Nanette: A Case Study in Empathy

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It’s not going to be painless. I think that is important to get out of the way up top.

Hannah Gadsby’s special “Nanette” is not the Netflix comedy special you put on to zone out and have a laugh. No, Nanette is something much bigger and (at the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious) far more important. Knowing that going in will help you stay patient and realize, for as funny as the special is, the point is not the laughs.

I’m aware of how strange that sounds considering the wealth of choices we have when it comes to standup comedy, which has been booming for some time now. There are new specials from comedians I have never heard of popping up regularly on Netflix. While there might have been a finite amount of airtime on traditional television, Netflix has provided an unlimited opportunity for comedians to make themselves known. The world of standup comedy has expanded quickly into the corners of our awareness.

But that awareness is generally only concerned with two things: Are you funny? How did you get so funny? Profiles and interviews of comedians spend a considerable amount of time discussing their upbringing and why they are so funny. Regardless of the origin story, it is an incomplete one which ends when the success starts.

How did you get started? How did you end up here? The end.

We generally don’t need any more information to enjoy them. We are happy to accept the jokes as told. To be entertained.

What we don’t see, mainly because we don’t look, is the cost of humor in daily life. For some people, there is no cost, it is merely an extension of who they are. We take for granted the sacrifices people make to get a laugh. The way they create an identity better suited for audiences or subvert their own identity fearing it will separate them. Rarely do you get to see somebody disassemble their art form in real time.

What Hannah Gadsby does in Nanette deconstructs standup comedy, the structure of art itself and her untold story, and reassembles the pieces into something so uniquely significant it has made people argue whether or not it actually qualifies as standup.

This is not the same way you can hear a musician talk about the making of a song. Or those TV specials where a masked magician shows you how famous tricks are done. Those are instruction manuals. Recaps of the process. In those scenarios, there is nothing at stake for the artist or for the audience.

Nanette is so unique because Hannah refuses to lower the stakes or make it easy for the audience. She is incredibly honest and open and the result is often discomforting. She provides laughter as a framework for the hour she is on stage, but she also builds a scaffold of true, painful stories. And while most comedians would aspire to bundle the two together for a seamless structure, Hannah refuses to do so. Her special leaves you with mixed feelings, unresolved conflict, and a partial sense of catharsis hard earned. It is why this special is so important.

In an interview, I once saw Kurt Vonnegut say something to the effect of; People often say about the experiences in their life “Oh it really put things in perspective.” That means the rest of their lives are out of perspective. And something is really wrong with that.

When all we consume is what we know and understand, we encourage a loss of perspective. Our world is not only how we want to see it. The self-prohibition of unfamiliar and opposing viewpoints damages our capacity for empathy.

I have always found it fascinating that art enables those on the fringes of our culture, people of different religion, color or sexuality, to create something the public adores, while still keeping the creator on the fringe. We are willing to accept this thing you have made, but not you yourself. You can play your music so we can dance, as long as you enter through the side door.

We as consumers are excellent at separating the art from the artist. It is something I have spent a lot of time struggling with. When I was younger (read: more ignorant) I was able to do so because all I wanted was the art. But the older I get, the more I want the whole story. I’m not looking for unbridled access to the artist’s life. I just can no longer separate who you are from what you do. I don’t think it is fair we give “brilliant” artists carte blanche to behave poorly.

Hannah confronts all of it. Just as she, a student of art, was unconvinced in the narrative she was sold about artists like Picasso and Van Gogh, she became disillusioned in the narrative she was selling.

I don’t believe it is something most artists are unaware of, it is a Gordian knot of their own creation. How do you remove yourself from the identity you have created to succeed in an industry of unique identities. How do you step outside yourself without also stepping outside your career? Striving to be known for something is rewarding up until the point it becomes a prison from which you can’t escape.

Nanette is not for everyone. It will make people uncomfortable, or angry, or just frustrated. But others will see the incredible light in it and resonate with its truth. Regardless of how you end up feeling after the fact, I still believe it is something everybody should see.

It is important for us to see art that is not “for” us. To see strange and foreign art. To hear the voices of the silenced, the ignored, and the overlooked. The point is not just to like it but to understand its value. We can only benefit from taking the time to understand another’s point of view.

Empathy will not always be comfortable. But it will always be important.

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