Hannah Gadsby – Nannette review (Netflix): From a Straight Brown Man, “I am sorry!”

Now before you start reading my review, give me a chance to convince you for watching this stand-up act. Yes, apart from reviewing this hour of brilliance, I’ll be manipulating your mind so you should have the tempt of watching this as soon as you’re done with reading this.

We don’t have a Salman Khan or Shah Rukh Khan in my article, so I don’t know till how many people will this reach. But even if 10% of people reading this will go and watch the show, it’ll be a contribution towards something which is a global issue & needs to be changed. Hannah Gadsby: she’s an Australian comedian & Nannette is about why she thinks she must quit comedy.

Gadsby is a lesbian & she has been joking about her coming out of the closet since the evolvement of her career as a stand-up comedian. But Nannette is about how those jokes didn’t help her bit to undo the damage she faced in reality. Born and raised in Tasmania, an isolated island state from Australia, she was in a closet from 1989 to 1997 because homosexuality was a criminal act back then. It’s a crime in India, even now! Section 377, which was introduced 157 years ago in 1861, still criminalizes the homosexuality. Yes, we saw some progress in 2009 when Delhi High Court decriminalized homosexuality but in 2012 Supreme Court overturned that order.

“Even now, it is an act of calculated risk to identify publicly as being gay in India, or to advocate for change,” said Ayesha Kapur in her recent interview to NY Times. Kapur is a businesswoman in Delhi, is one of the petitioners challenging Section 377 in court. Hannah Gadsby in her one hour special makes you laugh by feeding the trauma of her life. It’s after the first half hour of the show where she makes us realize how this isn’t your usual stand-up comedy act. How this is more than laughs & smiles because when was the last time you cried in a comical act?

From Donald Trump to Pablo Picasso, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, she names the people who have misused their power in order to abuse the situation. “These men are not exceptions,” she says, “They are the rule. They are not individuals – they are our stories.” Gadsby has been labeled as a man-hater all her life but with Nannette I’m sure she might have made innumerous men hate themselves. Yes, she does the male bashing, not to blame us but to make us realize how there are energies like us out there contaminating the living state of many.

I totally get her point, I feel her when she narrates how once a guy had beaten the shit out of her, I feel sorry for her because of how she was disowned & scarred for life just because she has a ‘natural’ influence of liking women & not men. Just because she is a lesbian, people abandoned her from basic human rights. We are not humans to do this to anyone. “In a world full of animals, she exists as a subhuman”.

To Hannah Gadsby: Hope you read this once in my lifetime & I am really sorry. Sorry for the fact that there was no one around when you faced your life all alone. I’m sorry on behalf of every man that mistreated you & I hope we learn from you a simple lesson of ‘How to be humane’.

• About the Author

About Saurodeep Basak

A caffeine dependent life form. Full-time procrastinator. A man-child. I have this new theory that human adolescence doesn’t end until your early thirties. A man of mystery and power whose power is exceeded only by his mystery. The only thing stopping me from shining in life is my sheer lack of motivation.