1. Anyone he meets with busy have seen his stand up special The Closer in its entirety.
2. They must meet him at a place and a time of his choosing.
3. They must ADMIT that Hannah Gadsby is not funny
I'm thinking that Dave threw that last condition in just as a way to rankle Ms. Gadsby since she is one of Dave's most vocal critics of his show.
If any of the people who are following this situation were to be asked this question, most of the responses would range from "HELL YEAH!!!" to "FUUUUUCK NO!!!!" with very little falling in-between. Of course, if one were to compare the stand up acts of either of these two, Mr. Chappelle would easily come out the winner. His venues are always well attended with pretty much every member of that audience roaring with laughter. Meanwhile, Ms. Gadsby's are also adequately crowded but the laughter sounds tepid and reserved at best.
That being said, I'm not really on board with declaring a comedian being "not funny" as though it were a statement of fact. Hannah might not be as big a draw as Dave and is probably very VERY far down most people's "Funniest People of All Time" list. However, at the same time, she does have her audience who does appreciate everything she says and does in her routine. You'll have a hard time convincing her she's "not funny" after she's been in an auditorium full of people laughing and cheering at most of what she's said. This goes for every comedian that's ever been declared "not funny" by pockets of the general populous such as Carrot Top, Galleghar, or Jay Leno to name a few.
As I see it, the issue here is not about the talents (and/or non-talents) of Hannah. The issue causing the big cultural divide here is the OVER-INFLATED HYPE around her comedy routine. Too many critics (possibly paid off or coerced in some way) seem to be artificially trying to prop up Hannah Gadsby as this "...bold new fresh approach that will revolutionize comedy..." or something to that extent. What these critics fail to realize is that is not how paradigms in mediums get shifted. It has to happen organically as a choice of the people in the audiences. A quick check of just the ratings on the website Rottontomatoes can demonstrate this point easily.
The results are inversed. With Dave Chappelle, the critics are giving him bad reviews in order to bring his rating down while the general audience is giving him much more favourable reviews. For Gadsby, her critics are heaping praise upon her to get those numbers up. Sadly for her though, the audience score does not agree and is much MUCH lower. In terms of her place and her legacy in the history of comedy, this makes her the exact polar opposite of the great Lenny Bruce.
Back in his day, the late 50's to mid 60's, Lenny Bruce was quite a controversial figure. He absolutely pioneered the "stand up philosopher" approach to comedy in which he unabashedly spoke his mind and never backed down. His routine would go on to influence comedians like George Carlin, Mort Saul, Richard Pryor, and pretty much every other comedian to come after him. Dave Chappelle's stand up is absolutely on the same trail that Lenny blazed. Really, he was the bold fresh revolutionary that todays critics are purporting Hannah Gadsby to be. However, there is a significant difference Lenny and Hannah.
In Lenny's day, he was NOT being praised by critics. In fact, his harshest critics were always having him arrested. He was always getting hauled in to the nearest police precinct under penalty of violating something called "obscenity laws" or some such trumped up charge. He was arrested and tried so often that many of his later stand up routines were just of him reading verbatim the transcripts of any one of his trials.
Thankfully for Mr. Bruce and comedy in general, the people were on his side. Not only did people flock to his shows time and again, many of those so-called "obscenity laws" were relaxed which helped pave the way for many bold comedians I mentioned above and many more.
The exact opposite seems to be happening as far as Hannah's concerned though. As demonstrated by the Rottontomates score above, it's the critics that are with her while the vast majority of the people........... not so much.
I'd even say that the people are more so siding with Dave Chappelle in this debacle over his Netflix special. He's the Lenny Bruce in this situation. While not being charged and arrested, he's certainly under threat of what's called "cancellation" that meaning he could have more difficulty finding performance work in the future. But that's the risk he's willing to take to exercise the right to free expression.
Hannah Gadsby, on the other hand, has taken it upon herself to reiterate what the mobs protesting
Chappelle's special keep saying. They say that his jokes are "harmful" to the trans community and so his special MUST be pulled from Netflix immediately. I am on "Team Chappelle" for this very reason. There is no such thing as a "harmful" joke. People are only "harmed" by a joke if they make the conscious choice to let a joke feel harmful to them. A person choosing to feel "harmed" by a joke is certainly not the comedian's fault. Even if the comedian's intended purpose was to deliberately hurt the feelings of his chosen targets, in the interest of free expression, the listener is still free to interpret that joke in a way that does not feel hurtful. That person is also free to not frequent to auditorium in which the comedian is performing nor watch it on any medium. If more people understood how this freedom works, the backlash against Dave Chappelle would not be nearly as insidious as it is now.
Despite me being entirely on the side of Chappelle here, this does not mean that I am fully condemning Hannah Gadsby. I certainly don't dislike her as a comic and I wish her no ill will at all. Like I said earlier, her audience may not be as big or enthusiastic as Dave's, but she does have an audience that she entertains on a regular basis. If she can hold on to this niche market then she has a long enjoyable career in stand up ahead of her and nothing that I or anyone can say will take that away from her. But, as the question is posed in the title of this blogpost: Is Hannah Gadsby Funny? That is up to individual interpretation of course. If you personally enjoy her stand up, by all means see her do a live performance. If you don't, save your time and money by avoiding her venues altogether. Everyone concerned will be happiest with this arrangement.
I will end this post with saplings of each of the aforementioned comedian's routines. They are all being presented here objectively and you the reader can judge for yourself which one suites you best.
Have fun and keep laughing.
