Why is Nanette important?
To begin with, I must lay this information on the table, that before watching Nanette, I had no earlier experience of watching comedy specials. So in that case, I had a virgin mind who was absolutely intrigued to see a handful of people posting and reposting emotionally charged Instagram stories only to emphasize how important it is, for all us to hear this out. No sooner did I join the bandwagon than I realized the frenzy about the piece.
Hannah Gadsby, ‘a fat, queer woman’ from Tasmania wrote and performed this incredibly brave one-hour comedy special to question comedy, to announce why it is time for her to quit comedy which in turn destabilized the entire narrative of stand up comedy. I must also lay this information on the table that I'm not here to analyze and dissect this text. I'm not here, neither to review nor to write a critical piece while I quote NY Times and The Guardian. All that is readily available to you. It's just a click away. I'm here to share why Nanette is an important narrative now, in the best and the worst of the times that we live in.
Dialogue about mental health is still a stigma. Even though it is making its way in the mainstream world, but it’s still a niche. Once, I had suggested a dear friend to start going to therapy. I added that it would be better for her to talk about all that is bothering her with a professional. The response I received was a pregnant pause and her baffled eyes coldly interrogating me, ‘You mean to say that I’m crazy?’. Quite long ago, one of my very best friends stopped taking medication prescribed to her by her psychiatrist. She also stopped visiting this said psychiatrist as well because her parents were afraid that it would be difficult to find a suitable suitor for her if she has such a ‘record’. I presume I’m successful in explaining to you, my patient reader, what my point is. Amidst such preconceived notions, Gadsby took her stand, told us how she takes antidepressants, how Van Gogh medicated, how and why we have the sunflowers.
The turning point is this, that she wants us to believe that we have the sunflowers, not because of his medication, but because he had a brother, who was his ‘tether’ to the outside world. Theo loved him, helped him out to navigate a world that only Van Gogh perceived, and somehow, it seems that particular view of the world was complicated, intense than ours. Human connection on the basis of empathy, cooperation, kindness, and love has the power to change and create.
Gadsby talks about how she had frozen one of her formative experience to its trauma point and has sealed it off with jokes. The experience being, how she was physically assaulted by a man in a bus stop because she is a ‘lady faggot’. She was mercilessly beaten up. You could see her face changing its hue to red, when she says that she didn't report this incident, she didn't visit the emergency room, because all she could think of is, that's what she is worth of. Quite like the dialogue about mental health, the dialogue about sexuality(except the ‘gender normals’) is a taboo. When someone is ‘incorrectly’ male or female, that becomes a handy plain for many of us to joke, to discriminate, to ostracize, to bully. Even though sexuality is not someone could choose, like you choose the flavor of ice cream, our understanding of sexuality is purely gendered. Hence the bullying and snide remarks.
Gadsby touches upon the men of the locker room talk, the straight white man privilege, men abusing their power to abuse vulnerable women because they can. It is because of Gadsby, my view about Picasso experienced a transformation. During the years of graduating with literature, I came across Cubism. The philosophy that Picasso established, threatening the single stable world perspective, was a revolutionary stance for my teenage mind. Being so wrapt in the newly lit fire of aesthetics, also, I didn't know better then, it is true that I didn't place the question that Gadsby puts forward. The multiple perspectives that Picasso tries to establish, is one of those perspectives a woman’s? The stories of abuse and trauma have always been controlled by men. Gadsby emphasizes the collective process of healing where all our stories belong to each other, all our stories belong to everyone.
Nanette is just not a comedy special. It just not about the jokes that she cracks to diffuse the tension that she had ‘artificially inseminated’. It's a performance text where the orthodox definition of comedy is challenged at every step. It's a text that is so bare and ruthless that there is no way to run other than to face the reality. Since the release of this Netflix special, I've lost count of how many times I had watched the same. It's uncomfortable, it's painful. You will feel a whirl of emotions, from pain to anger to disgust to empathy. You will laugh and spill tears at the same time. There lies the success of the text. Being personally affected by something this powerful is baffling my mind. Nanette is a savior of dark times for me. It is therapeutic to re-watch, to affirm my vulnerability, to take account of it, to not be ashamed of it because “there is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.”
If you haven't watched Nanette, please do. PLEASE!
