Patti Harrison’s one-woman mission to fix Hollywood’s trans problem
msn.comthat? I would like to see someone take that rubric and go through [controversial US comedian] Bill Burr’s show, and see the content warning for the poster that's slapped outside of the venue that he's performing at. ”The 31-year-old, best known for her deadpan turns in comedy-drama Shrill and the Emmy-nominated sketch show I Think You Should Leave, says a “double standard” is afoot in comedy, not helped by the “pendulum swing of arguments about PC policing,” which means things now lurch towards the overly sanitised or the outright offensive.
She used to err on that first side, she says. But now, “I’m trying to figure out what the grounds are for art that is effective and provocative, without causing harm. ” She catches herself after this moment of high-minded thought. “Not to be so, like, poopy-doopy about it. ”The US comedian Dave Chappelle has not figured out that balance, she says, choosing instead to say “a bunch of transphobic, provocative stuff” with each new Netflix special.
It produces the same cycle – another show, another slew of people “dunking on him on Twitter. . . [where] people [are] patting themselves on the back for being outraged, and then wondering why nothing changes.
It's a “bummer”, Harrison says, having grown up watching Chappelle’s Show. But he “just doesn't get it, and unfortunately is very successful. ”Along with Chappelle’s Show, humour became a much-needed outlet at home in rural Ohio following the death of Harrison's brother when she was four, and her father, who served in the US military, two years later.
