Fin Taylor on Offensive Comedy, Free Speech and Count Dankula
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per minute
186.39227
Harmful content
Misogyny
14
sentences flagged
Toxicity
57
sentences flagged
Hate speech
27
sentences flagged
Summary
In this episode of Trigonometry, Francis and Constantine are joined by one of their favourite comedians, Finn Taylor, to discuss identity politics, tribalism and the recent controversy surrounding a man who claimed to be a new comedian on the comedy circuit.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin.
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And this is a show for you if you're bored of watching people argue on the internet over
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subjects they know nothing about. At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the
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experts. Our brilliant guest this week is one of our favourite comedians here in the UK,
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Finn Taylor. Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you for having me. It's good to have you here. Listen,
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for anyone who doesn't know you, who hasn't seen you perform, tell us a little bit about who you
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are, how are you, where you are, what has been your journey through life to the point where you're
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sitting in this chair? Well, I'm a stand-up comedian. I have been for 10 years. It's basically
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the only job I've ever had. I suppose in the last three years, I've started talking about
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identity politics, tribalism, lots of the same similar sort of things that you talk about on
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this podcast and it's since doing that i've had i guess a relative level of success you've been
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on live at the apollo which is the biggest comedy tv show in this country at the moment or stand up
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yeah yeah um obviously it used to be on bbc one at 10 o'clock and now it's now it's on bbc two
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on a thursday but no it's great great really happy to be asked that was an ambition um yeah
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and uh you know get get i get i do well at the end of the festival um but i do also manage to
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piss off a lot of people by doing that. Speaking of which, which is really one of the reasons we
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wanted to talk to you at this particular time is you had an article about you come out, I think
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it was an independent newspaper, wasn't it? Yes, which is an online blog, if you don't know.
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Yeah, the independent comment section, which is open to all, as became clear when I read this,
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And they released this article that it wasn't necessarily about me, but it opened with this person who claimed to be a new comedian on the circuit.
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Well, the subject of the article was, as a comedian working the circuit, I am like something like horrified by...
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These old jokes, regressive humor coming back into comedy.
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I mean, it's been since being disproved that he was actually a comedian.
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Lots of people on my behalf got in touch with The Independent
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like Stuart Lee and Al Murray and Tom Rosenthal
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were all emailing The Independent trying to see if he was real or not
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because they thought it might be like a spiked inside job
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because it did sort of read like a spiked spoof of a Guardian article.
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And the article opens with him at my show, my most recent show,
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The facts of the matter are I have witnessed the show.
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and in the article he says this is because it's regressive Jim Davidson style.
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He calls the show a thinly veiled rape apology.
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Yes, I must just stress because obviously most people watching this won't have seen the show.
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but what the show is and what i think what i think i i do is i like to take uh subjects that
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people feel very tense about and are often divided into very um facile kind of infantile binaries
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and i like to just explore them and investigate all areas and angles and i don't try and land on
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a specific side i you know i try and um i i sort of i take all the arguments in good faith i think
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there must be elements of truth on both sides. So try and investigate a way of seeing both these
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things. So in this context, it was the Me Too thing, which is obviously is outpouring of rage
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about how women haven't had a chance to have their crimes that can be committed against them
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properly processed. How do you balance that with the possibility of a hashtag ruining a man's
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livelihood when it wasn't true uh now if if you those are but those are two problems that coexist
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and it's childish to pretend that one doesn't um uh and so this is often what gets you know if you
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say you sort of get forced into a corner we have to say i believe every every woman i believe all
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women or you would say oh it's all bollocks they're all lying and obviously those are both
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ridiculous you know you have to find a way of dealing with both problems but if you you know
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what's happened here is that i've sort of tried to articulate quite a nuanced position and and
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And he said that just from deviating from this point of view, I'm a rape apologist.
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And the irony is if he'd stayed for the rest of the show, he would have found out who the real rape apologist in the comedy industry is, as that's who I sort of name and shame.
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But I probably can't go into that here as you'll get done for libel.
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It then went on to go and push this sort of thing that is quite often said nowadays that, you know, there are these two camps in comedy.
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Comedy is in the grips of like a struggle for its soul.
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and on one side you have let's sake of argument the left who believe that comedy needs to have a
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social conscience that as a comedian you are sort of like an agent actively participating in a
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culture your words are powerful and you could end up contributing to a culture of oppression
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and the kind of totem pole the icon of this side is people like Hannah Gadsby who wrote this I mean
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arguably the most successful Edinburgh show ever, sort of a takedown of comedy and from like a,
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you know, a marginalised person's perspective. It's now on Netflix. The opposite side of the
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argument is that free speech is under threat. This is just comedy. Political correctness is
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killing what's just, you know, meaningless jokes. And this article was basically from this
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perspective pushing me into this camp welcome well i i don't want to be here as you're about to find
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out i i i don't really think this culture war exists in the way that a lot of people like to
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believe it does uh i think it's one that only really exists online in this kind of endless
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ping pong match of fucking blog we have to swear yeah of course right fucking blogs and
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But as someone who works the circuit, solo shows, arts festivals,
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I don't really see these battles taking place in an audience.
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And so I sort of, that's why I didn't really want to,
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I was asked to reply to this article in The Independent,
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which obviously I was like, well, no, I'm not going to work for you for free
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And it was a joke aimed at Mediterranean people.
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And all the middle-class white people in the room
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I mean, the point is I do know when I'm losing the crowd.
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Because a lot of the stuff is aimed at people like me,
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precious white liberals and just teasing how much they think about it this is this is i suppose the
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thing is that um if i was doing these uh these jokes in a you know if i was branded if i was
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branding myself as you know this free speech warrior this truth teller um then i would get
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a crowd that want that you know people that buy into that sort of side of the argument
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um but it's not as fun as when it's in front of a mixed crowd and that's part of the reason i
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didn't want to sort of get into this so much is that i'm really proud of the fact that when i do
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solo shows and the festivals and stuff it's an insane mix of people that would never normally
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be in the same room you know you have you know those old white fellas in the three-piece suit
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the fedora you know proper old tories they're sitting next to women with blue hair who are
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you know, polyamorous, vegan, queer community people. And they sort of project their own
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things onto what I do, I think, because I don't, you know, I deliberately don't try and fit into
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one of these worldviews that rubbishes the other. But yeah, I'll tell you a point. I know that I
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actively do try and annoy a lot of people. But it's, you know, that Mediterranean joke,
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The joke is, in the Me Too thing, it's hard for a woman to know if a man is a sex pest or he is just Mediterranean.
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In that it's just about acceptable because it's a broad enough group.
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But then surely the counter argument to someone is that you are being, as a white male of privilege,
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you are being discriminatory to Mediterranean men.
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You're classing them all as being particularly predatory.
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But there is a point of that, I suppose, of the far left who would actually say,
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well, yeah, but you have a duty and a responsibility.
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But my point is that it's a very small fringe of people that actually think that.
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And I think the sort of the free speech guys on the right are similarly a sort of fringe.
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But there's also free speech people who are not on the right.
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But the people that push these, I'm using left and right just as indicators.
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The people that push these divides, I just, I don't see, I see 90% of comedy audiences
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do not politicize their enjoyment or lack of it.
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if they find something funny they laugh if they don't they don't they find it edgy or close to
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the bone they go oh but they enjoy making that noise yeah yeah um and if it's a bit whimsical
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they go and if uh it's only a certain type of person that walks into a show with a kind of
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preset i think this well there's a mutual friend of ours who i'm not going to name on the show but
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he was doing a show about men last year you may know who i'm talking about uh and he was doing a
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preview at a club that i know and and a woman stood up in the middle of a show and said you're
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a white man you're not allowed to talk about this and wouldn't leave until the show was ended yeah
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that's my point that this person would exist in that very i as i see it small minority but that
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would not have happened 10 years ago is my point no maybe the minority has gotten more emboldened
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on both sides and that's possibly because both sides um way over perceive the threat of the other
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because they have to because they're reactive narratives you can't have the we need to clean
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up comedy sort of you know you guys are all dinosaurs without the other guys saying whoa
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free speech and you can't have they can't exist without them because they're both parasitic they
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live off the other right um and so they've maybe got emboldened and maybe got louder and maybe they
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have more spirit for a fight. But I just don't see it as something that actually exists in the
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way that is made out to so much online. Well, what you've just described is exactly the thing
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you're saying doesn't exist, which is the culture war. The two edges becoming emboldened and then
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dragging other people in. That is the culture war. Right. There are small minorities that are
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sucking you in. Yeah. Well, they're sucking everybody in because our conversations in
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society about privilege about discrimination about you know something we'll go on to talk
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about which is the the dankula and other people who've actually been prosecuted for saying things
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which were a joke like your defense of your joke about mediterranean people and i could be offended
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by that because i'm a quarter greek right yeah your defense is that's a joke and it's obviously
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not true but if you have something like his case where the judge said uh the prosecutor and the
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judge said context doesn't matter intent doesn't matter then you get into a point where if you say
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something on stage and someone chooses to take it literally and you say a lot of stuff that can be
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misinterpreted that way yes sure right then you end up in a position where you can be criminalized
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so i guess what i'm saying is um if you say there's no culture war i think what you're saying
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is there's no culture war in broader society right in in the in the mainstream of society
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which i can kind of agree with to some extent yeah but i feel the only reason that that's true
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is that this way of thinking hasn't seeped into that far into it but it will because yeah
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universities these people are being indoctrinated so so yeah so so you see it as a precedent to a
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kind of dystopia yeah um whenever i and sometimes i do but i'm i then i then go off twitter for a
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week and i and i just do gigs you know you know friday saturday night clubs and these these hot
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takes don't exist people enjoy it or they don't enjoy it and you know 16 of the uk are on twitter
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i mean just just think about how small that's comedians media people politicians journalists
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and fucking lunatics that is and it feels so much louder when you're there you think this is
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representative yeah but i don't it's not and i know i can i know that from experience because
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as someone who you know talks about these arguments that are made online when i try and
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do jokes about certain things people have no idea what i'm talking about yeah like i tried to do a
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bit in my last show i had a whole bit about a transgender movement and how it sort of competed
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with women's rights and that kind of aspect of the argument.
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And I tried to do a thing about the term cisgender and say,
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you know, this is a word for if you're born a man
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and you're still a man, which is good because I never knew
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Like the people that come and, so it's, you know,
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But it just wouldn't fly because people didn't know what the premise is.
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And so I do see these as sort of fringe, mad discussions rather than something that is seeping in.
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Five years from now, you're going to be fine doing that joke.
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If you'd gone to Edinburgh this year, you'd be fine doing that joke.
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Because we're talking about, you know, Piers Morgan has people talking about trans on national TV like every second day or whatever.
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becoming a much bigger part of the conversation. So this obsession with identity is spreading.
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It's not just static. It's not just there's that 3% of people who care about it on one side,
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3% on the other side, and it's staying there. In my opinion, it's spreading. We're talking
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about more and more. And it's not right now, maybe that's the 16% of people on Twitter,
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but it's spreading into mainstream society. Maybe it is. I guess we won't know until the
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future what was telling was that all the responses to this article that was basically framing this
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debate were like shut up mate it's just comedy like people didn't really have the a lot of the
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responses to the article the guy at the port i mean i feel sorry for him because he had to like
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remove his photo and get off to it because he was getting so much hate which i don't condone by the
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way um and um he like most people don't have the the sort of vocabulary to to meet these that was
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what was noticeable and that they're not participating in the cultural because they
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don't really know it existed just like it's just jokes shut up you know this is most people's
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response i find um it does feel like a very insular naval gazing comedy media class thing
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and you could be right i'm you know i don't know maybe it will spread out to the broader
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but that's why i mean that's why i'm concerned about it it's not because i think that right
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now we live in an oppressive society where no one can say what they think but there is a direction
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of travel well right and yeah i would i i guess i disagree that that that's inevitable or or it's
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moving it's i always find it funny when people say this is a this is a set of precedent because
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there's often a huge caveat to that precedent like um recently there was you know the shamima
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bagum case yes where she was stripped of her citizenship the isis bride and um it's a fair
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point a lot of um people from uh sort of second generation immigrants were on news night saying
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well it's the kind of racism we allow on this show um as a uh as somebody who is in a long-term
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relationship with a mediterranean woman and her family nailed it uh number one and number two i
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take your point about you saying the the the common person isn't interested in it and the
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reason is is because you know being a former teacher most people are so wrapped up in their
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own lives and you know whether they've you know they've got family they've got kids they've got
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a job they've got to hold down they've got to do the school and everything else that these sort of
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wars that go on online they just don't appear in the public consciousness simply because people
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don't have the time however i think the real danger is is the people who dictate what it is
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that we consume in mainstream media are very much part of that particular ideology and war and that's
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where i think it might seep in so what you're going to get is comedy becoming more and more
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sanitized as it were and certain points of view uh not being represented like if you think about it
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the majority of people in this country in the referendum voted brexit whether you agree whether
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you disagree but jeff norcott is really the only pro-brexit comedian that is on mainstream media
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yeah um i mean i suppose that's true well firstly when you said that you think comedy is going to
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get more sanitized yeah it's going to get more sanitized perhaps on the bbc but on netflix
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And the BBC, I already know, are trying to catch up.
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and maybe this is where you might have a point,
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And they can sell a lot of tickets that way, I suppose.
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But it's something I'm reluctant to do in that I I really like that my audience is mixed and I like that they come because I sort of take the piss out of every side of a of a debate.
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I would be I would be kind of reticent to brand myself as one or the other, because then you'd get people coming that they're coming because they they think that you think the same as them.
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And I don't think that's that's for me, that's not as fun.
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I like having a bit of spice in the gig and trying to, you know, toss ideas around in the knowledge that they might all be wrong, they might all be right.
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And it's also more authentic as well because nobody's wholly on the right, nobody's wholly on the left.
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Like we were talking to Peter Hitchens, I think Peter would describe himself as being more towards the right of the political state.
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Well, he's a social conservative, but I guess economically he's more of a social democrat.
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Yes, and absolutely. And he's in favour of the nationalisation of the railways, which is actually a left-wing policy.
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Well, I think most most people are evidence based. Well, no, no, no, no, like I'm a I'm a huge I was so excited when the independent group broke away from Labour and the Tories. So excited. And I don't think it's any any coincidence that they're all a lot of them are former barristers because they they want an evidence based approach to policy, which is something that we've just sort of been abandoned by the two
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major parties right um both are sticking to fanatical dogma um and and i think i think most
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people agree with an evidence-based uh look at the world uh i don't know if they do most people
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should it feels like maybe there was a time when people did maybe after the cold war when we sort
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of everyone cooled down a bit and said yeah these these dogmatic ways of of looking at the world
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don't work but then that was a very brief window wasn't it feels like we're back there
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sorry carry on i was going to say coming back to to comedy one of the things that francis and i
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often talk about is because we're gigging comedians like you are is like francis might
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write a great bit and then which i know is funny you know as a comedian you kind of know sometimes
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what's funny and what isn't and there are certain clubs where he can't do that bit you know well i
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have routines that two years ago were hilarious and now everyone just goes so have you seen a
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change in the 10 years that you've been a comedian in terms of what people find edgy what what the
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definition of edgy has changed i don't know because i wasn't really it's only been about
00:23:25.600
the last three or four years i suppose i've i've been reviewed as provocative is what i was called
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provocative edgy um i don't know i mean when you say there are some clubs you can't do certain
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jokes at i never found that oh really i yeah i which is why i think the um you know i i know you
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so you had a thing where you were told you couldn't you had this contract to agree with it was it
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goldsmiths or so yeah right it's one of those two things goldsmiths are basically the two and that's
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obviously just i see that as just you know silly students righteous indignation that is a phase
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Similarly, there's a free speech gig, isn't there?
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but I've always just done whatever I wanted to do.
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and so I don't really see the the comics being censored thing or the but do you not think there
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are certain times and maybe there are certain routines that I like I used to talk about my
00:24:49.640
mum being a Trump supporter yeah which she is she's a disabled Latin American 73 year old woman
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who supports Donald Trump right and I which is funny yeah and I've done it on stage at gigs and
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people just shut down just like that they hear the word Donald Trump I've actually been booed
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I mean, I was booed up the creek, which everyone has been booed up.
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So the punchline is like, but then I understand why people vote for Donald Trump,
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because it's very difficult nowadays to be a nice, kind, tolerant person.
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Right, okay, because every time I see a group of estate agents in my area,
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I'll see them, I'll think, yeah, there's too many of them around here.
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It would come out half normal, half estate agent.
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And we know what we call one of them, don't we?
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that used to be one of the biggest bits in the set
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But at the moment I found that I do that trumpet,
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to be able to take that and just get people to go with it.
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Maybe people, there are some gigs where people are more,
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yeah clenchy yeah but then um i always try and perform it in a way where i know that they're
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uncomfortable and that i'm in control of that yeah um you know a lot of my eye contact is like
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this is going go on beat heads there's a joke coming um which i guess is sort of signaling
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your intent maybe as a performance trick because um that's one of the things about irony is that
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i think quite often people mistake irony for saying something horrible and then someone calls
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you out and then you go oh no i was um when really you know you have to you have to perform you have
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to um uh show people that you don't mean what you say yeah via other means yeah so um there is some
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responsibility to how you say these things yeah i think but look i'm not denying that you've had
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that experience but i i don't i don't see that you accept your lived experience yeah i accept
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your lived experience but yeah so i i don't feel um you know the only times any of my friends have
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my stuff is about these subjects but doesn't take a side.
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No, no, it's an interesting point that you make.
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When I did Live at the Apollo, I went into the bar afterwards
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whatever happens, we always have to have a space
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I think that's because they realise that they're
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talking about these sort of topics and doing quite brutal jokes they're not taking a side
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they're not dismissing one side or the other yeah that's how i see it anyway well uh the thing that
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strikes me whenever you and i've talked about this is like your angle sometimes seems to be like well
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i don't feel censored and the you know free speech isn't about you no it's about a principle and it's
00:29:46.340
about other people like it's like the benefit system you don't stand up for the benefit system
00:30:23.620
I didn't really have an opinion on it when you asked me about it.
00:30:25.980
And then I watched, because I hadn't really paid attention to the case.
00:30:38.000
And that's not me saying that he should have gone to jail.
00:30:40.400
I mean, I think it's quite telling that he hasn't.
00:30:46.680
But, I mean, this is one of the weakest hot takes of all time.
00:30:50.000
but the internet has changed everything right you heard it here first people on the internet
00:30:56.180
so if when you do comedy um for a channel uh there is a team of lawyers that are attached
00:31:03.820
to that channel they kept their year-round on retainer and uh their job is to make sure that
00:31:08.580
every joke every premise every sketch whatever the show is is defensible because we have these
00:31:14.000
laws around broadcasting in society that we all sign up to that some things are shouldn't be
00:31:20.100
broadcast before a certain time because of children some things are you know the bad taste
00:31:23.780
or whatever um and so we have these standards when it's a publicly owned channel like the BBC
00:31:29.300
and other another you know freeview channels um that that's that's the you know that's the lay
00:31:35.040
of the land now one of the great things about the internet is that there's no gatekeepers anymore
00:31:40.600
You don't have to wait for someone to put you on a channel.
00:31:43.120
You can just upload stuff straight to the internet.
00:31:46.040
And if it gets shared enough, more people will see it than will ever see you doing something late night on BBC Two.
00:31:52.220
However, there is no machinery there to uphold the same principles of maintaining the social fabric.
00:32:10.360
But how do you stop someone from just pumping hate speech into the ether?
00:32:21.260
Because when free speech is defended, it's always the argument, well, there's a context.
00:32:28.940
But I always find that the context is always just short of further context.
00:32:36.440
because i think you both agree that we have there's a huge problem with uh hate abuse online
00:32:43.880
yeah at the moment yeah um it's you know young young teenage girls are killing themselves because
0.84
00:32:49.300
of things they're seeing today um as we record this there's been a there's been a mass shooting
00:32:55.060
in new zealand and people it was being broadcast live on on youtube and all it said was this might
00:33:00.840
be an appropriate click to proceed right that's the only so it is totally unregulated the um the
00:33:07.460
big tech companies they're all you know whacking off to Ayn Rand books they're not going to regulate
00:33:11.000
anything right there's kind of these ultra libertarian ideologues um and so there is going
00:33:16.700
to be this conflict over the next 10 years between state and uh internet how do you protect people
00:33:23.720
from the darker sides of the internet I think that's a contest that's going to happen and that
00:33:27.820
should that's my opinion uh what i see the countdown thing as is a sort of growing pain
00:33:34.160
in that initial thing in that it's ridiculous that it's it's clearly he says it's a joke it's
00:33:41.240
context to a joke but at the same time he says the phrase gas the jews have him any 40 times
0.55
00:33:46.360
and for a lot of that the pug isn't really doing anything and i'm not saying he should go to jail
00:33:53.280
But I sort of see this as maybe a misstep, maybe a heavy handedness, but I see it as an initial foray in trying to deal with this conflict between state responsibility and an unregulated online space.
00:34:08.360
And I can't help but feel if Count Dankula was a Muslim comic and that pug was watching videos of jihadis beheading journalists and 9-11 footage and clapping and stuff, which might be funny.
0.99
00:34:51.660
um but uh i think what the state seems to have done is gone right you're fined 800 pounds we're
00:34:57.540
not gonna take you to jail which is ridiculous to go to jail for but justice sort of needs to
00:35:00.560
be seen they sent him a letter saying they will take him to jail after that interview okay well
00:35:04.140
maybe he will go to jail i i feel like there's several there's several cases of people being
00:35:08.760
like you're convicted do it we're not gonna go to jail they try and make the whole thing disappear
00:35:12.640
quietly because they sort of realize it's a bit ridiculous so that's how i see it which i know is a
00:35:17.920
nuanced point um but it's it's really vital that we have these discussions and i think because
00:35:25.140
going back to the polarization of the internet the internet is where these conversations appear
00:35:30.160
to take place in a public forum and a lot of the time it just seems to be two sides screaming each
00:35:35.000
other with nobody really listening or sharing a point you've just made a point and it's enabled
00:35:39.720
me to reflect and i'll go away ruminate and change my point my maybe my point will develop
00:35:44.100
the one thing that i'll leave take your opinion that's my opinion yeah but um the one thing that
00:35:49.560
i found worrying was was it was the judge saying that context isn't important and i found that
00:35:54.640
particularly dangerous as comedians for everyone because we can anybody's set you can take something
00:36:01.300
out out of context yeah sure that that's probably the most worrying bit is not the actual conviction
00:36:06.700
it's the judge saying context doesn't matter um but at the same time name name me a comedian that's
00:36:13.620
in jail in this country. Name me someone that has had their free speech, seriously threatened,
00:36:20.560
removed. I don't see it. This is, I think, where the difference is, is you're talking about the
00:36:26.580
present. Your focus is, in all of these instances, on the present. And I think what, I don't know
00:36:32.940
whether Francis is, but what I'm talking about is the direction of travel. Right. Because Dankler
00:36:37.560
is not the only person. There are lots of other people. There's Chelsea Russell. Yes, who have
00:36:42.180
been called by the police to check their intentions no no chelsea russell was arrested prosecuted
00:36:46.560
tagged uh and she only recently won an appeal right right so she she had a life ruined for
1.00
00:36:52.640
two years because she shared some lyrics from a rap song online as a tribute to a friend of hers
00:36:56.960
who died who loved those lyrics right and they contained the n-word right and she's white and
0.62
00:37:01.500
she's white right right so she was prosecuted for this tagged her life was ruined by this yeah right
1.00
00:37:06.720
police are calling as you say uh you know people who retweeted some kind of supposedly transphobic
00:37:11.940
limerick and telling them that they need to check their thinking yeah right which yeah you're you
00:37:17.600
you're right and i guess as someone who grew up in the sober union you're more sensitive to this
00:37:21.120
sort of stuff yeah rightly so that you say this stuff and it sounds it sounds scary but again i
00:37:27.460
see it as a sort of necessary struggle in between the state regulating the online space which i
00:37:33.880
think you have to agree something has to be of course there needs to be regular you know basically
00:37:38.260
every woman in public life is constantly every day
1.00
00:37:58.640
No, but I just don't see the connection between
00:38:00.260
Dankill and mass shootings. These are separate issues to me.
00:38:17.120
which it needs to do because at the moment it's so unregulated
00:38:37.100
should be taken by everyone with it you know like the boris johnson thing when he was um
00:38:43.020
you know he made that comment about muslim women looking like letterboxes and everyone pilloried
00:38:47.960
him and then everyone defended him by saying why it's a free country he's a free speech he's a
00:38:52.440
colorful character and my reading of it is that well look i'm a comedian i can say muslim women
00:39:00.680
look like letterboxes because i'm a comedian and the privilege is you can say anything however
00:39:04.660
there's a curse you cannot really ever be taken seriously because you're a comedian boris johnson
00:39:11.600
is a politician he is privileged in that he can he gets taken seriously because he represents
00:39:16.240
people i mean maybe that's where your idea falls down mate no one takes him seriously
00:39:21.640
politicians should be taken seriously on a contextual level yeah um conceptual level rather
00:39:26.480
boris johnson has a privilege in that people you know he can be taken seriously he represents
00:39:30.240
people the curse is he can't say whatever he wants like you just said you don't have mps on
00:39:34.840
this show because they can't actually say what they that is the kind of the gift and the curse
00:39:38.900
of being in uh you know democratic politician in the same way that a comedian has the sort of vice
00:39:43.500
versa you know and maybe this distinction has been muddied by the proliferation of um comedians
00:39:50.260
you know being taken seriously as news hosts and sort of satirical and appearing on question time
00:39:56.660
yeah i would never i had a conversation with the question time producers and i just was like i just
00:40:01.820
don't think i should do it because unless i just took the whole thing down yeah because i don't
00:40:07.320
again you're then branding yourself as you know i think this come and see me because you think this
00:40:12.500
and that's just not something i want to i want to i want to do um but yeah there is there is this
00:40:19.420
people have started getting their news more from comedians and i think it strokes comedians ego
00:40:23.280
to be taken seriously but then it then maybe it muddies the distinction in that some people who
00:40:28.300
who go to comedians and uh you know listen to their routines as if they're you know the political
00:40:36.220
activism they then would look at what i do and go well you so this is like yeah but i'm off i'm not
00:40:41.900
trying i'm not attempting to be taken anywhere near as seriously as this guy yeah so maybe that's
00:40:46.180
why well i mean in terms of the news i think the daily show particularly after john stewart left
00:40:51.960
it's become an ideological kind of this is what we think um in a way that i don't think it was
00:40:58.700
before uh well look at the mash report i've right someone who's been on it i'll uh yeah i'll defend
00:41:05.300
it but yeah well no i'm not i'm not saying that there's anything wrong with it i'm saying it's a
00:41:09.440
it's something that reflects a particular way of thinking right and it's comedy which presents
00:41:14.020
that way of thinking through comedy that more people probably will watch than watch more most
00:41:19.620
with the news the same with the daily show so i know loads of people now like um when this whole
00:41:24.220
free speech thing happened with me or this whole contract thing happened with me uh i i did a show
00:41:29.040
in america called uh the tucker carlson show which is on fox news you see the guy that's recently
00:41:33.380
yeah yeah i didn't watch the video i just saw he was being cancelled online but yeah yeah exactly
00:41:38.360
well exactly right so anyway i was talking to a comedian and he said what was it like being on
00:41:43.660
that show because i must have been like really weird and i was like how do you mean and he was
00:41:47.320
like well he's like really right-wing isn't he and i was like well have you seen his show do you
00:41:51.740
watch your show because i'm not saying he's not right-wing i'm just saying have you seen the show
00:41:55.580
because i'm curious where you're coming from and goes oh no i haven't seen the show but i've just
00:41:59.340
seen what the daily the daily show says about him right so people get their opinions now through
00:42:05.240
these comedy shows is the point which i guess feeds very much into what you're saying well it
00:42:11.000
It might be part of the reason why that bloke wrote that article about me
00:42:16.800
is because he's watched comedians and seen them as political pundits
00:42:19.580
because some comedians, it's just struck your ego to be taken seriously
00:42:22.800
because the reason we're comedians is that no one ever takes us seriously.
00:42:26.440
And someone asks you for your opinion, you go, oh, yeah.
00:42:29.520
I was sort of ready about doing this because for this hour,
00:42:37.760
Suddenly people are like, oh, it really makes a really good point.
0.83
00:42:39.540
So when you see a comedian that's talking about this stuff, but is, you know, is just being stupid and, you know, not taking a side, is just presenting these arguments, then maybe you take it as seriously as you do, you know, the left wing satirist or whatever.
0.88
00:42:56.480
And maybe that's why the waters get muddy.
0.96
00:43:05.140
If you think about someone like Bill Hicks, I mean, there's George Carlin, George Carlin.
00:43:09.540
And, you know, they mobilized a lot of people who ended up espousing their views.
00:43:15.260
And maybe you're right, they do grow out of it and all the rest of it.
00:43:22.140
Bill Hicks has quite intelligent people wondering about the power of the state
00:43:25.620
and people who think the Jews did 9-11 who like Bill Hicks.
00:43:29.740
You can't say that they all, you know, people have different views
00:43:35.360
and they like people because they project what they think onto them,
00:43:39.540
George Carlin is a free thinker, right? Some things are very socialist, some things he says nowadays would be seen as quite reactionary anti-PC, I suppose.
00:43:55.040
Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.
00:44:03.360
I can't remember if he was socialist, economic.
00:44:05.500
Anyway, I guess it doesn't matter, but I've lost my thought.
00:44:16.400
You see, this is why 1970s chat shows were great,
00:44:20.020
because when people did, they were always smoking.
00:44:22.620
So you just did it, and it just looked really atmospheric.
00:45:26.760
the narrative that i know you guys like um there is a there is a there is something of of people
00:45:33.280
getting offended on behalf of people uh loathe to call it virtue signaling because it's such a
00:45:38.640
cliche now but uh i did a i on apollo i did stuff about my routine about trans rights and uh got a
00:45:46.940
couple of really nice emails and tweets from transgender charities that said oh normally we
00:45:51.480
complain whenever anyone makes a joke about trans rights but i just want to say we found it really
00:46:23.360
it must be derogatory or it must be belittling.
00:46:26.200
So the routine is, I think you should let trans women piss what they want.
1.00
00:46:32.680
Ultimately, and I sort of debunked the idea that maybe it's going to allow sex pests into
0.99
00:46:36.960
the bathrooms, but ultimately, because you think about it, these fellas are taking a
1.00
00:46:42.540
Now, that is a progressive joke on several levels, because what I'm saying is, you should
00:46:48.760
let these trans women into women's spaces because, you know, in good faith, because when you
0.91
00:46:56.600
transition, you lose a certain amount of male privilege. Yeah. And then you're acknowledging
00:47:01.040
the existence of a wage gap. Yeah. Now, what's the funniest way of saying that these fellows
00:47:05.240
are taking a pay cut? Yeah. Because otherwise you're just parroting things. So it's a very
00:47:08.560
progressive joke. Yeah. But because, you know, you're handling this subject, people seem to
00:47:15.120
well this is the point this is exactly the point like i have a bit about me being called a packy
0.79
00:47:19.780
which is absolutely true yeah right i've apologized mate for fuck's sake right and it's always asian
0.95
00:47:27.960
people that laugh at that joke and it's always white middle class people that turns up about
0.94
00:47:34.900
that right right like you and i both have you have a routine about uh you know always cheering
00:47:39.900
for the white guy in the 100 meter final yeah i have a routine about how we need a special olympics
00:47:44.420
for white people right it's always the ethnic minorities who laugh at that bit it's always the
1.00
00:47:49.080
white middle class liberal people who turns up about that but what yeah but what's your point
00:47:54.620
about how this leads into speech so so my point no it's not about free speech my point is that
00:48:00.860
when people get offended on behalf of other people which is what you're saying right yeah right if
00:48:05.700
this idea that we should all be super sensitive and super offended on behalf of other people
00:48:10.160
spreads right and it's spreading from universities this is where it's happening it's not just that
00:48:14.660
young people go through this phase it's not by accident can i just i i hear that argument a lot
0.93
00:48:20.020
and i think what never gets said is that everyone is a dick at university and grows out of it and
00:48:26.260
not everyone no not everyone but it's often said these ideas are indoctrinating students and
0.85
00:48:31.140
spreading out but what it what it implies is that students stay the same age and have no life
00:48:35.660
experience but this well it sort of does in that it's saying that everyone no i'm agreeing with i'm
00:48:40.440
saying no they don't stay the same yeah so um yeah it's it's implying that students stay the
00:48:45.020
same age and and carry that with them and don't live a life and move away from the kind of
00:48:49.460
dogmatic views they held as a student which is what i think will happen in the majority which
00:48:54.220
is part of the reason majority yeah who's the most influential democratic politician in america right
00:48:58.960
now? Beta O'Rourke? No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Oh yeah, her. Right. Yeah. That's her. That's her
00:49:07.540
in a nutshell. She is someone who's from that mindset, who's 29 years old, straight into being
00:49:14.140
a congresswoman. Yeah. Right. So what's going to happen over time is that the people who come out
00:49:20.720
of university, if they're not challenged, this is the point about you talking about online and
00:49:25.280
hate speech and how do i agree with you that's a really good point i thought and i thought the way
00:49:29.220
you laid that out which one the the fact that we have to deal with dankler is a struggle yeah over
00:49:34.420
control yeah i think that's a very good point and i think we sometimes get into a partisanship
00:49:39.840
about that that's not helpful um but i think that um what what what's happening with universities is
00:49:47.800
the reason that we have to push back against things like dankler this is my opinion right
00:49:53.240
and tell me what you think is that if that is a struggle then people who are like us on the side
00:49:59.380
of expression right have to put up our end of the fight we have to say this is where the line is
00:50:06.420
right dankler was too far right because you say you understand why he got into trouble but you
00:50:11.840
don't approve of him being convicted yes but i suppose what these culture what these what these
00:50:17.480
binaries make you do is they make you um turn someone into like a a martyr or um a kind of
00:50:27.780
icon yeah i personally think count dankler should be buried like bin laden
00:50:34.220
um just dump him in the sea no but like it's why it's why i'm loathe to kind of
00:50:39.560
defend him because um as i'm sure you'll agree the free speech argument can get hijacked
00:50:54.360
But that's why I think you have to be more measured
00:51:04.500
you know, control speech thing or the free speech thing,
00:51:10.560
I do think you sort of have to choose to think that way.
00:51:16.600
I don't follow the logic of what you're saying. We have to be careful about defending free speech
00:51:20.600
because some people will hijack it who are racist. Agreed. But how is that relevant to Dankula?
00:51:26.760
The reason that I don't feel like struggling for Count Dankula is because
00:51:34.840
I feel like this is someone who, what he's doing, I don't feel particularly strongly about
00:53:15.280
At some point, the line is going to get so fuzzy that I genuinely just, I don't know.
00:53:23.200
And I understand the argument that we have to defend him, even if we don't like him,
00:53:27.800
But at the same time, I'm someone who believes that, you know, the public space has to be
00:53:33.860
And so there's going to be things that are right to the edge.
00:53:37.000
And I sort of, I'm interested, I'm more interested to see how it plays out.
00:53:40.920
And maybe there'll be a point that someone crosses that line.
00:54:12.200
Because people will just take your support as you're that side of it.
00:54:17.260
And I guess that's part of the reason I didn't want to reply to the independent ones coming here.
00:54:22.460
I want to try and articulate this huge middle ground that is so often unreported that most people think in this middle ground.
00:54:32.920
And all these debates that happen online, it's either you believe in free speech or free speech equals racism.
00:54:39.600
And my point is, I'm not going to say the buzzwords on either side
00:54:45.860
because I believe this is a struggle that is playing out.
00:54:55.160
And it's really, really lovely to hear a different point of view as well.
00:54:58.340
Well, thank you for allowing me to articulate it.
00:55:02.980
And I think it's having these conversations that allows us to find where that line is.
00:55:07.600
yeah um I get yeah so it's interesting with Dankula in that uh we will wrap up shortly
00:55:13.580
and that part of it I feel that people came down on him because comedically it wasn't skillful
00:55:20.400
if he'd actually edited it and done it a little bit more differently and you know framed it a
00:55:26.860
little bit differently and look dare I say a little less working class maybe yeah it wouldn't
00:55:33.540
Because it's fine for Jimmy Carr to go on stage
00:55:54.260
you ever read a book that's like American Psycho
00:55:56.160
or something like Lolita and you're on the tube
00:56:05.240
When you're in a comedy audience, it's kind of policed by everyone else laughing.
00:56:13.720
And I suppose that's maybe one of the reasons why Dankula had, you know, it was straight to the internet, which is a place of genuine anti-Semitic hate excitement.
00:56:25.040
And so maybe that's where these things fall down.
00:56:59.080
As I said, I think it's very useful that you've articulated that center ground.
00:57:04.260
It made me think quite a bit, actually, in terms of what I think.
00:57:07.280
I do think that within the context of what you're saying, if there is that struggle to define the appropriate level of unsafeness, let's say, that we have, then there've got to be people like us who go, okay, well, we hear what you're saying, but there are certain lines we don't cross.
00:57:26.780
And maybe that's true, but what's also true is that that position is now tainted in the binary, isn't it?
00:57:38.260
The position of saying, well, we have to defend this guy is now tainted.
00:57:42.840
So you can't, you know, saying that doesn't help.
00:57:46.620
So that's why I'm loathe to defend him in the way you do,
00:57:50.460
because I actually want people to move past these just endless, you know.
00:58:02.560
what's the one thing no one's talking about that we ought to be talking about?
00:58:05.260
Please don't make it about Mediterranean people.
00:58:13.940
What's the one thing people are talking about they shouldn't be talking about?
00:58:19.680
You've gone, what's the one thing people are talking about
00:58:29.800
And I guess that feeds into that idea of regulating,
00:58:35.080
Our relationship with machines, whether it be, you know,
00:58:46.220
being completely ignored by both major parties,
00:59:03.240
It's probably tied into Brexit as an underlying cause of it,
00:59:13.000
It's a fascinating point, that automation thing,
01:00:17.520
Yeah, and we've also got quite a few Aussie followers and viewers.
01:00:23.360
And my girlfriend genuinely really likes that Mediterranean joke.
0.98
01:00:26.420
And in fact, she's insisted that we go and watch your show.
01:00:29.500
So she can be exposed to more hate speech.
1.00
01:00:36.660
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