Eddie Izzard Interview in the Times

[Igneococcus]

Written by the sports writer who wrote several comments in the Times over the years supporting transwomen in female sports, so no surprise there is no challenge (that I can see) to Izzard's bletherings:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cbc9589d-2019-434e-8c60-0fa6ac854519?shareToken=2725d49866bad689752abad5ab7d085d

He looks like he's about to headbutt the cameraman in that second photo.

So feminine

Me too - and his outfit was ridiculous.
Not Sunday Brunch, Saturday Kitchen - poor Matt!

I dress like a builder most days but I am most definitely a woman every day.

I think Keir Starmer is brilliant. I still don't want him in my changing rooms. Cos he's a man.

PS. I don't think KS is brilliant.

Truly we are lucky EI is aiming to play characters where "people don't need signposts" to understand that they are female.

If only there were some other way of female characters being portrayed without the need for signposts, but nope, it's Eddie to the rescue.

People taking about photoshop but that second photo uses ALL of its 1000 words.

(& I'm once again thinking wistfully of Kurt Cobain in a dress 😁)

Igneococcus

do you have access to the comments under the article? Are readers buying it?

I saw EI do his stand-up in French a few years ago. It was absolutely fucking dire. His French is atrocious and he wasn't funny. (Incidentally, he shared the stage with Alistair McGowan, who speaks pretty good French and was just also much funnier than EI). The friend I went with, a die-hard EI fan, defended him by saying his French was supposed to be bad, as that was part of the lolz. So even he couldn't disagree that his French sucked. I think there's a documentary somewhere of him playing his French set in France to an utterly bemused and, significantly, mirthless audience.

That's just by way of saying that this is a man who doesn't let not being able to speak decent French stand in the way of doing French stand-up. He simply identifies as a French speaker and one is clearly bigoted for disagreeing. It's a symbol for something, I'm sure...

Anyone who can’t be arsee to read the article, read the comments.

Martin Samuel is a crap journalist too who should stay in the Sports pages. Recently wrote a pointless article about Taylor Swift. Don’t diss Taylor!

You are entitled to your own opinion of Eddie.

However, the sentiment on Mumsnet is more concerned with the erosion of women's and children's safety than being specifically anti-trans. Trans people have all the human rights that the rest of us have. Eddie is a TIM and TIMs shouldn't be in women's and children's safe spaces, on the grounds that he is male not that he's is trans.

The readers are most definitely not buying it!

Read the interview.
The "essence of a woman" comment was misguided.
The political ambitions I don't believe will ever be realised.
The choice of the name Suzy always perplexed me, why not Edie?
The doing all the roles schtick, whilst showing undeniable talent, always irks me.
Doing any play with a limited number of actors is always harder to follow. One person talking to themselves, switching voices/positions, not for me.
The photos, however, are the best I've ever seen them look - filtered or not.
I do not find them attractive anymore though. I used to, circa United States of Tara era.

The readers comments are a joy

To be fair Martin S was pretty non-commital about the whole thing, seeming to just report what Eddie said without comment.

Can you imagine a woman who wanted to succeed in politics allowing herself to be posed and photographed like that? Career death...

@LittleBearPad they have warmed my heart!

Must admit at first I thought the face on picture was a police mug shot just missing the lines to indicate height.

. . . and for the commentor saying MN is anti-trans . . . I am not 'anti-trans' at all. I am 'anti-trans saying they are actual women'. I don't think I'm alone.

Be trans as much as you goddam like. But say you are 'trans', do not say you are a 'woman'. That's the offensive part. Trans, per se, is not offensive.

'Girl mode' is fine, but expect to be criticised by actual girls who think you stereotyping them in a misogynistic way.

Samuels is a mediocre journalist who I recall wrote a pandering article about maybe Joanna Harper? (of dodgy Olympic data) that was so awful the Times actually removed it completely. The comments (as with this one) were universally scathing and when I went back a few days later to make reference to it, it had completely disappeared. 😂

Most of the comments excoriate EI, not MS.

Wonder how long until they switch comments off…
Readers certainly not getting EIs ‘essence of a woman’ - this puff reads more like something from the Graun than the Times and they’re calling it out. Good.

That article is the very definition of 'look squirrel!'. Some kind of claim that it doesn't matter if an attacking tiger is male or female. Perhaps not, but you can bet it matters very much to a smaller female tiger trying not to get killed by a potential mate.
Claiming the Romans invited the word 'transvestite' to illustrate how old fashioned it is. It's based on latin but the word was coined in the early C20th.

@Datun sorry been out digging in my allotment.
No, the Times readers aren't buying it, they are mostly rather scathing.
This is my favourite comment so far:
"It's not 'essence of woman' but an extra large dose of narcissistic entitled male."

The word narcissist comes up quite a lot in the comments.

The bollocks about Rome and tigers is Eddie's usual bollocks. There was a time, about 40 years ago, when his bollocks was funny. Now he uses his bollocks as a tool to pry open the doors into women's spaces, not so much.

Fuck off Gizzard. He came upto Scotland during 2014 referendum pontificating on why people should vote a certain way because of his warm and fuzzy feelings to them. Performative, woman baiting, narcissist. Has always been a very good storyteller and this is his current story. What annoys me most is he uses his white male privilege to gain male acting roles, note he doesn't turn up for audition in 'girl mode', why would that be........