Hannah Gadsby Just Destroyed The Notion Of “Good Men” In This Amazing Speech
"I find good men talking about bad men incredibly irritating, and this is something the good men are doing a lot of at the moment."
“Guess what — all men believe that they are good,” says Hannah Gadsby in a typically powerful and uncomfortable speech at the The Hollywood Reporter’s 2018 Women in Entertainment gala.
“I find good men talking about bad men incredibly irritating, and this is something the good men are doing a lot of at the moment.”
The Aussie comedian and star of the exceptional and hugely popular standup special Nanette is becoming well known for being the best thing at wherever she is — she’s the best part of Tasmania, her sporadic dog pictures on Twitter are the best things on the medium, she ruled the Emmys, and now she’s absolutely dragged men at the Women in Entertainment gala.
She’s irritated with the way that “good men” talk about “bad men” — and the way its become a hot topic for them to appropriate.
“I want to speak about the very big problem I have with the good men, especially the good men who take it upon themselves to talk about the bad men. I find good men talking about bad men incredibly irritating, and this is something the good men are doing a lot of at the moment.”
Ouch. The men she is putting squarely into her crosshairs are “Jimmys”.
“I’m sick of turning my television on at the end of the day to find anywhere up to 12 Jimmys giving me their hot take. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the Jimmys and the Davids and the other Jimmys — good guys, great guys. Some of my best friends are Jimmy. But the last thing I need right now in this moment in history is to have to listen to men monologue about misogyny and how other men should just stop being ‘creepy,’ as if that’s the problem.”
Look, it’s an astounding speech — watch her now:
.@HannahGadsby kicks off #WomenInEntertainment with a powerful speech. "What happens when only good men get to draw the line?" pic.twitter.com/A7Nc0fSSOq
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 5, 2018
She explains that men should not be in charge of defining who are good and bad, about the line between them. She explains that only “women should be in control of that line, no question.”
“My issue is that when good men talk about bad men, they always ignore the line in the sand — the line in the sand that is inevitably drawn whenever a good man talks about bad men: “I am a good man. Here is the line. There are all the bad men.” The Jimmys and the good men won’t talk about this line, but we really need to talk about this line. Let’s call it Kevin. And let’s never call it that again. We need to talk about how men will draw a different line for every different occasion. They have a line for the locker room; a line for when their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters are watching; another line for when they’re drunk and fratting; another line for nondisclosure; a line for friends; and a line for foes.”
Hannah Gadsby referring to men who “misread” situations as “garden variety consent dyslexics” has me GASPING
— Caitlin Welsh (@Caitlin_Welsh) December 6, 2018
“You know why we need to talk about this line between good men and bad men? Because it’s only good men who get to draw that line. And guess what? All men believe they are good. We need to talk about this because guess what happens when only good men get to draw that line? This world — a world full of good men who do very bad things and still believe in their heart of hearts that they are good men because they have not crossed the line, because they move the line for their own good.”