Paul Currie as a male comedian

[MondaysAndTuesdays]

I posted this deep into a thread discussing the controversy around Paul Currie, but I thought it could be interesting to post on this board as well. I didn't realise there wasn't video footage of the incident, but found this video when I went looking, and it was quite interesting to skim through.

Can't bring myself to watch the whole video, but immediately noticed a few interesting things about it:

1. His shows seem to be based around a lot of very hyped up audience interaction
2. Much of that interaction is quite uncomfortably boundary pushing. See 4.59, 10.52 and 12.30 for some moments that make my skin crawl (I think in one of these he returns to a woman he has previous singled out in a way that makes it extra creepy).
3. it's not at all funny to watch online, and I wouldn't want to go to something like this, but I can see why people are laughing. They're being bombarded by loud music, absurdity, the boundary-pushing, and participating in silly skits that mean overcoming social inhibitions. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that as a form of entertainment (I wouldn't call it comedy), but I can see why at a show of his there was a mob ready to join in with a hysterical scapegoating. It makes his actions worse that his whole thing is evoking those weird group emotions, that he then sicced that on a single person in the front row.

Edit - I posted this then realised the title made very little sense. Sorry about that, hope you get what I was thinking - the sexist culture of comedy, male comedians and sexual harassment etc etc.

interesting
I was on that thread and found it very disturbing
Not sure if I can face the video, but we do need to think about this mob mentality, its so easy to manipulate and so hard to stand up against it (well done to the 4 people behind the man who was singled out)
I went to see Nish Kumar live once, and he was very funny BUT there was very much a building of a group identity in the audience, you would not have enjoyed it at all if you were not left wing- which is fair enough I suppose and everyone went expecting that.

That's how a lot of shows work, especially music. Part of the experience is being part of a group of people who are all caught up experiencing the same emotions etc at the same time. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, actually probably we need that outlet sometimes. But it can get dangerous if the performer is an idiot (Travis Scott's Astroworld: Eight killed after crowd surge at Texas festival - BBC News)