Comic legend Barry Humphries would have been shouted down and cancelled in the modern entertainment scene says Australian TV host Kerri-Anne Kennerley.
The death of the Australian entertainer and household name at the age of 89 on April 22 sparked an outpouring of tributes from at home and around the world.
British comedian Ricky Gervais wrote on Twitter, “Farewell, Barry Humphries, you comedy genius.”
While Rob Brydon called Humphries a “true great who inspired me immeasurably.”
“It was a delight to call him my friend. I’ve been in Australia and was with him only three days ago. He was, as ever, making me laugh. His talent shone until the very end,” he wrote on Twitter.
Humphries rose to fame as a comedian and actor, as well as performing one-man satirical shows portraying characters (that he created) such as Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.
Kennerley said it would be “very, very tough” for the comic to perform his characters today.
“I think he’d get cancelled pretty quickly,” Kennerley told 2GB radio on April 24.
“It was a time, it was an era, he made people laugh, he made people cringe, he made people wonder where Les came from and what amalgamation of dignitaries he came from.
“But he made us laugh. It’s probably not appropriate in this day and age. But there are a lot of things that aren’t appropriate that we didn’t know 10 or 20 years ago would be off.”
Her comments come as British actress Miriam Margolyes (who played Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter film series) fiercely defended Humphries’ legacy.
“I don’t think he was properly appreciated by Australia, and I don’t think he was properly treated—particularly by the Melbourne festival who cancelled him rather late in life,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
In 2019, organisers of The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (which Humphries helped to establish) stripped his name from the event’s main accolade, the Barry Award, after he called transgenderism “a fashion.”
“How many different kinds of lavatory can you have? And it’s pretty evil when it’s preached to children by crazy teachers,” he told the Spectator UK edition.
He also called attempts to have transphobia codified into law as a form of assault “terrible ratbaggery.”
The Barry Award is now known as the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award.
“How dare they. He had more talent in his little finger than they had in their whole bodies, all of them. I’m outraged by it, and I want to speak up now, to support him,” said Margolyes.
“It’s not about transgender. This was an artist, a great artist. A hugely funny, talented, witty satirist and observer of the human condition. He was acerbic, and he was often quite nasty. But he was a genius, and sometimes you have to accept that,” she said.
She said Humphries was “very hurt and saddened by what happened after the Melbourne festival.”
A string of modern comedians has spoken out against the rise of political correctness, which has resulted in attempts to “cancel” performers deemed to be too offensive for particular groups arguing that freedom of speech is being impacted.
U.S. comic David Chappelle was forced to deal with claims that his most recent Netflix show was transphobic.
“To the transgender community, I am more than willing to give you an audience,” he wrote on Instagram. “But you will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody’s demands.”
Jerry Seinfeld said it had become too difficult to navigate modern sensibility and discern what could or could not be said.
“You just knew what to do [in the 90s],” Seinfeld told Amy Schumer. “We don’t know where anybody’s head is at now. In terms of 300 million people [in the U.S.]. Where’s their head at?”
While Rowan Atkinson, who created the characters Mr. Bean and Blackadder, said cancel culture is unrealistic and the anti-thesis of making people laugh.
“It does seem to me that the job of comedy is to offend or have the potential to offend, and it cannot be drained of that potential,” he told the Irish Times.
“Every joke has a victim. That’s the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous.”