Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Festival Club. Photo Credit: Jim Lee Photo.
In the wake of Weinstein and #MeToo, recent months have seen several high-profile male comedians challenged over reprehensible incidents and patterns of behaviour, with the likes of American comic, actor and Emmy Award Winner Louis CK called out and publicly shamed.
But beyond these individual cases, will #MeToo and associated campaigns such as Time’s Up – and its local equivalent, Now Australia, launched in late March by journalist Tracey Spicer – have a more profound and long-lasting impact on the culture of the comedy industry here and overseas?
‘I think certainly in the world of comedy – as in any workplace anywhere, but particularly in the entertainment industry – it has, in a really great way, made people really think about their behaviour and how they interact with each other, with co-workers, with collaborators, with all manner of people,’ said Susan Provan, Festival Director/CEO, Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Comedy has long been perceived as ‘a bit of a boys’ club, in that there are a lot more male stand-up comedians than women, and so the way that you get into comedy – having to go and do open mics and all that sort of stuff – it can be a daunting environment for women, who are very much in the minority,’ Provan said.
‘I think this whole movement [has] … absolutely shone a spotlight on how people behave, what people talk about, and the impact that might have on your co-workers, collaborators, other artists, people you’re getting up on stage with, and I think that that is a really good thing. Anything that pushes or makes an improvement in those working relationships and working conditions … is in my view a good thing.’
Read: Tracey Spicer and Sue Maslin discuss where next for #MeToo in Australia
As the number of female comedians in the industry increases, prevailing attitudes and behaviours associated with the ‘boys’ club mentality’ are changing, becoming less acceptable than ever before.
Nonetheless, comedian Tessa Waters said: ‘That sort of toxic masculinity is still alive and well, for sure. Especially in the open mic rooms and the comedy clubs. Less so on the Fringe Festival circuit and probably less at the Comedy Festival, but in that mainstream club environment it’s still pretty toxic.’
Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is now in full swing, with Perth Comedy Festival and Sydney Comedy Festival just around the corner. While it may be too soon to see major shifts in behaviour in the comedy industry, the ripple effects of #MeToo are already visible, according to Laura Milke Garner, the founder, producer and managing director of independent production house MILKE.
‘With what’s happened, especially with high profile comedians in Australia and overseas being brought down, I think, I hope, that that behaviour will absolutely start to change. And I think we’ll see that reflected in this year’s Comedy Festival – there’s been a few shows where I’ve already seen female and male comics addressing those types of topics, and I hope that continues in the right direction,’ she said.
‘I know there have been stories, many stories over the years, of female comics not wanting to do stand-up gigs and of being in a boys’ club, that kind of thing. I can definitely see that there’s a slight turning of that – how dramatic it is I don’t know, but I think we’ve got to start somewhere, and I’ll be curious to see how this kind of festival plays out with this kind of movement behind it.’
Australian comedian Zoë Coombs Marr; image via www.comedyfestival.com.au.
Comedian Zoë Coombs Marr, whose Barry Award-winning show Trigger Warning featured her performing as a sexist and misogynist man, Dave – a character inspired by some of the men she saw performing comedy around her – said she hopes to see lasting change as a result of #MeToo, though she also expects the inevitable backlash.
‘It always happens with these sorts of things. Like, two steps forward, one step back, I think. But acknowledging a problem is the first step to fixing that problem – though it is only the first step. So that’s step one, and there is a lot of change that needs to be made, in lots of different ways, in order to combat sexual harassment and sexual violence’ said Coombs Marr, who is performing as herself in this year’s MICF.
‘But the other thing that I would say is that [what] movements like this are great for, and the amazing outcome that is already happening that we’re seeing, is that there is now a mass conversation that is going on and it can’t be ignored.
‘So what that means is it’s no longer just individual women or people, it’s not just individuals who are [seen as] the problem, who are being a “nuisance” or being “difficult”. Now we sort of have this language to talk about the problem and acknowledge it, and so the blame doesn’t necessarily go on the individual person who is having that issue; it is acknowledged that it is a larger thing,’ she said.
Where to from here?
In response to the cultural shifts taking place in the comedy industry – and the entertainment industry more broadly – Melbourne International Comedy Festival has taken a proactive stance, said Provan.
‘We have an Acceptable Workplace Behaviour Policy, and … with everything that’s going on, we have been really focused on making sure that all of our staff – and all of our artists, managers, visiting producers who come into our venues – we’ve been very careful to make sure that they all read that policy, and absorb that policy.
‘It forms an addendum to everybody’s contracts, whether you’re a performer who’s renting one of our venues or whether you’re front of house staff or whether you are part of our marketing team or whatever. So people are thinking about stuff that they maybe just used to take for granted – there’s kind of no excuse any more for not thinking about it,’ Provan said.
An industry code of conduct is also being developed by Waters and colleagues.
‘There’s a bunch of us who are working at the moment to develop a code of conduct that clubs can sign on to, and it builds on the legislation that exists around sexual harassment in the workplace and in pubs and clubs, but it goes further than that. It goes into content and behaviour at clubs and how to book people and what to do when you’re dealing with harassment,’ Waters said.
Read: The pitfalls and pleasures of making people laugh
As the comedy industry comes to grips with new expectations around appropriate behaviour, it’s apparent that #MeToo has also generated a certain degree of tension and apprehension amongst comedy’s old guard.
‘Doing certain gigs with people, there’s a lot of fear of being called out – no-one wants to be called out and no-one wants to be the villain in the #metoo discussion. So in that way the standards have risen really quickly and people are very nervous in a way, around being correct and being right, but it also means it’s a bit of a tense time in the industry at the moment,’ said Waters.
So will the Australian comedy industry have its own Louis CK or Weinstein moment?
‘I really hope so. I really hope so,’ said Waters. ‘Those conversations are happening as we speak, you know? For example with the recent emails and letters that came out about Tim Ferguson.’
A founding member of comedy troupe the Doug Anthony Allstars and now a respected comedy teacher, Ferguson was recently accused by journalist Candace Sutton of a months-long and sexually explicit bullying campaign in 1990. He has since apologised for his actions, as have his colleague Paul McDermott and former colleague Richard Fidler.
‘I have a huge amount of respect for Tim and absolutely for what he’s done for women in comedy in recent years, and looking at that particular situation, it’s an interesting jumping off point to discuss what the next step is for #MeToo. Using Tim Ferguson as an example, the conversations I’ve been having with various people in the industry … is that that was pretty bad behaviour by him – but it’s interesting that he’s been targeted and this person, this person and this person haven’t been,’ Waters said.
‘And no-one’s naming anyone because everyone is scared of defamation and it’s a very delicate line to tread, but there are for sure people in the industry that just should not be working in the industry, and have done pretty terrible things. And I really hope that we can navigate though that as an industry, and that those people shouldn’t be getting work and they shouldn’t be allowed into clubs.
‘And even talking to you about this now I’m nervous. There’s so much fear around that still, about putting your head above the trenches and naming something that’s happening,’ Waters admitted.
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival audience; image supplied.
Calling out abusers and serial harassers needs to be done carefully and cautiously, said comedy promoter, programmer and curator, Janet McLeod.
‘There’s a lot of nuance around what is appropriate and what is not appropriate, and everybody has to understand that. So the people who are doing the calling also need to understand what is and isn’t appropriate – as well as the people doing it,’ McLeod told ArtsHub.
‘It’s not an easy conversation, but one of the most important things is that women are speaking out about these things that have been endemic … I know the horrific impact it can have, and it can be horrific. There’s a reason why there aren’t more women in comedy at the open mic level.’
As the #MeToo campaign continues to impact on the comedy industry, it won’t just be people’s behaviour that changes, Zoë Coombs Marr believes – it will be the culture itself, from the foundations up.
‘With certain jokes, meanings are starting to change, and that’s the domain of comedy – words and meanings and jokes and things. They’re attached to the real world. So people just can’t get away with the same sort of behaviours and they also can’t get away with the same sort of jokes which then normalise those behaviours,’ she said.
‘There is a change happening there, and then I think the next step is changing those structures and mediums. There are lots of things that are wrong; there are lots of issues with the form, with the medium of comedy, and particularly stand-up itself. It’s so much about dominating an audience and it’s very much about swagger and ego and all those sorts of things, and it’s those kinds of things that I think can be fine, but which can allow and even reward abusive sorts of situations.
‘And I think that’s much more complex and it takes a really long time to change those things, and that will be a really slow and considered and very complex change that will happen over time,’ Coombs Marr concluded.
Melbourne International Comedy Festival runs until 22 April 2018. Visit https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2018 for details.
