On Friday JH5's 5 week insanity came to an end with the production "Any One of Us: Words from Prison. This event at the Bronson Centre was amazingly received by the audience. The actors delivered their lines with precision, and there was not a dry eye in the house. Money was raised, and everyone involved felt good about what was accomplished. Drama was an interesting detour for us, but now we are back to comedy!
Quick upcoming projects:
May 17th Comedy Meltdown at Atomic Rooster. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=201706946529528
June 11th Don Kelly and Friends. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205193696179760
Now back to our regular scheduled blogging.
The reality is, hecklers come and go, and every experience on stage must be an opportunity to learn how to handle them. There will be winning times where you "wit" them into submissive quiet, times where just one "shush" will do, and times where they go so far that someone should remove them as they are ruining the show. I have watched all sorts of hecklers and how comedians deal with them. One thing people do is insult them, humiliate them, and then they usually stop. Usually the insult and humiliation are funny, and the audience is with you on it, and most times the person will back down and realize they were being a grade a ass. Then there are other times.....
Bring us to the topic today, Guy Earl: The unfortunate face of free speech vs. freedom from discrimination. I say unfortunate as I have read the case, the facts, and agree with the Human Rights Tribunal. (HRT) I think this case has been overblown, and most are commenting without knowledge of the actual facts. Most are assuming this is a possible assault on freedom of speech in the arts. Let's look a bit closer.
Here are the facts of this case. Guy Earl was MC at a restaurant for an open mic evening. On the patio, women were having drinks, but were told the patio was closing and were seated by the restaurant right up front at the stage. They did not come for comedy, but decided to stay. They were not good comedy audience members and continued to talk, and even heckle the poor amateurs on the stage. Guy Earl decided to do something about the hecklers. This is a natural evolution of a comedy show with a heckler. Guy Earl then decided, and he admits that he had to use whatever he had at his disposal, and the only thing obvious about them is that they were lesbians. Obnoxious lesbians. So he went after them. They answered back. It escalated until Pardy (the woman) threw water at him from her glass. After the show (or during one of the amateur comedians performances) Pardy came out from the washroom and Earl went over to her and broke her sunglasses.
After court proceedings started, Earl went on a podcast/radio and provided a different version of what occurred. The HRT information is verified by both audience members and other comics; however, this is Earl's account of what occurred. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9FjRQnO3ks
Comedians were horrified; they all poured their heart in support to Mr. Earl. In my stomach I knew I didn't fully agree with other comics, but didn't say anything. The HRT has ordered Earl and the restaurant to pay Pardy damages. The actual facts of the case are now available and irrefutable, and this is one woman's take on them.
It order to fully address this, there are two areas: free speech vs. discrimination, and prevention.
Free Speech vs Discrimination
We do in fact have artistic freedom in this country, and we also have freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender, race, etc. etc. If this were a different case where it was clearly art, and the HRT ruling is on art and only art, then I am with the plethora of other people and will fight for the right for it to be protected. The two issues that are in confusion : is comedy as art, and when/where this art starts/stops.
Stand up comedy is an art form, that is clear to me. The general public though does not understand this fact. Much of what they see is a watered down version of this art; like buying a cheap knock off print at Walmart of a Monet. There are many comedians doing formulaic material that has already been done. There are many comedians who do not represent anything unique and really have no voice. They may be new and trying to find their voice, or just aren't strong comedy writers. It is art though, there is no question.
When comedy begins and ends as art produces some debate in my mind. In comedy, dealing with hecklers is part of the job; it is not part of their formal show though, it only occurs because someone watching the art has become disruptive. Imagine you are at a ballet and someone in the audience begins saying "you suck" or singing made up lyrics to The Nutcracker. What would be done about this? Would the dancers stop what they are doing, and tell them to shut up? No, but they would be affected and someone from management would come and deal with the person, possibly removing them. In comedy, the one holding the microphone has the onus to deal with the heckler themselves.
Why do people heckle? This is in part some of the big issues with comedy as art; people don't respect comedy. Also, comedy is likely to bring in a more diverse and alcoholic crowd than ballet. When the comedian begins dealing with the heckler, they have their wit and experience at their disposal. In this case Guy Earl has admitted that the most obvious thing to go after was that they were lesbians. My question is this: if the person had been black, would the comedian call them a "N*g*er? If the woman was in a wheelchair would they say "shut up you damned Cr$pple"? (let's not look at the fact that people in wheelchairs can barely get in to watch comedy as most clubs seem to lack accessibility). In those two situations most people would cringe and think that a line had been stepped on. Is it discrimination when comedians take pot shots at people based on their looks, weight, age, gender, sexual orientation? I will state here clearly that no, I do not think this is discrimination. If the comedian spends an entire hour talking about their hatred of black people, they technically have the right to do this, although we do have hate speech laws in this country. That said, I cannot think of one comedian who goes on stage and spends their hour making racist jokes.
Where the line gets crossed is when dealing with hecklers. Being on stage and making generic comments is one thing; dealing with a heckler and individualizing any hate speech, is an entire other matter. When dealing with a heckler, Earl specifically said "you are not lesbians, you just can't get anyone to F$ck you, why don't you put a C&ck in your mouth and shut up". This to me does not cross the line. It crosses the line of a comedian who does not have enough witty material in his database for dealing with hecklers though. The only thing he could think of was to put a c*ck in their mouths? At this time, even the other comedians started to boo him. He did not have the support of the room, the audience, or his fellow comedians. He escalated it though to say "You effing C&nts. You effing C&nty D&kes". Bingo, we have cause for discrimination. At this time, no one is watching comedy, they are watching an altercation. Drunk or not, if anyone is in my face with a microphone, calling me those names, you better believe water may end up on them. Not that she was right to do that, but it is what occurred.
Here is where Earl blows it 100%. AFTER the show, he has more words with her and breaks her sunglasses. Ladies and gentleman, we have a loser. Let's go back to the comic I mentioned earlier in the article. He blew his cool on stage, the set didn't go well and he was pissed, and the audience member was in the wrong. Did he feel good about losing his cool? No he didn't, I know this to be true because I interviewed him once and asked him. Would he have ever thought of going to the bar after and picking a fight? No. This is what a bully does. This is someone who is angry, and uses what he has (offstage) to make this person less than him. I just called Earl a bully, and likely an ass, and even worse a hack. Am I a jerk for doing so? Maybe, but what I have done is NOT discrimination. If I went after him specifically based on any elements protected in the Charter, then I am in the wrong. This is the difference, I would not do that, nor would most people. The fact that she was a lesbian should have been irrelevant to the fact that she was heckling him. He should have attacked her only on her heckling, her drunkenness, and other areas that are not protected areas.
One more comment on the discrimination regarding this case. If the audience member was a white male, what would he have gone after? Perhaps his looks, fair enough. Penis size, check. Would he say "you are a white son of a bitch", or "you disgust me you effing heterosexual". NO. He crossed the line time and time again. Earl is not the face to fight the case of protection in the arts. He is NOT the face people. A time may come where someone legitimately is in the right, and I will work diligently beside everyone else to make sure the art form of comedy is protected. I write this article now to ENSURE that the art form of comedy is protected, because anyone who hears about this case and what transpired will view comedy from that lens, and what was occurring that night is NOT the type of comedy one will find in a reputable comedy club. In the end, Pardy was just a customer who went too far while Earl was the professional comedian.
Prevention
A pound of prevention is worth an ounce of cure. I think the person most at fault here was the management. First, they closed their patio and sat an inebriated couple at the front of the stage. This happens sometimes, you are doing comedy and people are thinking "i just came here for coffee!". There is risk with running a comedy room if people are unaware that comedy is going on. These rooms are necessary to create stage time for performers, but organizers and management owners must do what they can to minimize risk of altercations such as this, and to create an atmosphere that will enable the comedian to success. The comedian is the artist; the management is the business. Going back to ballet, if a dance hall has potholes in them and the dancers are asked to just "jump around them", who is at fault if someone breaks their legs? It is management folks, so in this case they were clearly in the wrong.
The management also did absolutely nothing to intervene with this altercation. Where to step in is a good question, but I think we can all agree that when water is thrown in someone's face it is time to intervene. Honestly I think management was more responsible than Earl. He is responsible for being what appears to be a hack comedian, and responsible for his behaviour once it escalated. When he stopped trying to be funny and was just attacking the woman, then yes, he is at fault, but if management had done what they should, it would not have occurred to start with.
And then there's this
But what of Ms. Pardy, you may ask. Was she in the wrong? Yes, as I believe any drunk person in public is; we must take responsibility for our actions. Should she have heckled? No, all heckling is wrong, if you don't like the show then leave. Should she have left once she realized it was a comedy show? Yes. Does she have the right to be in a place of business and NOT be called, one inch from her face a "effing C7nty D*ke? YES. Equality means that an asshole is an asshole, a drunk is a drunk. All should be treated equally, and in this case she wasn't. Saying that by being there and heckling makes her deserve what she got is like saying a woman asks for rape because she is drunk and in "revealing"clothing. Both are false analogies. In each case the women have been in situations that increase their risk, but that does not give people the right, including comedians, to do what was done. If Earl was a better comedian he would have had control of his environment. If management was better prepared they would not have allowed this to occur. If Pardy had been a nice sober person, sure this might not have happened, but her being drunk gives no one the right to discriminate against her based on her sexual orientation. Kick her out for being a drunk asshole, but her being a lesbian had NOTHING to do with her heckling, and as such what he said falls along the lines of discrimination.
Comics who support Earl, please, I deplore you to look at the facts. Earl was in the wrong. He took this to personal levels making it not a case of free speech vs. art, but bad comic asshole against drunk lesbian, and unfortunately, only one of those people are protected under the Charter. Do not use this case as the fear mongering that no one is protected. The slippery slope argument does not apply here. Just because Earl is guilty does not mean that the next time you poke good natured fun at someone old, fat, or other in a club that they will take you to court. This case was specific, and unique. Please do not give this man anymore support that he has the right to be an asshole. He has the right to be a better comic, to gain control of his temper, and deal with hecklers best he can. He has spread his own version of the facts with people, and this is what people are upset about; once you know the facts, things may change in your minds.
I will always side with artistic rights when that is the case. In this case Earl was wrong, and when other comedians were booing him, there is a good chance that he crossed a line. I hope Earl can look back at this and see when he moved from entertaining a crowd, to dealing with a heckler, to specific discrimination. He is in this mess not because he is a comedian, but because he lost control of his temper both on and OFF stage. When he used language DIRECTLY to her, language directed to humiliate her based on her sexual orientation, then he is wrong. Pure and simple.
If you are a comedian, learn to control your anger and if you lose control of a heckler ask for help. Let anger go, and if an ass is an ass, don't join them in the gutter.
If you are a management, then learn to do your job.
If you are an audience member, please do shut up; they are artists doing their job, and they will come after you, and as long as they don't cross the line to full discrimination, prepare to be justifiably humiliated.
If you are a comic and wish to provide robust lengthy debate on this subject, please join http://www.jh-5.proboards.com/.
Jenn Hayward
JH5
1 comment:
Sweet Jen.
Thanks
Jo
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