Viva Las Vegas

Well, who would of thought it after my brief review below? The Johnny Vegas gig has stirred up a significant shit-storm.

You can read an outraged article here, and then read an amazing array of outraged, ill-informed people talking about rape, ignoring the few sensible posts.

The basic debate is the writer believing that Vegas sexually assaulted a woman in the audience by brining her up on stage and kissing her and possibly touching her inappropriately. This sparked a long argument about how far you can go with art, and whether the nature of comedy is to outrage people.

Actually, that's what should have happened. Instead, it was just loads of people who weren't there repeating again and again disgust at Vegas, and asking why he hasn't been arrested yet.

So, here's what I think.

1) Johnny Vegas is a character. People don't seem to know this. But he is.

2) Whether or not he's funny is entirely irrelevant to the debate (for the record, I think he is funny).

3) The article is misleading at best. It provides quotes out of context, and suggests there was no artistic merit to his act. I think there was. I think most of the poeple there thought there was. I can't see how a large crowd of people would sit and watch a sexual assault unless they felt there was some kind of artistic justification. In comedy, context is very important. Ask Lenny Bruce (via a seance or something).

4) The girl in question seemed to be laughing. She was embarassed, but she made choices of her own free will. People have been very patronising to her, robbing her of the possibility that she could make her own choice.

5) It is annoying that people have criticised the defenders of Vegas by talking about rape convictions and the like. The low level of convictions in rape cases is appaling. Women should have the right to complain if they feel violated. They should have that freedom. But everyone is, for some reason, just assuming that an assault has taken place. The girl has a right to complain if she feels violated, but surely she has the right to not take offense. She has the right to not feel threatened. Just because she has the right to view it as an assault doesn't mean she must. This is what a lot of people seem to think.

The evidence that I saw (the context of the act, her reaction, her choices) led me to believe that she was doing this of her own free will. I have that basis to make my decision.

Everyone that wasn't there can't do that, but they still proclaim their outrage.

I think that the fact that the vast majority of people there made the same decision as me, suggests we were in the right.

Once again, context is important. It's always important for art or performance. If you weren't there, you have no context, so shut the fuck up.

***

So, tomorrow is much more important than gender relations, abuse, libel, assault, and murder. It's certainly much more important than politics (stupid Londoners have robbed us of the ability to feel smug about the ridiculousness of George W Bush, but that's by the by).

It's football. The last day of the Championship season. We occupy the final relegation place at the start of play, but the whole league is tighter than a gnat's hat on a monkey.

I feel bad about writing this now, because the outcomes will all be known tomorrow, and will render this post obsolete.

But I need to record this now, as I still have a small amount of hope left.

If things go badly tomorrow, I may forget that there was ever such a thing as hope. And laughter. And sunshine.

But there was.

It's small: just a tiny gap in the clouds. I hope it works out. I hope like Morgan Freeman at the end of The Shawshank Redemption. And he was on a bus, which is the enemy of hope.

***

I saw Iron Man on Thursday. It was pretty damn great. The source material doesn't have quite the depth of other comics, but they did a very good job. The trouble is I now have a bit of a man-crush on Robert Downey Jr. I don't need that kind of confusion in my life.

So, as an Iron Man fanboy, I give the film 4.5 Helmets out of 5. I'd go the full 5 if they's have included the ill-fated 'armour-with-the-nose' design a try.





















Good day.