the stage. This table, he said, contained a load of hats.
If he put a hat on then he was just playing a character, He wasn't really him. It was OK to laugh at the joke.
"Let's try it out. Remember, wearing a hat means 'just a character, it's OK to laugh."
He went to the table.
The audience is silent. Obviously, he's going to return wearing a hat and say something really terrible.
He came back to the front of the stage.
He was wearing an SS Officer's cap.
"Right, then, what are we going to do about the Jews?"

Hahaha that is really funny! He's a great comedian.

He doesn't need 'trigger warnings' or any of that bollocks. It's not for children. You're an adult, you can cope with his show. If you can't cope with it, don't go and watch it.

Many many years ago, I chanced upon a play : "Mein Kampf: Farce" at the Brentford Arts Centre.

For reasons I couldn't (and still) can't fathom there was a scene where a female actor was sitting nude as she talked to one of the characters. I'm pretty certain (a) there was no-one who was offended and (b) if you're the sort of rentanoffence person that I thought we'd seen the last of, the actual plot had potential to be far more offensive.

Does no one else find it ironic that MN are deleting posts "not in the spirit of the site" on a thread that purports to be about free speech ?

He's Jewish and far better than Jimmy Carr's so-called holocaust joke which had no nuance or context. It's genius. Led the audience by the nose into a trap. His tour will now sell out and probably have new dates if Jerry can do it but he is very fragile and has pulled out of gigs before because he just can't do it. Saw him in the 80s and 90s and on TV way back. He is unique and in a class of his own and respected by all the greats without question. You wouldn't find Stewart Lee defending a Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson.

It will be the student volunteers that will have ganged up to cancel him after frothing with indignation at the surface and not understanding the context or heritage and probably threatening a walkout so they folded. I go to the Fringe every year for the last 15 indeed am going this Friday and Jerry is a legend, a comedian's comedian - if you don't like it don't go or walk out. It's that simple.

Does no one else find it ironic that MN are deleting posts "not in the spirit of the site" on a thread that purports to be about free speech ?

Are they? I find it depressing. But also unsurprising.

None of it makes any sense.

Sadowitz claims not to know why they cancelled the booking at short notice. So they haven't said to him, "you didn't even fill in the form properly to specify nudity in the first place, and we've had complaints. Even if you had notified everyone as you're supposed to, you got far too close to individual audience members when you got your cock out".

Why not? I bet I could say the whole thing without taking a breath, and it can't be the most awkward conversation the management have ever had.

And I have seen the grotesque rape jokes other famous comedians make to female audience members. So even if a member of Sadowitz's audience was genuinely upset by his cock on stage, I can't believe that the staff would take her emotions seriously and walk out over it.

P.S I can say that whole explanation I suggested without pausing for breath!

You wouldn't find Stewart Lee defending a Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson.

I suspect the comedian Stewart Lee might 😀in much the same way he did an entire segment of a show aimed at Islam and Muslims. The reason that got fuck all controversy is (as he explained) because it needed a knowledge of Islam that knuckle draggers wouldn't possess ("We didn't mean like that, Stew. Where you have to know anything. We meant make fun of their hats .....")

Here is Jerry’s statement. It does sound like the management at The Pleasence have not spoken to him directly and the accusations are now snowballing.

If we are talking about people leveraging power then I find it horrible that someone who manages a huge venue is essentially trying to make an act unbookable.

Jerry’s statement

Jonathan Pie
@JonathanPieNews
So the The Pleasance at the Edinburgh fringe just cancelled Jerry Sadowitz’s show.
The fringe is over. That’s it. Done. No point.
And the next fucking comedian with a guardian column who tells us this isn’t a problem can go fuck themselves

He's been performing there years. Management should be able to broach the subject, whether it's a request to remove the relevant part of his routine for night 2, or to tell him why the next night's booking is off.

I've got lots of opinions on this but it's late. But I want to point out that the venue have not cited the nudity as a reason in either statement. It's conspicuous in its absence given that he is known for getting his todger out, but that clearly wasn't the cause of the cancellation. The nudity, and how it was advertised, is a red herring imo.
The statements are about opinions/words, not actions.

The pleasance have helped no one by being so vague about exactly what he said that overstepped their line. If he did direct things at an individual they should say this. I've no reason to think that's the case at the mo. If the pleasance who have hosted him before have taken such a serious step as to actually cancel his show because of the material, and surely that's a huge thing for a comedy venue to decide, then they should be clear about what the line was. The long statement talks about recism & sexism etc but no detail. This lack of clarity is as damaging as the cancellation from a freedom of expression point of view.

Sorry, Jemima, you're hardly the only poster here who's been to the Ed Fringe. The first time I went, I was with my parents. I was 16, and can assure you that the very last thing they wanted to do was take me to see any racy shows involving nudity. They still did though. Because contrary to what you say, it ISN'T generally flagged in advance. The vast majority of plays or comedy with nudity do NOT flag it on the blurb, any more than they flag the plotline or a comedian the punchlines. Sure, if all characters are completely nude for extended periods of time. But a bit of light nudity? No.

It's also blatantly complete nonsense to even begin to suggest the Pleasance didn't know what they were booking given he'd performed there for the previous 30-odd years or the staff didn't know him by reputation either. It's a famous comedy venue and he's an incredibly well-known comedian - I'm no comedy buff but I'd certainly been familiar with the name for years. Anyone who chose to work at the Pleasance - and the jobs must be competitive - would be a comedy fan.

And google exists - hardly as though it was impossible to find out he was beyond outrageous and his show involved nudity. The adverts for the show on YouTube - because of course no-one who goes to see a comedy show these days thinks of looking at a clip of the performer first, do they? - here explicitly say 'he gets his dick out'. I don't know how much more blatantly clear he can make it?

You also make some - as far as I can see - entirely unsubstantiated claims the nudity was aimed at a particular woman who was distressed. Do you have a link to this? And that a woman was distressed by being made the personal butt of jokes by him. Again - do you have any proof, because I haven't read anything anywhere else suggesting he either did this on this occasion or has done this previously.

I haven't seen his comedy and it's not possible to view any of his material other than the Jimmy Savile reference online, so can't comment on how it comes across. From someone who clearly has seen him, though, I thought this Twitter thread was interesting. twitter.com/ExcelPope/status/1558942459853422594

It points out how hard it is to tell from a reference to a single word out of context who the joke is on.

And it's not clear to me that a line was crossed here, when apparently it's not been crossed in the last 30 years (and his only previous 'cancellation' was for outing Jimmy Savile).

Maybe he is guilty. But it feels quite weird, tbh that the Pleasance, or a supposedly distressed audience member, aren't making it a little bit clearer exactly what it is he is supposed to be guilty of. If it's actually as clear-cut as you claim.

Ah, I see Vera above has quoted the relevant bit of the Twitter thread.

Interesting to hear others on here who've also seen him perform supporting him and saying his comedy falls the right side of the line between genius and offence.

I think the question really is, who decides the line?

That's one question.

The other question is, even if someone (the Pleasance, the audience, the public, the media, the police, the law?) decides he has crossed whatever the line is, what, if anything, should be done about it?

Should any artist or writer or performer be stripped of their livelihood because some people are upset by their art?

Edinburgh resident here. Worth pointing out it's very likely most of the audience knew fine well what his schtick is beforehand (and that's even without the warnings). We paid near £25 each for tickets, Fringe-goers generally won't shell out this amount if they haven't heard of the comedian and just want to take a punt on a show. You don't accidentally find yourself at a show for 25 quid when there's plenty folk shoving flyers in your face for shows of a fiver or less.

The behaviour of the Pleasance stinks. A good rule of thumb at the Fringe - if you don't like what you see (or are "offended") then just leave and get on with your day and let others enjoy it.

I’m honestly not sure if I’d go to see the show, not because of the penis but because I don’t know if I want someone dismantling and scrambling all my preconceptions of what’s decent and acceptable while simultaneously making me laugh when I don’t want to, and bewitching me with magic. It sounds like an absolute head fuck.

But you know what, I’d like to make that decision myself thank you, not the Pleasance, not some committee, not you. I’m an adult and it’s my call.