A few weeks ago, I wrote about comedienne Chrissie Mayr’s Holocaust comments, which I found to have crossed a line, especially when coupled with her interviewing vile antisemite Owen Benjamin a number of times (although they did not discuss the Joooos at all).
After writing the post and a follow-up, Mayr responded indignantly, claiming, amongst other things, the comments were “inside jokes.” And her followers piled on me, calling me things like the “free speech police” (despite the fact I never called for her to be cancelled), with a significant amount of antisemitic rhetoric aimed my way.
Perhaps I will deal with this incident in more depth in another post, but it got me thinking how it can sometimes be harder to ascertain with comedians whether or not they are actually antisemitic, given they say things to shock and shine a light on societal attitudes.
Then more comediennes’ “jokes” came to light, which I think also deserve some scrutiny.
Twitter user shevereshtus drew my attention to comediennes Elle Orlando and Lili Michelle joking about Hitler and Anne Frank, including sleeping with Hitler if he was hotter:
I think we can all agree this is vile and offensive. The question is: were they just being insensitive and trying to push the boundaries with their “humor”, or do they actually harbor antisemitic views?.
In Orlando’s case, after receiving a backlash for these “jokes”, she made her Twitter account private, but not before some users took screenshots.
In other tweets, she took the “I am genetically Jewish so I cannot be antisemitic, but you are for calling us that” line.
It is hard to ascertain here whether or not she is actually antisemitic, or just craves attention by being shocking.
In Michelle’s case, she started scrubbing her Twitter timeline, but I think the answer is clearer, based on another clip that started doing the rounds even before the Holocaust comments came to light:
Making jokes mocking the idea that the Jewish people come from the Middle East does not seem to be for the shock value, but rather points to bigoted views on Jews. Now when I consider her Holocaust jokes, I feel more of a shiver down my spine rather than just disgust.
So to answer my question, yes I do believe some comedians are hiding behind comedy to spread their antisemitism. It all has to do with looking beyond one or two jokes in isolation to see the bigger picture.
Update: Lili Michelle is doubling down.
