The problem with Gadsby

Usual disclaimer:  It's incredibly hard to write about Hannah Gadsby, because it's obvious she will be/ already is a hate figure for obnoxious males of the alt.right variety. I don't want to be seen to be aligned in any way with them, but this shouldn't make her immune from criticism.  So here goes.

Her "good men" speech was, I think, a complete mess.  I don't think she argues logically or consistently, and I am a bit puzzled as to why anyone would think she is compelling on the matter.  From reading the comments following the article in the WAPO at my link, I'm not alone in this view.  (And I don't think a lot of alt.righters read the Post and comment there.)

Remember what I said about her show Nanette - that I thought it refreshing when, early on, she complained about a lesbian fan telling her that she her shows were no longer lesbian enough in content?   Well, any impression from that one example that she was alert to the unfair pressure arising from identity politics is blown up by this latest speech, which is identity politics writ large - no man, non-black or heterosexual person ever has the right to talk about the behaviour of their own group toward women, whites or gays, apparently.

She makes a point of saying "men aren't creepy", as if she is against unfair generalisations (again, like the one that a lesbian comedian has to base every show around lesbian experience), but then she goes on to insist that all men (and women) think they are good, and to imply (or outright declare - she is such an all-over-the-shop polemicist that its hard to kept track) that all men have double or triple standards as to what they will say about women.   I think most men can say they know that is not true.  Even appallingly sexist men who spend every day mentally sexually rating every woman who crosses their line of sight would surely say that they have met men who don't join in with them doing that.   And she comes up with a collective name "Jimmys" for those late night hosts who have annoyed her. As others have said, how would it go over if a male was criticising a group of women as, say,  "Brendas". 

I wondered whether she might dislike Jimmy Kimmel in particular.   He has undergone something of a transformation from the days of the very politically incorrect The Man Show, which must have dismayed feminists no end, to his current incarnation as a Trump hating liberal.   (Incidentally, and I think I have said this before - I saw more than one episode of The Man Show, and didn't take great offence because it was often ironically about how dumb men's behaviour about sex and women could be.  Still, it was hardly an example of comedy that would help improve the world.)  I don't know that Kimmel has been very prominent on the MeToo issue anyway, but I like his aggressive anti-Trump line, and while not all of his humour works, a lot does.

Anyway, back to Gadsby:   there is still too much of an impression coming from her appearances that she is a woman on the edge, with suppressed anger and depression still bubbling away just under the surface due to past mistreatment at the hands of men (and yes, that mistreatment could be quite serious for all I know.) 

But putting it on display makes me feel it is not helping her - just in the way so many stand up comics make jokes about their life and you would hope that maybe it is cathartic, but then they end up in suicide or addiction anyway.   

And what's more, as I argue here, it's not like her points are doing a public service, because she does not argue clearly and well on these issues anyway.   She is changing no one's mind, I reckon.  I think she needs to get another way to make a living, for her own sake if not everyone else's.  Identity politics fans will find another hero soon enough.

PS:   I just learned a bit more about Gadsby's unsettled young life at this Guardian article of her talking to Roxanne Gay - who I don't exactly "get" either.   Gay says she was "completely insane" in her early twenties:  Gadsby apparently lived in a tent illegally on someone's farm near Byron Bay for 4 months in her mid twenties.

Maybe I only like comedians if they haven't been obviously mentally unwell?