Patriarchy 101
When the reviewer is surprised that a show isn’t about him
Having loved Hannah Gadsby’s previous stage performance, ‘Nanette’, I looked forward to reviews of her new show ‘Douglas’ with a great deal of anticipation, especially since she had previously said she wouldn’t be returning to the stage. It’s always exciting to see what people think of such a intelligent, honest and articulate performer, especially one who’s so passionate and driven about telling her story from her own unique perspective. The fact that she’s a gay, autistic woman of a certain age with issues around her body image does also tick boxes for me, I cannot lie.
I get that it must be uncomfortable as a man to watch Hannah Gadsby’s show, and not feel seen.
However, to turn that around and not understand why she in some way hasn’t structured her show around you personally is next level irony.
“The idea that a black gay writer like me would come from New York to see and appreciate her performance doesn’t figure into her sword-wielding.”
Well, o-k. Perhaps Hannah Gadsby has never encountered any issues with black gay writers, so far. Or chooses not to mention the race or sexuality of the men she talks about, to avoid falling into easy stereotypes of racism and homophobia… She has, as mentioned in the review, addressed the difficulties of drawing lines around race, gender and sexuality. Maybe she hopes her audience will actually be massively diverse, and be there to learn about and empathise with her personal experience. Who knows? But this is certainly ‘solipsism’ writ large, if one wants to talk about returning “to certain words again and again – “the patriarchy,” “marginalization,” and so on – but gives no real grounding in what those words mean.”
If the audience cheer at the mention of ‘the patriarchy’ I think they are comfortable with its meaning, even if I suspect the writer may be less so.
The other major stumbling block in this review is when it touches on disability. To be surprised at Gadsby’s confession of her autism having seen so much of her other work seems a bit of a reach to me, but to then imply that this somehow might render her immune to criticism is both bizarre and patronising, as is the implication that she mentions the time a girlfriend referred to her by the R word in a group text as simply a way to get a “boffo ending.” Whatever that may be.
And then to finally miss the point entirely, you cannot take one person’s story and then make their journey competitive. “And what about other lives? What about the millions who have it worse, who are fighting to survive?” They have stories too, obviously. But that’s not how storytelling works. It’s not a race. We’re here to lift each other up, not mark each other down. I understand the job of a critic is to judge her performance, but it’s not to judge her life, for fucks sake. There will always be someone who has had a worse experience, whose pain is more, who is worse off. It doesn’t mean your pain isn’t real or your story isn’t worth hearing. Good grief.
Each story of someone’s life exists as part of the greater cycle of all stories, and of all lives lived. In many ways, all stories and all lives are equal. It’s not about how much anyone suffered, it’s about being heard, and acknowledging that you survived, and learning from each other so that we can help each other survive. It’s about living, and touching other lives, because we are social creatures and that’s how we work.
The reviewer ends by complaining that her tales aren’t general enough – this in a monologue about one person’s lived experience – and that her rage is too pedestrian. And yet “for an hour and twenty-five minutes, you get to be pissed off at Gadsby’s victimization and to recall the ways in which you, too, have been victimized.” Which to me is surely what making an audience connection is all about.
But no, there it is in the final paragraph. This is what this reviewer wants, it turns out. “Isn’t it a performer’s moral responsibility to instill in us, directly or indirectly, a sense that we can all be bigger and freer than our individual narratives? That we can all, as Michelle Obama counsels, “go high when they go low” – which is to say, live in this world with a modicum of care and grace?”
Stop being so angry. Stop being so loud. There are actually people worse off than you, you know? Be quieter, act with more grace. Be more Michelle.
This review manages to make the review more about the reviewer than Gadsby, telling her she has nothing to be upset about anyway, and that she should maybe go away and think about people worse off than herself, and behave with a bit more decorum in future, maybe be more like these other women that he can relate to more easily.
His discomfort with her performance bleeds from that final paragraph, even though he obviously managed to relate to so much of what she said in her performance. Just as he says he longed to pick up her pieces at one point, you also long to reassure him that it’s ok to feel that discomfort, to be seen, to know you have privilege, and to listen to someone who is marginalised and angry because of it. You can acknowledge these things, and you can say they aren’t right, and you can try to be part of positive change that way. Most of us have some form of privilege, and we can use it to do good once we recognise it.
It’s just a shame he isn’t ready to do that yet, and maybe he’s right, and she should have taken more time on the meaning of the patriarchy for those who don’t yet fully understand it.
That’s not what her show was about, of course, but I suspect this review may go some way to explaining the patriarchy to some people who needed it clarifying.
Don’t tell marginalised women not to be angry. Don’t tell them their stories are not traumatic enough. Don’t tell butch white lesbian women they should be more like Michelle Obama. Don’t ever tell women who they should be, what they can say, or that they have a ‘moral responsibility’ to do anything for you.
