Matt Walsh Tries to Laugh at Feminist Comedian Hannah Gadsby! (WARNING： 99% Will Fail)
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
176.37596
Summary
A few weeks ago, we began a journey together, I want to laugh at a feminist comedian, not at them. I mean, I can laugh at them, but with them, you will fail. So first we tried Samantha Bee. That was a miserable failure. So today we're bringing out the big guns, Hannah Gadsby.
Transcript
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What you're about to listen to is from my Try to Laugh series
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in which I take on the challenge, the difficult challenge
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I want to laugh at a feminist comedian, not at them.
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I want to find a funny joke told by a feminist comedian
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That's the only thing I want to achieve before I die.
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I've done everything else that I want to do, sadly enough.
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So today we're going to bring out the big guns.
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Okay, Hannah Gadsby is the acclaimed, beloved, critical darling,
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the best feminist comedian currently on the scene, I'm told.
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So we're going to watch some of her clips and see if we can do this.
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Now I want to tell you a story about a terrible conversation I had at the dog park once.
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It's not pertinent to the story, but I want you to know his dog had shoes on.
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Like, because he was doing that, like, and it was a whippet situation.
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Now, it's not important to the story, but it was a lot in my periphery.
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I'm not going to, you know, not laughing level.
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But, I mean, actually seeing the dog with shoes, that would get a laugh at me.
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If she had a picture she could have showed us, the visual probably would have helped.
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But simply mentioning the dog with shoes isn't enough.
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He said, did you know it takes less muscles to smile than frown?
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Now, the men in the audience are sitting there going, oh, you've experienced an isolated incident.
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And the women are sitting there going, oh, for fuck's sake.
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And non-binary folk are like, is that a hard day for you, is it?
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I mean, now she's going into the absolutely insufferable feminist harangue about being
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And of course, she throws in the thing about non-binary folks because, you know, she can't
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make a man versus woman joke without acknowledging the invented non-binary category.
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And that's good, obviously, because diversity, inclusion, political correctness, all the stuff
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I just, before I was filled with hope, dog with shoes, now she's going into the feminist
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Now, as far as icebreakers go, it's a fucking shit one.
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Basically, what he's saying is, your face is wrong.
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Like, honestly, and even if I was giving the benefit of the doubt, right, and truly believe
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that energy consumption was his chief concern, that he was just looking at me going, if
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Like, even if I believe that, the thing is, I was neither smiling nor frowning.
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My face was neutral, which takes fuck all muscles.
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Like, and now I am aware that my neutral face is not particularly chipper.
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Like, I do look like someone stabbed a potato with a spoon upside down.
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It's what's colloquially known as resting bitch face.
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Men simply have very important thoughts you best not interrupt them having.
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Like, honestly, no one has ever gone up to a man while he's a stranger and gone, cheer
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This, this, I mean, I'm waiting for the joke here.
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So this, there's supposed to be some humor, but it's not really happening.
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Instead, she's just venting about a perceived personal slight.
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I feel like this is 2003 and I'm, I'm listening to somebody read their live journal entry to
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And can I just say for the record, for all you women out there, just so you know, a little
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Actually, you are not being specially targeted when people tell you to smile.
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So Hannah says, no one would ever say this to a man.
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But then again, I don't like it when anyone says anything to me about anything ever.
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But the only reason why you ladies think that the smile thing is sexist and that you're being
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specially targeted is that you ladies are the only ones whining about it.
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There are many things that feminists complain about where they think that women are the only
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No, it's not that women are the only ones that deal with it.
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It's just that women are the only ones who complain about it all the time.
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So, you know, when someone says that to a man, we just shrug it off and go about our day.
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Meanwhile, someone says it to Hannah Gadsby and she does a Netflix special about it.
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And I say that as someone who has written multiple thousand plus word articles complaining
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about people who don't put their shopping carts away in grocery store parking lots.
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There is no greater evidence of the of the disintegration of human society than shopping
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carts that people just leave all over a parking lot.
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So I know something about petty whining and this outdoes even me.
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I can put a stand in because I won't hold things this shape anymore.
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So she only mentions it 19 times per minute when she's on stage.
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So you might you might not have picked up on it.
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I keep hearing rumors and I think, no, I don't want to know.
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I don't mean to get into conspiracy theories here.
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That the audience is laughing that hard at that joke.
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This is how in touch I am with the youth of today.
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So there is no way that a Harry Potter reference could cause someone to break into uncontrollable fits of laughter.
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It would be like if someone responded with orgasmic delight after taking a bite out of a, out of like a graham cracker or something.
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There's no way that a graham cracker could elicit that sort of response.
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Unless you were starving in the desert for two weeks and then you had a graham cracker.
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Then maybe it would have that kind of reaction.
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So were these people, were they locked in a dungeon and not allowed to laugh on pain of torture for two years?
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Because then I guess you'd be so pleased that you're allowed to laugh that you would laugh even at a Hannah Gadsby Harry Potter reference.
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That she requires her audience to be chained in a dungeon for 24 months prior to attending her performance.
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You know, a lot of people, people have different theories.
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Anyway, all I'm saying is that I actually want to laugh.
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And that, that is not, this is called try to laugh.
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And I'm trying to laugh, but I can't laugh at that.
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The most that that joke could really get out of a normal person is sort of like a,
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That's one of those jokes where you just, you, you have to say your reaction because you can't actually exhibit it.
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I'm going to give up on this one as I am rapidly giving up on life itself.
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Uh, but in all the debate about, uh, homosexuality, um, no one ever really talked about the lesbians.
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Uh, did you, did you pick up on, do I have to play it again?
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If I were to transcribe this and show it to you in written form and tell you that it's
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a transcription from a therapy session that I was eavesdropping on, you would absolutely
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There, there'd be almost nothing in it that would give you, that would give away the secret
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that this is actually a standup comedian performing for a sold out audience.
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Well, because this is simply a woman working through her feelings on stage.
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But the problem is if I want to listen to a woman work through her feelings, I can just
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go and talk to literally any woman ever and they'll be happy to oblige.
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I'm not, I'm not going to abandon the mission just yet.
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Uh, I'm not going AWOL, but I, I, I am determined still to laugh at a Hannah Gadsby joke.
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Some people think it's strange that I would take the pill as a, as a lesbian.
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Wait, I just need to stop it there for a second.
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These, these girls in the audience are, you know, the book Animorphs on the cover where
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they had, they show the transition, the transition from the person into what this looks like a
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transition where the girl on the left is like, each, each shot is her becoming the one all
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Maybe there are, there's like a stash of clones somewhere and their only role is just to, they,
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they fill the audience and they laugh at Hannah Gadsby jokes.
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Maybe, you know, we're, we're, we're solving the mystery as we go along here.
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We're going through, we're going through videos.
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It's not really a standup comedy, uh, performance, but I don't see a difference anyway between every
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I find good men talking about bad men, incredibly irritating.
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And this is something the good men are doing a lot of at the moment, not this moment, not
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this minute, because the good men don't have to wake up early for their opportunity to monologue
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This is a, I'm supposed to be laughing, not angry.
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Maybe this, this, I admit part of this might be me.
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What sort of comedian can't even make the lesbians laugh?
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See, that's, that's actually kind of a good joke.
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I, you know, I almost feel a laugh burbling up inside me.
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It's either a laugh or the Chipotle I had for lunch.
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I don't, but it's, it, I, it's a, it's not a bad, she's gone back to the lesbian well again.
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We can't, you know, we're not going to hold that against her.
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Um, but I like the joke because it's, it's, it's, you know, it's a, it's a joke.
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Now let's, let's see if she can finally take us home.
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Man, the one decent joke we've heard this entire time and it's not hers.
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I feel betrayed and disappointed and, and, and depressed.
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It's an old, an oldie, oldie, but a goldie, a classic.
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It was written, you know, well before even women were funny.
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Um, and, uh, back then in the good old days, uh, lesbian meant something different than it
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A lesbian was just any woman not laughing at a man.
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Stop taking everything so seriously and learn to take a joke.
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Tell you what you need, you need to lighten up.
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I tell you what you need, you need a good fucking, get a fuck up, you drink some juice.
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Who is this person that she's, what, when, when in her life has anyone ever said anything
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Is the joke here that feminists are hysterical and oversensitive and constantly imagining
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that they're being persecuted when they're really not?
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I mean, yes, I, I, you know, I, I think, I think maybe we, we can reach a consensus on
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I think we can really come together as a nation and unite around that.
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But let's, um, let's, let's just get to the rest of this bit.
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I'm, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to play this one to the end.
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And I, I've built a career out of self-deprecating humor.
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Do you understand what self-deprecation means when it comes from somebody who already exists
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I put myself down in order to speak, in order to seek permission to speak.
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Not to myself or anybody who identifies with me.
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I've had planter's warts that were funnier than that.
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And to top off the unfunniness, there's also just the, the, the whininess.
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You should be marginalized as an unfunny comedian.
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That should be a marginalized demographic, but it's not.
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I mean, that's one of the most lucrative demographics going right now.
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There's a whole audience of people who are watching.
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So, and I actually, I'm kind of suspecting it's a very similar audience, but you're not
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So I failed this challenge, but it's not my fault.
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Like any good millennial, I refuse to take responsibility for this whatsoever.
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I, you know, I'm, I'm, I tried to laugh, but I'm leaving infuriated and annoyed, which
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is exactly how I went in to, to be, to be honest with you.
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But the point is, I am a victim for having endured this.
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I am also now marginalized and you're a victim too.