Satirist | Writer | Comedian

Apparently it’s a mammoth election period this year: an entire eight weeks. That’s not that long. If you measured election campaigns in units of Better-Call-Saul, this stretch of time would still fail to reach 1BCS.

Be warned though: the length of this election is the only thing that will end up distinguishing it from any other. We’ll vote some arseholes in on the back of some fantastic promises, with the only criticism being levelled at the consistency of their words. “Oh, so Malcolm Turnbull said this. Odd, because a few years ago he said this...”. 

You might as well reject a racist pamphlet on the grounds that it has a typo.

The Coalition will lambaste the Greens for standing by a policy years ago that they’re now criticising; Labor will point out that the Coalition promised [x] last time round but that [x] never happened so why should we believe them now. Also, how can we trust a party that’s had leadership instability (like every party for the past decade).

Criticisms will be anchored to the artifice of politics rather than examining how handing over the reigns to any one specific party will affect people in Australia and around the world. Sod whether or not someone backed a policy before, what does that policy mean right now?

Twitter will join in. "Malcolm Turnbull says he’s in touch with the people, and as a rich white banker, he should know!” Good one twitter. Criticise your leaders for being unrelatable, and then when someone like Barnaby Joyce takes over for a bit, "nail” him too for being a ruddy-faced buffoon who’s too much like the rest of us. Too rich and white, too regular Joe. Jesus Christ twitter, find a politician whose porridge is just right. A banker who lives on the streets perhaps? Or a plumber who subsists on truffles and champagne.

There are huge, systemic issues currently plaguing Australia and once again we’re going to spend eight weeks somehow thinking we scored a point by finding a clip from 11 years ago that shows Malcolm Turnbull accidentally dropping a sandwich or something. We’re focusing on performance, rather than frameworks or outcomes, like audience members sitting in a burning theatre thinking the flames will go out as long as none of the actors forgets their lines.

Worse still, policies will be analysed on an individual basis rather than as part of a mesh of ideas that all affect each other. Again, missing the systemic in politics and focusing on the daily and specific. Our immigration policy, for example, will be examined in isolation: how many asylum seekers can we adequately care for and do we have the infrastructure to support them? But it might surprise you that closing tax loopholes is as much a part of immigration policy as our attitude to offshore detention. Close the loopholes, keep billions of dollars in Australia, and suddenly we can afford to help many more people. Instead of buying 57 fighter jets for $24bn, couldn’t we instead buy 47, and use the saved money to improve conditions on Manus Island?

The way we deal with one problem affects our ability to deal with others, but that’s not something you hear discussed or analysed in the news. It’s also not part of our mental skillet when it comes to analysing all the election talk. Instead it’s the same tired, daily digest of looking at each policy and soundbite by itself, further engendering in all of us a total lack of understanding of how the world works and how we could vote to make it better. 

During an election, ironically the last thing we all need is the hype and coverage surrounding an election.

We’ll come out the other end none the wiser, left with a new prime minister buoyed by some promises that either won’t matter in a few months, or that will be retrospectively unmade. And the same abhorrent, destructive behaviours will continue, because no one endeavoured to tell us what was actually going on.

“Misandry” seems like a rather pointless term when you view men over a large enough span of time. If a species of sentient moss were solely (and bizarrely) responsible for most wars, terrorism, slavery, religion, rampant unchecked capitalism, and therefore the destruction of the planet, you wouldn’t need a special word for hating it because hating The Deadly Oppressor Moss would be a natural state; a survival tactic. There’s no special word in the English language that means “ingrained prejudice against stuff that’s definitely bad for you”. You don’t like snake venom? Bigot!

I’m not encouraging you to hate men if you don’t, I’m just saying that those slightly more sensible people who’ve totted up our collective cock ups (note, not “vagina ups”) shouldn’t be heaped with criticism for noticing the obvious, which is that history is so riddled with manmade catastrophe, out of kindness towards any potential alien visitors we ought to erect a giant sign in space saying “Don’t Come Any Closer, It’s Rubbish” written in penis meat.

Yes, men have done some lovely things too: the miracles of medicine, the wonders of technology, and that theory that was clever. Of course, the reason men are behind “all of the things” throughout the ages is that, in between bouts of inventing light bulbs and shotguns, we were busy making sure women remained a servile underclass, destined to keep our drinks and snacks coming while remaining hidden like some sort of ninja vending machine you’re allowed to shag.

Where are we now? 2015 sounded like a year from the future - we ought to be zipping around on gender equality-powered hoverboards by now - but instead society is slowly limping forward, our ankles manacled to a giant novelty testicle.

What women wear is heavily scrutinised and when they wear little they’re slut-shamed. Women have to constantly adapt to an arbitrarily rotating fetish calendar that doesn’t seem to apply to men: “Yeah, big ball bulge is definitely in this year so you’re going to want to get some groin fillers.” Women are the victims of domestic and sexual violence (which apparently is their fault!).

Worse still, women can’t even talk about these issues. Try to raise awareness of any of the above and women can become victims of gross abuse, both online and in the real world. This baffles me: we live in a society where it’s apparently acceptable to complain on Twitter that your bus was late, but dare to point out the slightly more important problem that your gender is being systematically subjugated and slaughtered and some chaps seem to think you’re being oversensitive. Fictional women in worlds that don’t even exist are chastised for being assertive, which is absurd: it’s like seeing a Stormtrooper get arrested in The Force Awakens for driving their Tie-Fighter over the speed limits that exist in real-world Glasgow.

As a remedy to how god-awful everything is, feminism is both necessary and sufficient, and I agree that it doesn’t need any help from men to achieve its goals. However, I’d rather we men didn’t desperately cling to 100% of the privilege that’s only 50% ours in a NRA “cold dead hands” kind of way. We could - and should - resist less and also treat this as an opportunity to re-evaluate what it means to be a man. Otherwise, when society has advanced and all on the gender spectrum finally gain equality, we’ll still be wolf-whistling and saying people “throw like a girl” like an animatronic exhibit that’s somehow escaped The Museum of Yore.

Redefining manhood isn’t just about making the planet better for women, it’s about making the planet better in of itself. I was at a barbecue last week where I politely refused a hamburger because I’m vegetarian. A glance was shared between “the blokes” as if I’d just voided my bowels on the grill. You could hear “poofter” being telepathically communicated between them because they learnt telepathy in the 80s. It seems, on top of all the other nonsense, having a penis obliges me to ignore global warming and animal cruelty.

You never hear anyone say “man up and go share your anxieties” or “grow a pair and practise mindfulness.” It’s all about confidence, dominance, and assertiveness, which are very inward qualities designed to benefit the individual rather than the group. “Real men” are adrenalin junkies and achievers. “Ballsy” is not a term we use for someone who’s peaceful and gives to charity.

By semantically suppressing the potential for men to nurture and symmetrically diminishing the strength of women, all we’re doing is helping to foster inequality from the ground up, while casting behaviour that’s damaging in a masculine, praiseworthy light.

If feminism is the striving to make sure women catch up with men in the rights race, that struggle should be matched from the other side by men asking “just who is it we want women to be catching up with anyway?” It’s not enough for everyone to come equal first in the 200m Be As Evil As You Like Freestyle.

Imagine if you lived in a place where heroin was still legal, and a significant proportion of the population took it every day. Then, after a series of medical studies proved how bad it was for you, the government criminalised it, backed up with hefty prison sentences. If most people responded to this with an attitude of “Well... I guess I ought to expect to be intermittently in and out of gaol from now on then, if that’s what the government wants” you’d say they were missing the point. The government doesn’t want you in gaol. It wants you to stop taking heroin and you’re not getting the big hint being provided by hefty prison sentences. You shouldn’t factor the punishment into your working understanding of your bad habit: you should cut the bad habit. In the above example, the bizarre thinking is quite clear: going to prison isn’t some new mandatory condition placed on your existence, it’ll only happen if you continue to do the bad thing.

When it comes to talk of carbon taxes, and emission trading schemes, however, immediately talk turns to how this will hurt businesses, or hurt our pockets. Well... yeah... duh. If you continue emitting like you always did.

One of the biggest criticisms of the carbon tax initially, was how it would “hurt voters’ wallets” and that the government was being greedy. This completely misses the point. The purpose of a carbon tax isn’t so that the government can profit from your unchanged energy consumption. The point of it is to act as an incentive for you to reduce your carbon footprint.

What a remarkable indication of our ingrained sense of entitlement to energy consumption, that when confronted with a carbon tax, we assume its goal is to take our money. It doesn’t cross our minds at all that it’s a hint we should perhaps change our lifestyle. Again, don’t factor higher electricity bills (the punishment) into your working understanding of your bad habit. Cut the bad habit.

And that is the purpose of a carbon tax: to act as a financial incentive to reduce our emissions, not as a financial intrusion from a government keen to benefit from our unchanged habits. In essence, a carbon tax is the only kind of tax designed to fail. By that I mean that If it did its job properly, it would raise barely any revenue at all because we would have taken the hint and started emitting less. It’s unfortunate that solving the problem of climate change is constantly linked to economics, because they actually have nothing to do with each other. To elaborate: obviously they do have something to do with each other otherwise one wouldn’t affect the other, it’s just that one of those two things isn’t important.

What? Yes, that’s right. Solving climate change will affect the economy, but that doesn’t mean we should include money in our rationalisations on whether or not to tackle climate change because, quite simply, money isn’t that important.

How can I say that money doesn’t matter? Well, simple. Ask yourself this: what’s more important - the only habitable planet in known existence, or lower electricity bills? Yes, saving one will impact the other, but again, why do you keep insisting that the latter is somehow a birth right? It’s boring I know: on the one hand you have a responsibility: the planet. On the other you have a sense of entitlement: low bills. Unfortunately, one will trump the other every time and you need to Let. It. Go. and stop voting with your short-term brain you future-people-hating psychopath.

And, once again, your bills will be low if you just reign in your guzzling at the carbon trough, you oinking fossil pig. Think of whatever lifestyle reductions you make as a kind of subscription fee. Millions of us are willing to pay $10 a month for access to unlimited movies: consider an hour’s less heating a week (in favour of a jumper) your subscription fee to unlimited functioning planet. And yes, you will have to come up with these little mind games to help yourself get through this. I’m currently wearing several layers and a beanie indoors, but what I’m currently not doing is sending a time-travelling punch into some 2050 kid’s face. Carpool. Read one of those books you bought and haven’t read yet instead of watching hours of shit TV (and it is shit). Cycle. Walk to the shops instead of getting 5 sausages delivered in one of those giant Woolworths trucks (it’ll also count as exercise and you’ll lose weight). Meditate instead of falling down a Youtube hole.

*trigger warning

Given recent events at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) and the issues it's raised surrounding rape culture, I think it's time that comedians and audience members alike had some sort of mutually agreed set of guidelines that will allow for better interactions. It's clear, from the mess that unfolded online afterwards, that only a rare few actually know how to engage in a reasoned discussion, the mundane majority achieving little more than fanning the flames.

Let's start with audience members first. Please bear in mind that I write this fully aware that there are far more important issues to discuss, such as how to eliminate rape culture. I'm writing this in the hope of outlining circumstances in which opportunities to discuss rape culture aren't shut down due to the unfavourable circumstances in which they're generated. Firstly, at any of my shows, if there's ever a joke anyone is uncomfortable with, I would love to hear about it, as long as it makes them uncomfortable for reasons that aren't their fault. For example, I don't really care if someone religious is offended by an atheistic joke, because believing in a 3-dadded carpenter that can hear your brain from space is ridiculous. Being raped is not ridiculous, and therefore any complaint of offence that arises from that can't be dismissed under the same umbrella of "Well be offended then" that the offended religious fall under. Certain people ought to be offended by being confronted by an attitude contrary to their own when it is the case that their attitude is repugnant, or counter to society's progress - not everyone though, and this go-to, fallback mentality of comedians of "Well it's a comedy night, you might get offended" is fucking dumb. However, I'd genuinely like to hear your complaint in a manner that doesn't increase the statistical likelihood of me backfiring and saying something dumb because I'm surprised, shocked, and not thinking clearly. Because then the conversation might get lost. The opportunity destroyed. And I don't want that. When I'm wrong, I love to hear why, because then we both benefit: you get to register your criticism, and I end up being one less wrong fact closer to having a worldview that's 100% right. Of course it's a free world, and I'm absolutely not saying you can't register your protest however you want. Do it: throw a bottle, continuously shout so I can't get any more words out, start a slow clap. It's a comedy night: anything goes and I fully defend your right to do whatever you want. That being said, that doesn't mean I don't think there are better ways to protest. None of them wrong, just some of them better. For me, I'd love if it if someone stuck their hand up, or said, "Excuse me!" I would stop. "Yeah?" I would say, shielding my face against the spotlight so I can actually see the audience. "I found that last joke offensive and inappropriate. But please go on, but after the show, I'd like to explain to you why that joke is a bad idea. If there are others in the audience who agree, perhaps they could join as well." "Sure. Absolutely. I'm happy to hear anything you have to say. Let's all grab some beers or something. Make it non-confrontational." I'd say. Perhaps my explanation of the logic behind the joke might change some minds. Perhaps I'd be made to realise I'd legitimately offended people for no reason, no comedic purpose: just offence. In the case above, I'd also encourage people to get out a smartphone and record the audio of the subsequent, post-gig conversation. Either everyone could record it, or one person could, and then we'd all swap email addresses so that the resulting audio could be emailed out to everyone. You know, just so that third-party hearsay couldn't distort what was said. There are huge problems with that above scenario, naturally. Mainly, that if a joke has been told that makes you feel threatened, it takes courage to speak up. I'm putting an unfair amount of onus on you, the audience member, to conquer the uncomfortable situation you've been put in, in order to discuss that precise situation. If you'd rather just shout out "Fuck you!" or "Rape culture apologist" and walk out, then do it. I'd rather you didn't though. I'd rather hear from, and learn from you. The reason I'm suggesting we try to create an environment where post-gig, open, welcomed criticism becomes a convention (again, for this specifically, not for other types of offence) is that I don't trust comedians to not be stupid, and in a confrontational situation, be a heightened level of stupid. There's no qualification necessary to be a comedian, other than to make people laugh. Even being a successful comedian is no mark of intelligence: look at what's popular in mainstream culture, and you'll realise that whatever it is that makes that demographic laugh won't be all that sophisticated and scholarly. Imagine if "rape-juggling" were a thing: some sort of juggling at a circus that's somehow about rape. If that offended you, how eloquent do you think that performer would be if presented with a protest? All they know is juggling, not feminist theory. Most comedians are just jugglers, and are the last people that should be called upon to be ambassadors for their own art form (we'll come back to this). Just ask Khaled Khalafalla. As such, if a joke scares you, reignites a trauma, or triggers a painful memory, I want that to be discussed precisely with the person that told the joke. They need to learn. They need to understand. If they're doing wrong, make them a better person (again, I am, so far, asking so much sympathy be given to the lesser victim here - I'll redress this in a second! - Also, I’m imagining the person on stage is reasonable and generally unthreatening: if not, then this scenario falls apart). If, however, it escalates and one side does something, or says something stupid, then I feel like both sides lose, because then it just descends into two-way abuse online between ignited communities who weren't there. So just to reiterate before we move on: at any of my gigs, never feel unwelcome to question my material and educate me. I am a nice person and I think most comedians are, though sometimes careless. If possible, I'd like criticism to happen in a way that's conducive to everyone still enjoying themselves, and to me actually learning something and openly hearing your concerns and vice versa (if the fault is someone's over-sensitivity [which I very much doubt it can be with rape... perhaps other topics] rather than my joke... but again, that can only be explained in an open-minded environment).

Of course, once a rape joke has been made, especially one that either punches down or nowhere, it’s really not my place to be able to ask how the offence / trauma should be dealt with. All of the above is really the asking of a giant favour. Also, I don’t mean any of the above to suggest that the first move should be made by audience members. Comedians need to state their support of such an environment first, so that then audience members feel comfortable to raise objections without feeling like they’re going to get “taken down”.

Ok, now to comedians. It's hard on stage. I get that. I'm terrible at dealing with hecklers. I think I have, on one occasion, verbally wished someone dead. People at the gig would know, from my tone, that it was uttered in jest: a throwaway line with no malice. But it would be said. And it would appear on paper as those exact words "I wish you were dead / I hope you die". Damage Control So, in a situation that's arisen from mentioning "rape" - whether it's a rape joke, or just a joke that uses the word - you're now in dangerous territory and you need to be fucking smart (a problem as a lot of comedians are dumb... out of all the ones I know, I would call upon about five to verbally defend anything). Here are some tips: 1. Direct your anger towards yourself. You're still a comedian on stage. Keep up the role. "I wish I were fucking dead right now" is already a significant improvement. "After this gig I'm going to go home and burn my notes... then my dreams of ever making it." I don't know. Self-deprecate. "Yeah... that joke was funny in my head before it was met with reality and facts". 2. "This is worse than that time that [something funny happened]."  Invent a story, something. Point is, use your discomfort / the awfulness of the situation as a segue. 3. Damage control: as I've discussed above, make their protest an opportunity to reach out. "Ok, if that joke has put you in a bad place, I'm sorry and I'm happy to stick around after the show and hear what you have to say. Now, can you come out from under the table? You look about as uncomfortable under there as I feel up here right now." You're Not An Ambassador Remember that rigorous interview process you had to go through to get the job of comedian? No, neither do I. None of us went through that. You literally turn up at an open mic night, get 3-5 minutes for your first time, and suddenly your twitter bio says you're a "Sydney-based comic" or some equally reality-shunning nonsense. You do 30 gigs and suddenly you're an "Up and comer". No you're not. Point is, while I believe in free speech, I also believe in the virtue of self-restraint. Free speech sort of loses its value if you don't cherish it enough to know when not to say something (one of my major gripes with twitter's philosophy of encouraging you to say whatever's on your mind). As such, if you are a "comedian" (you've done one gig) please ask yourself whether the comedic community needs you as an ambassador in situations like this. Chances are, it doesn't. Very few of you are good at articulating a defence of free speech, or defending an offensive joke. In the same way that I wouldn't trust a grunt on the front lines of a war to coordinate strategy, I trust less than 5% of you with the responsibility of speaking on behalf of an entire art form that's existed for decades. Get on stage, tell your early-days jokes about wanking, and leave it at that. When a rape culture debate explodes online, don't get all finger-happy on twitter and think you can make anything better. You're actually fanning flames, and making comedians look like a bad and unapproachable bunch of whiny idiots. Again, you're just a juggler or a dancing bear, not a feminist academic, nor a free speech scholar. Chances are, you're probably just saying something dumb like "It's a comedian's right to offend people" to impress the ghost of Bill Hicks who doesn't give a shit about you. When the debate explodes online, that's not your invitation to be a hero of the comedic community. You certainly don't represent me anyway. I didn't vote for you. Don't go round tweeting at feminists saying "It's just a joke, get a sense of humour" or what you think comedy is about. It's probably not what I think comedy is about anyway (for me?: satire, ethics, improving the world, criticising mainstream culture, religion, you?: wanking, jokes about jizzm, relationship break-ups). Don't GamerGate this into a situation where being a "comedian" automatically affiliates me with a load of deluded free-speech warriors who have got the wrong end of the stick and I have to rename myself to "Laughter Technician". Which leads me to... Comedian's Purpose I must have missed the meeting where we all decided that comedians have to push boundaries, test taboos, test the limits etc. Lots of very famous comedians have done that, but then they were extremely good and knew how to make that work. There are also lots of great comedians who don't do that. Both sets of comedians were actually trying the same thing: to make people laugh. If pushing boundaries falls within that, it's as a subordinate motivation to the primary one: laughter generation. Monty Python shocked a lot of people by making The Life of Brian, which has stood the test of time. A movie about lots of rape would have been shocking and zero funny. It's such an odd and arbitrary definition of what it means to be a comedian anyway. They're on stage with a microphone, there to make people laugh. How do you get from that premise to the conclusion "They therefore have to say 'rape' because no one else can." There's literally nothing connecting those two points. You might as well argue it's a surgeon's job to offend people, or a cellist's job to play the cello in such a way that makes people nauseous, or an artist's job to only paint pictures of bestial necrophilia. It's a comedian's job to make people laugh first, and (preferably) think second. There are comedians who're offensive, really offensive, but manage to make it work because the offence works towards making you think. It's also about the right kind of offence. Again, offending a catholic because you rip into God's views on homosexuality is worth it because you're countering something negative ("punching up"). Tolerance of intolerance is cowardice, and we ought to speak out against bigotry and intolerance. But there are some kinds of offence caused by "punching down" and I think there's a weird conflation of both of these kinds of offence that then gets put under the same offence umbrella. They’re totally different: one is comedy that gets laughter by (offensively) destroying that which prevents us from aspiring to be better, the other just offends through shock at a victim’s expense.  “What about jokes about murder?” I don’t know: chances are, no one in the audience has been murdered. “What about jokes about diabetes?” Chances are it’s been made by a comedian with diabetes in a way that’s cathartic or enlightening about the disease, rather than “Hey, anyone in the audience got diabetes. Ha!” “What about jokes about paedophilia?” They’re usually critical of paedophiles / catholic priests, rather than laughing at someone who was sexually abused as a kid. There's nothing about being a comedian that entitles you to offend people for no reason. Where did this bizarre delusion come from? Literally ask yourself, "Why is it comedians get to offend people for no reason?" and hear your own voice as you try to justify it. You sound ridiculous. You might as well argue that it's the point of origami to make people feel threatened. Again, I'm all for offending people who contrive to be offended by taking on bizarre stances / attitudes to contemporary existence, but being raped isn't someone's attempt to be a pain in the arse at your gig, so deal with it. Rape Jokes Just ask yourself if it's worth it? I'd hate for comedians to avoid telling certain jokes altogether. As has been pointed out, there are comedians out there doing great material about rape. I've tried it myself, and might revive the following joke at Melbourne (context: playing off a quote made by a Mullah whose name escapes me now):

"[Name] said women need to wear a veil in public because otherwise they might get raped. Which... yeah... that happens to me all the time. I'm walking behind a woman in the street, she turns her head and I see her naked nose, and I think ‘That's it. Now I have to rape you.’ Of course what [name] forgets is that, rather than seeing a woman's face, the leading cause of rape is... being a rapist."

I did that joke for a while in 2013/14 and it always went down well. That being said, I also used to tell the following joke:

"Watch Big Brother? No thanks, I'd rather be gang raped by werewolves."

That also always went down well too, but it is using rape as part of a punchline, but then the "werewolves" part to me always disseminated any potential triggering by rendering it utterly unrealistic and fantasy-based. Nevertheless, if someone said they found it offensive, I'd drop it, and I  dropped it anyway, precisely because it didn't satisfy my own criteria of "being worth it". There are other analogies I could use instead that don't rely on the horror of rape to convey my sense of disgust at Big Brother. (would genuinely be interested to know what you think).

Point is, simply by saying the word "rape", you are entering into a seriously complex domain. All the world is asking you to do is to explore whether you think your joke is worth it. If not, drop it. How long is your set anyway? 10 minutes? An hour? You'd be losing 24 seconds out of that. So write a new 24-second joke. Just because you're a comedian doesn't mean you're not a citizen of the world.

THE END