I still don’t know for certain what Jerry Sadowitz did or said that was so distressing to (some) members of his audience that his subsequent show was cancelled by the venue, and that makes the whole episode even more annoying. The director of the Pleasance, who announced the ban, said only that his material “is not acceptable and does not align with our values”. It’s probably a stretch to equate Sadowitz’s treatment with what’s happened to Salman Rushdie. Nobody’s tried to kill the comedian, although it must be remembered that a furious Canadian (they exist, apparently), once punched him out on stage for beginning a Montreal gig with a cheery “Hello, moose-fuckers!” That said, the statement does bear some comparison with the Ayatollah’s fatwa, in that the precise nature of the crime was kept vague, thus enabling those disposed to take offence to create ever-increasing levels of imagined ideological transgression in their own heads, without ever feeling obliged to see Sadowitz’s show, or read The Satanic Verses.
More importantly though, as many have already said — what did people expect from a Sadowitz show? He’s been cavorting merrily on the wrong side of taste for four decades. And if they hadn’t noticed after all this time that some of his schtick is a bit unpleasant, 30 seconds on Google could have put them right. Modern cultural discourse is certainly sanctimonious and censorious, but far worse, I’d suggest, is the abject absence of curiosity.
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