I want my story heard, because, ironically, I believe Picasso was right. I believe we could paint a better world, if we learned how to see it from all perspectives, as many perspectives as we possibly could. Because diversity is strength, difference is a teacher. Fear difference; you learn nothing. – Hanna Gadsby
A dear friend of mine posted a summons on Facebook to watch Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby, telling me and his other friends, to “Watch it. Thank me later.”
I watched it a few months ago, at the suggestion of my ex-husband. I watched it then, and was astonished. Nanette is sensationally good, and Hannah Gadsby nails it, over and over and over again. But as I sat down in my sofa, wrapped in woolen blankets, with a cup of hot tea with honey, trying to scare away a headcold that’s been creeping up on me, reading Caspians summons, I figured, why not watch Nanette again?
So I did.
Just as astonished. Bowled over. Nailed. Over and over and over.
There is simply no hiding from her, from her justified anger, from her story.
I am angry, and I believe I’ve got every right to be angry. But what I don’t have a right to do, is to spread anger. I don’t. Because anger, much like laughter can connect a room full of strangers, like nothing else. But anger, even if it is connected to laughter, will not relieve tension, because anger is a tension. It is a toxic, infectious tension, and it knows no other purpose than to spread blind hatred, and I want no part of it because I take my freedom of speech as a responsibility. And just because I can position myself as a victim does not make my anger constructive. It never is constructive.
Laughter is not our medicine. Stories hold our cure. Laughter is just the honey that sweetens the bitter medicine. – Hannah Gadsby
To finish off, I’ll simply quote Caspian:
Watch it. Thank me later.