TRAUMA TOURISM The Complicated Comedy of Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette
I came out as trans to my grandma about a year before she died. My mother was against it, insisting it was unfair to ask someone of her advanced age to contend with such new, complex ideas. I gave my grandma more credit than that.
In a recent interview, Karamo Brown – one of the presenters of the recent Queer Eye reboot – reflects on how he doesn’t like using the term ‘coming out’, instead preferring ‘inviting someone in’: ‘For me, “coming out” gives the power to the other person to accept or deny you,’ he explains. ‘When you’re “inviting them in,” you have the power.’1
I wanted to invite my grandma into my life. I didn’t expect her to understand, but I wanted to give her the opportunity to try.
Her name was Nanette.
In Hannah Gadsby’s award-winning stand-up show Nanette – a filmed version of which premiered on Netflix in June last year – she talks at length about the impact that shame had on her as a young, queer child. That Pride is called ‘pride’ is no coincidence: shame is the LGBTQIA+ community’s bread and butter.
Humour is a survival mechanism for many marginalised groups. In high school, a Jewish friend used to tell the darkest Holocaust jokes. Whenever she would deliver the punchline, we would all fall quiet and she would howl with laughter. I asked her once what was with these jokes
