October 17, 2023 - 7:01pm
Last night, the UnHerd Club saw one comedian interviewing another.
Following the publication of his memoir ‘Tough Crowd’, Graham Linehan, creator of the wildly successful sitcom Father Ted, joined acclaimed satirist and culture critic Andrew Doyle.
Their conversation included a penetrating analysis of the comedy industry as well as a look at Graham’s cancellation following his involvement in the gender debate. While Linehan is known by many as a fervent gender-critical activist, his recent memoir is a reminder of what life was like before. So the first half of the evening focused on the art of comedy writing. Those who’d watched the free-wheeling episodes of Father Ted, Black Books and the IT crowd all appreciated the seemingly effortless wit and absurdity of each show. But most were likely unaware of the effort required in their creation and execution. As Linehan said:
The conversation then moved on to the topic which led to Linehan’s cancellation: gender ideology. Emotions ran high in the room and a round of applause followed when Graham said that he would never “sell out” on the issue — even if it means that his Edinburgh shows are forever cancelled.
Doyle pointed out at that many accused Linehan of being “obsessed” with the trans issue. In response, Linehan explained how and why he became so involved in the gender-critical movement. He then began to ruminate on the high rates of osteoporosis among young transitioners and the erosion of women’s sport. He settled the question by asking the audience: “How could I not be obsessed with it?”
While Linehan had to face a significant backlash in the comedy industry for his views on gender, what angered him even more was the “outlawing” of offensive jokes within the industry. Doyle and Linehan agreed that censorship is not only devastating to comedy but that it upsets an important societal balance. The Father Ted writer illustrated this point by examining the role of the court jester. In his reading, the king had always given the jester a free pass to be offensive because the jester’s humorous observations were of use to him:
In a kingless society, however, one in which the mob rules, the jester’s role becomes impossible to perform — not only because he or she risks cancellation at every turn, but because the mob is too frightened to laugh. In that climate, jokes will lose their subtlety and land flat:
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SubscribeI wish Mr Linehan the very best of luck and fortune, both in his continued role as one of the best comedy writers alive today, and in his newly-found role of common-sense activism that has been thrust upon him by the insanity of contemporary politics.
Surprised that no-one’s commented yet… Anyhow I thought that for the most part Linehan made his points well, yet with this audience it was all one sided. I really can’t see what the arguments against Lineham’s stances are. Has Stuart Lee really come out FOR trans people being in women only spaces, etc… If so why? in 2019 Lee – whose humour I have liked as much Lineham’s – had a show “Tornado / Snowflake” hailed as taking the piss out of “metropolitan liberal elite” sensitivities in the post-PC ageHow about an unherd debate between the two and a couple of other comedians so we might get to the bottom of all this?
I liked Lee as well, but now he seems to have morphed into a typical midwit tribal Guardianista.
Getting him on Unherd would be great
One of the interesting comments Linehan made, and probably the most controversial, was that Transwomen don’t exist. This is of course quite different from saying that people who call themselves ‘Transwomen’ don’t exist. They do.
The comment homed in on what is most important in this whole non-debate: semantics and how they reify fictional concepts – transforming them into categories of persons on a par with those that exist empirically – like ethnic groups, homosexuals, or biological women. Astonishingly, this semantic sleight of hand (achieved by means of question begging) has been inscribed into law, such that ‘transpeople’ (?!) are given protections from ‘hate’ equivalent to legitimate protected categories – ones based on empirically measurable and involuntary aspects of identity.
This really is tantamount to a theocratic religion, in which the clerisy proclaims a mystical ‘identity’ and force the rest of the citizenry to bow to their sacred cows and adopt their esoteric language, or else. Negative liberty has been demolished yet again.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire
Yes, in reality the term ‘trans people’ incorporates a wide variety of different types – people with gender dysphoria, women with body dysmorphia, male autogynephiles, gender non-conforming children including same sex attracted people, cross dressing men with full beards, post-op transexuals, autistics, a general swathe of confused pubescents looking for a sense of identity – and lumps them all together under this magical category. Reify is a good word
The ever-deepening rabbit-hole of digital Gnosticism and the Awokened can produce obsession. It is a form of sorcery, after all, dazzling and bewildering in its novelty as well as irrationality.
Of course, it´s more widely the secular human-rights culture that´s been pushed onto us following the collapse of Christianity in the West. But I´m not sure older generations should get so deeply involved in TikTok narcissism which, in any case, is a shared pathology with autism and ADHD.
“I lost my comedy career to a mass delusion” <– No idiot, but because you are deluded — and choose to do evil.
“He then began to ruminate on the high rates of osteoporosis among young transitioners ” <– There is no such thing.
” the erosion of women’s sport” <– There is no such thing. Where are all the supposedly dominating MtF athletes, when in fact they can generally not even make the teams? Lia Thomas won one race, and tied with Riley Gaines for 5th place.
There is no such thing as gender ideology. There is only the biological, physical fact that minorities of sexual dimorphism exist, adn that they are human and deserve to be treated as moral equals.