Hannah Gadsby is a little bit lesbian

HANNAH GADSBY IS NANETTE

By Maxwell Elliff

HANNAH GADSBY’S TRIUMPHANT CURTAIN CALL?

Hannah muses how in small towns when clocked at a distance she is often mistaken for a ‘good bloke’.

THE NAME ‘HANNAH GADSBY’ MIGHT NOT IMMEDIATELY RING A BELL FOR EVERYONE, BUT I WOULD WAGER THAT UPON SEEING A PHOTO OF THE AUSTRALIAN COMEDIAN, YOU WOULD LIKELY RESPOND WITH SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF, ‘AH… THAT FUNNY LESBIAN’.

With her distinctive nerdish glasses, boyishly short brown hair and signature attire (reminiscent perhaps of a young, albeit fuller-framed, Stephen Hawking), the lady is hard to miss. For anyone who has caught a glimpse of her comedic chops, she anything but fades into the background.

Having made a reputable name for herself over the past decade on the Australian comedy scene (including regular appearances on Good News Week, Spicks and Specks and Josh Thomas’ semi-biographical dramedy Please Like Me), not to mention doing the rounds on the international festival circuit, Gadsby’s off-kilter, aloof and oftentimes self-deprecating brand of humour rarely fails to provoke and delight. Yet there has always been a sense, for me anyway, that there must be more to Hannah Gadsby than meets the eye.

Through her one-hour Netflix special Nanette, Gadsby confirmed my suspicions… and what ensued was nothing short of storytelling brilliance. In Nanette, which debuted as a live stand-up show in 2017 but reached a global audience this year via the juggernaut streaming service, Gadsby yanks back the curtain on her own identity and humanity while simultaneously deconstructing the nature of comedy and the role of the comedian.

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Catch Hannah Gadsby’s show ‘Nanette’ on Netflix.

NANETTE:

HANNAH GADSBY’S TRIUMPHANT CURTAIN CALL?

HANNAH GADSBY

‘A LITTLE BIT LESBIAN’

For the first several minutes Gadsby plods along, firing away jokes that touch on themes well familiar to her audience. She muses how in small towns when clocked at a distance she is often mistaken for a ‘good bloke’; how she had to vacate her hometown in Tasmania upon the realisation that she was in fact ‘a little bit lesbian’; and whilst loving what it stands for, describes the six-coloured Pride flag as ‘a bit busy’. The audience’s laughter comes easy to Gadsby, as each joke comfortably sticks the landing.

But the turning point comes around the seventeen-minute mark when, while reflecting on having built a career around self-deprecation, Gadsby casually announces ‘I do think I have to quit comedy’. And from that moment

Nanette becomes so much more than a comedy show. Something else entirely.

The layers of Hannah’s personal story begin to unfold. She explains her reason for needing to quit — because the art of comedy, requiring only two parts, a beginning and a middle (or a setup and a punch-line) is inadequate in telling her story. In order to tell her story a third part is needed — an endpoint beyond the punch-line. Gadsby reveals that by telling her ‘coming out’ story through comedy, ‘I froze an incredibly formative experience at its trauma point and I sealed it off into jokes’. In doing so, she sacrifices humility for humiliation, and that is a path she can no longer take.

There is a serious, more dignified tone to the show from here on out as Gadsby dives into a range of subjects including gender, sexuality, mental illness, and high art and its inextricable link to power — but humour is sprinkled throughout to ease the tension of the room and keep the audience firmly on her side (while also a little rattled). On the topic of women being depicted in classical art as either ‘virgins’ or ‘whores’ the unabashedly-lesbian Gadsby supposes, ‘on a technicality, I’d get virgin’; and after urging the straight white men (as the traditional holders of power) of the audience to ‘pull your f**king socks up’, she quips ‘how humiliating: fashion advice from a lesbian’. Gadsby straddles the line between solemn and funny with a fierceness that is impossible to divert your attention from.

In the explosive closing minutes, Gadsby touches on some deeply personal traumatic events from her past but clarifies that she is not a victim, but simply a woman with a story that holds value — a story worthy of being told. It leads to a powerful crescendo, with Gadsby reconciling that ‘laughter is not our medicine, stories hold our cure’. Holding back tears, the typically stoic comedian politely waves and exits the stage to a loud standing ovation. You just might find yourself a little teary-eyed too.

If this is indeed her retirement from comedy, what a way to go out! (Although recent statements suggest that the overwhelmingly positive response to Nanette may compel her to reconsider.) Either way, I have a feeling that we will be hearing plenty more of the name Hannah Gadsby; however, she chooses to tell her story.

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