Now, you’ve never heard of Henrie Stride. I’ve never heard of Henrie Stride. But in a single article in The Age last Sunday, Stride became a one-woman embodiment of all that is wrong with Australian television.
In a short profile, Stride talked about attending comedy festival shows looking for panel-show guests. I would call her a “talent scout” except the article makes it quite clear she’s a “beauty pageant judge”:
Tonight, Stride is searching for panellists for SBS’s forthcoming sports comedy show, The Squiz. Pacquola, with her easy grin and chirpy tales of betrayal, has caught her eye.
“A lot of women’s comedy is angry and quite hard, bitter, man-hating, lesbiany. Not very many female comedians are commercial — but she is really pretty and her comedy is upbeat; she has potential,” Stride says.
So if you’re thinking of getting into comedy and you’re a lady, make sure you stay upbeat and pretty! Don’t do any of that silly political material – it will only give you wrinkles. And for god’s sake don’t be lesbiany. That’s so important that Stride has made up a whole new word to get it across.
In fact, the word “lesbiany” gets to the heart of the matter. For a start, it’s not a real word. Secondly, by directly telling us that LESBIAN = BAD, Stride has tipped from latent homophobia to overt homophobia. That may be acceptable at Channel 9 (in fact, I suspect it’s mandatory) but for someone representing SBS it’s downright offensive.
And finally, it shows her ignorance about comedy. Later in the same article Adam Hills is quoted as saying “The best kind of guest is a comedian who chats to the audience, who improvises, who can be spontaneous and also has genuine warmth. Above all else you have to be likeable — you can be the funniest person on the planet but if no one likes you it won’t work.” You know who that sounds like? Sue-Ann Post. Or Hannah Gadsby. But hang on, aren’t they lesbian comedians? Or are they lesbians but not “lesbiany”?
It probably doesn’t matter because if Eddie McGuire doesn’t want to bone you (so to speak) then you have no place on television:
“Commercial stations need to capture as much of an audience as they possibly can — grannies have got to like you, mums, dads, girls have to want to f— you, guys to be your mate.”
Stride even admits she has no sense of humour (she actually says “It takes a lot to make me laugh” but I suspect I’m closer to the truth on this one) and that she doesn’t care if the talent is funny or not:
“I’m looking at the person for their marketability — are they attractive, outgoing, warm? Being hilariously funny and the best comedian in the world is not the whole objective for me.”
So effectively Henrie Stride is a gatekeeper for mediocrity, doing what she can to keep Aussie television boring and small. I’m sure she’d claim she’s just following orders, and as a person she may not be totally odious (after all, even Hitler liked dogs). But she sums up everything bad about local television – the under-estimation of the audience, the casual homophobia, the dismissal of talent and skill in place of bland homogeny – and like all universally accepted television “truths”, it’s all a load of crap.
According to the word of Stride, there would be no place on TV for Alan Brough, or Mikey Robbins, or Rebel Wilson, Mick Molloy, Michelle Laurie, Sue-Ann Post, Peter Hellier or Frank Woodley. And yet these people continue to be popular with viewers. Don’t the viewers know they should hate them? In fact, why is Shaun Micallef still on telly? Isn’t he too old? And Andrew Denton – he’s far too nerdy – he even has glasses which implies his vision is somehow imperfect. Why is someone as ancient as Gretel Killeen still sullying the airways? And surely Kerry O’Brien isn’t scoring well with in high-school girl demographic?
I see a future – not too far away – where Logan’s Run is heralded as a visionary documentary and only clones of the young Catriona Rowntree will be allowed on Australian television. They’ll host, they’ll guest, panels of Rowntrees will play against each other on Mildly Comedic Panel Shows, they’ll interview each other about hair and make-up and even present the Brand Power ads. When a Rowntree clone reaches the age of 40 she’ll be shot through the head on Celebrity Imperfection, the top-rating show on Channel 9. Everything will be attractive, outgoing, warm, pretty and upbeat.
And everyone will sit at home watching downloads of The Wire.
UPDATE – T-shirts now available! If you would like your own Bitter, Man-Hating, Lesbiany T-shirt, click here!
For the full horror of the original article from The Age, click here. To see what Jess McGuire at Defamer said, click here. To hear this story discussed on the Boxcutters podcast, click here. And here’s some You Tube footage of Stride discussing her work:
April 24, 2009 at 8:03 pm |
What?
April 24, 2009 at 8:12 pm |
Let me try again.
Holy Crap!
Hmmm. I’ll go and consult with my vocabulary and get back to you.
April 25, 2009 at 9:11 am |
Is this real? Apart from the rather startling views expressed, the thing that surprised me, if real, is that the author of the article seems to agree with Ms Stride’s views – no critical commentary there at all; and that the editor allowed it to be published as such? Has there been any commentary on this in the mainstream media?
April 25, 2009 at 10:30 am |
Spot on, OI.
Is she trying to make “lesbiany” a new word for “unattractive” in the same way that “gay” has become synonomous with “lame”?
BTW, I think the quote which starts “The best kind of guest is a comedian who chats to the audience… ” is actually Adam Hills talking.
April 25, 2009 at 10:46 am |
Sorry Dave AA, I had missed that. Only the pronoun gives it away (and what’s with that use of “ironically”? What is the writer trying to say with that?). I’ll go back and fix that later today.
Lord Toastie: Yes, I too first read this and thought “she’s having a laugh”. I was so convinced this woman was a comedian doing a John Safran/Chaser style stunt, pretending to be an obnoxious David Brent type, that I contacted SBS publicity to check she was real. They confirmed she was, although they honestly didn’t seem to see how bad the publicity was for them. Apparently this was the first time they’d heard of the article, even though it’s been the talk of the comedy festival. Media-wise there’s been a few blogs, comments on The Age’s rather poor comedy blog (there was no single place to talk about it, so they’re scattered all over the place) and I believe a number of female comedians have written a letter to be printed in this week’s Sunday Age.
April 26, 2009 at 12:03 pm |
Some letters from The Sunday Age today:
Bitter? Us?
CASTING director Henrie Stride was quoted in The Sunday Age as saying: “A lot of women’s comedy is angry and quite hard, bitter, man-hating, lesbiany” (“Casting about for a comic alchemy”, 19/4).
We the undersigned would like Ms Stride to publish a list in which she puts each of us into one of those categories. She’s obviously familiar with women on the comedy circuit and it would be great for her to share her expertise with us. Henrie, can we be in more than one category? PLEASE! Do we get a prize for being angry, bitter, man-hating AND lesbiany?
Nelly Thomas, Andrea Powell, Bev Killick, Catherine Deveny, Christine Basil, Claire Hooper, Clare Bartholomew, Courtney Hocking, Denise Scott, Felicity Ward, Fiona O’Loughlin, Georgina McEncroe, Geraldine Hickey, Geraldine Quinn, Halley Metcalfe, Hannah Gadsby, Jodie Hill, Josie Long (UK), Judith Lucy, Julia Zemiro, Kelly Fastuca, Louise Sanz, Nelly Thomas, Rachael Maza Long, Rachel Berger, Sarah Millican (UK), Sarah Ward, Susanna Brisk, Wendy Little
Regarding Henrie
TALENT scout Henrie Stride is presumably a caricature, spouting sexism and homophobia like a lot of women’s comedy is “man-hating (and) lesbiany” and “not very many female comedians are commercial” as preparation for a mockumentary or workshopping material for Sam Newman.
The ironically named Henrie manages to effortlessly encapsulate everything blinkered and embarrassingly retrograde in our self-elected commercial taste-makers. Of course she wants to keep the sisters down and preserve a culture that revisits a 1950s world view or, even worse, a time when Channel Nine was still the one.
I don’t buy a word of it; she must be joking, right?
DAVID BRANIGAN, Melbourne
Misguided or what?
A TALENT scout was quoted as saying “most female comics are angry, bitter, man-hating, lesbiany”. That’s not true — we’re just alcoholics! I’m sure this person was misquoted, misguided and then routinely set among the pigeons. There is a fantastic line-up of funny females waiting in the wings who are man-loving mammas who are merely taking the mickey, mixing up the mirth, mentoring the minxes and moving on from the malarkey of the feminist backlash.
JODIE HILL, Fairfield
April 26, 2009 at 12:05 pm |
And a follow-up article here: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2009/04/25/1240606654267.html
Sadly, while Stride apologises for upsetting people – “I was too judgemental and a bit harsh in hindsight … I hurt people and that was certainly not my intention.” – there’s no discussion or apology for the inherent homophobia of “lesbiany”. As David pointed out above, it’s just as offensive as using “gay” to mean “lame”.
April 26, 2009 at 3:42 pm |
She’s on Facebook! Is it against the Facebook rules to send her hate messages? You can send people messages without actually being their friend.
April 27, 2009 at 3:07 pm |
Possibly not relevant, but Iceland yesterday elected a lesbian as prime minister; presumably Henrie would be choking on her Weeties at “lesbiany” behaviour being given such prominence.
April 29, 2009 at 11:43 am |
Hannah Gadsby was wonderful, and the best and brightest spot in the otherwise disturbing line-up at ‘Shaggers’ (the show where guest comedians come and tell jokes about sex). She was delightfully lesbiany, if I may attempt to appropriate the expression for more positive use. More to the point, she was engaging, warm and funny. If I say she’s also kind of cute, do I ruin my argument?
April 30, 2009 at 8:43 am |
I think Narrelle has got it right: we just need to reclaim the term ‘lesbiany’ (even though it didn’t actually exist prior to this article). So, I greatly look forward to seeing more delightfully lesbiany comedians, or engagingly lesbiany works of theatre, or possibly having a coffee with some interesting and witty lesbiany friends.
April 30, 2009 at 12:22 pm |
Mmmmmm – lesbiany ladies ;)
April 30, 2009 at 12:33 pm |
What I like about ‘lesbiany’ as a new word is that it can be used to describe women (and men) who are not in fact lesbian, but have that lesbian-like allure about them.
No, I don’t know what I mean either. But let’s work on it and get that sucker into the Macquarie dictionary!
April 30, 2009 at 2:04 pm |
I have considered further and decided that, at this point in its lexical evolution,’lesbiany’ means ‘not taking any sexist or homophobic shit from the likes of Henrie Stride’.
May 3, 2009 at 12:34 pm |
…so…according to the androgynously named Henri – would I be funny if I was more bitter, man-hating and lesbiany?