Hannah Gadsby’s new Netflix performance Something Special shines a positive light on lesbian life through comedy. In particular, Gadsby reflects on proposing, marrying and living as newlyweds with her wifey Jenney Shamash.
We love a good lesbian love story. Especially one with the real–but awkward–details that ever-genuine Hannah Gadsby consistently provides. There’s something nonchalantly authentic about the way she conveys everyday panic.
In an interview with Variety, Gadsby speaks about avoiding mentions of the pandemic in Something Special, despite her stories existing throughout it, because she knew people were looking for something else to think and talk about.
“Look, honestly, what I was feeling in the first part of it is everyone’s experience of the pandemic was very different, and I don’t think I had a particularly difficult pandemic in the scheme of things,” she said. “The further I got into the tour, the less people wanted to hear about pandemic topics. I really took the lead from the audience, and I noticed that if anything, people are looking for a framing that wasn’t beginning from lockdown jokes. I think there was also a fatigue around the subject that perhaps meant I didn’t have a fresh take on it — or perhaps people didn’t want to hear about it.”
Instead of focusing on the doom and gloom of personal and societal issues, Gadsby focused on joy and happiness – something she thinks celebrities need to remember. “Generally, I find disappointing that a lot of celebrities weren’t able to suck it [the pandemic] up. Successful people don’t have the problems that most people have.
“I’ve been on the struggle bus, and I understand when I’m not on the struggle bus. And I made a conscious decision. I feel like there’s a lot of anxiety — I don’t not have anxiety; I have an incredible amount of anxiety. It’s really one of my calling cards.
“But I feel like I didn’t want to add to that. I didn’t want people to come out, particularly to the first one, because I created that show on the road, and leave the auditorium feeling more anxious than they came in. I actually genuinely wanted to have a reprieve from that, and that was the seed of the show.”
While Gadsby benefited from the success of Nanette, she made the conscious choice to show a lighter side to her life in Something Special. “[Something Special] is kind of a return to the kind of shows that I was creating before, and also, it’s meant to be thought of in the context of “Nanette” and “Douglas,” and as a way of showing a human being living a life, and changing as life changes them. I don’t want to circle the drain of trauma. I don’t want to be a one note comic. I want to have freedom of expression, and in order to do that, I need to train my audiences to not expect stuff from me.”
