If we can’t joke about men and women, there’s truly no hope for comedy
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I love Eddie Izzard. The riffing the trans comedian does on cats having no thumbs (apparently it’s the only reason they don’t rule the universe) still gets me every time. But Izzard's recent comments about it being Right-wing comedians who “tend to be sexist and racist” have kicked up quite a storm.
In an interview on TalkTV, Izzard said: “The Right-wing comedians tend to be sexist and racist comedians who we thought would have gone away but are still there.” Some branded Izzard “ridiculous”, “out-of-touch” and “over-generalised” (although he did say “tend to” – not “are”). Others pointed out how vicious Left-wing comics could be, reminding the comedian about Jo Brand’s Nigel Farage quip: “Why bother with a milkshake when you could get some battery acid?” And of course, BBC regular Frankie Boyle, who faced a backlash last year after reportedly telling a joke about killing TV presenter Holly Willoughby.
In my opinion all overly political comics cease to be funny. But I was more interested in Izzard effectively saying that sexism should be off the funny table.
Obviously racism has no place in comedy, but sexism? It’s hard to know what we’re referring to when a word has been misused so many times, but if I’m correct in taking it to mean “making fun of men and women”, then sorry, but comedy of both the Right and Left does that constantly. Largely because good-humoured riffing on our different characteristics, traits and tendencies is what makes us laugh loudest.
Certainly we all do it around a pub table, when women sit there snorting at the “manspreaders” on the tube and the “mansplainer” at work, and men make their well-worn gags about female drivers and map-readers. Are we now no longer allowed to enjoy listening to someone joke about our petty resentments from a stage?
I’ve interviewed a lot of comedians over the years, listened to some defend their right to joke about anything – even the Holocaust – and understood the philosophical theory behind their argument without being convinced.
I do think some subjects are off the table. But if we can’t joke about men and women, what does that leave us with? Cats, and the thumbs Izzard does at one point concede exist, “half-way up their arm.” Why? So that they can “flick elastic bands at people.”
