Hannah Gadsby

Yeah, like if Sarah Silverman talks about vagina, I'm all ears.

But if, you know, like Roseanne or somebody else does that, or Hannah Gadsby, I don't...

I don't want to hear it.

Well, Hannah

Gadsby.

Hannah Gadsby isn't nice.

I don't even know Hannah Gadsby.

She's a

What would that resistance be about? And how would you try and reach that resistance side to your younger self knowing what you know now having come out of those spaces

well i definitely think i would because i would listen to the podcast and be resistant to it because i did i remember my older sister when hannah gadsby's comedy special nanette came out she said go watch this and i remember i watched the special and i was just kind of like okay i'm It really didn't change my opinions on anything.

I didn't have any sort of reaction to it.

I kind of was just like, that was dumb.

Mm-hmm.

I love Hannah Gadsby talks about that she identifies as tired.

[laughs]

Mm.

We're choosing certainty over curiosity, hardness over softness, and somebody always ends up unseen.

Enter Hannah Gadsby.

Hannah Gadsby changed the way I and so many people understand neurodivergence, communication, and what it means to truly meet another human being where they are instead of where we expect them to be.

Hannah describes receiving an autism diagnosis later in life as, "An exfoliation of shame." That phrase has stayed with me ever since.

This time with Hannah reminds us that different is not deficient, that many of the people we love are doing invisible work every single day just to move through a world that wasn't designed for them, and that understanding each other isn't about getting better at talking.

It's often about getting better at listening.

If you've ever felt misunderstood, if you love someone whose brain works differently than yours, so everyone, or if you're trying to trade certainty for curiosity in a world that desperately needs more of that, we hope you'll listen.

Here's our conversation with the brilliant, hilarious, and deeply wise Hannah Gadsby.

One of my favorites that I had mentioned, Bill Hicks, he's been, he passed away years ago, but in college, I think I, I don't know how many times I listened to the CDs that I had of Bill Hicks.

But in thinking about this show, especially for Liv, it reminded me of Hannah Gadsby's special Nanette.

Have you seen that? I

have.

Yes.

And Nanette is tough.

Nanette is, Hannah Gadsby was at a point in her career as a standup comedian where she was considering leaving it.

And Nanette was actually sort of meant to be her like farewell because she was talking about the importance of tension in comedy and but then she connected it to, you know, how the self deprecation type of jokes that she would make that she was sort of using her own real world trauma as the basis for her comedy, because as a member of the LGBT community, there is a fair amount of, like I said, trauma that she had gone through.

Yeah, no, that's a pretty solid spoof.

You know, there are a number, and I don't know where Emily Catalano identifies as being on the spectrum or not, but Hannah Gadsby certainly does, the comedian from Australia who I interviewed for TV.

And there's a couple of other comics that I really like who I think identify as being on the spectrum, which is a really cool thing to get to see is, you know, people out there living their life and doing comedy and really kind of like, I would say, harnessing the way that maybe their brains are not, their brains are, not neurotypical, is that what I'm trying to say? Like kind of just using the way that they look at the world a bit differently than maybe I would to great comedic effect.

It's actually kind of, you wanna talk about awareness, it's like a cool thing to get to see how somebody's arriving at sort of different ideas or arriving at the same ideas from maybe a different route because of the fact that they're neurodivergent in a way.

I'll just do a quick one because I actually – there's a good chance I've spoken about this on the pod like 50 years ago when we started it.

But I just had the craving one night to do a rewatch of Hannah Gadsby's Nanette,

her one-hour

stand-up special.

Like I reckon I could, I watch it at least once a year.

it's such a roller coaster.

I think Hannah Gadsby is a master, like an absolute genius at, I was about to say manipulating her audience, but yeah, like the ebb and flow between hilarious and tragic is incredible.

If you haven't seen Nanette, I highly recommend it.

Thank you for doing this.

And something that you just said actually inspired a new question of, as someone who also, like Hannah Gadsby says, I identify as tired when people talk about like the grind of comedy, the late night stuff.

And like, I don't think I'm necessarily built for that.

But I'm wondering how you dedicate your energy and time, what advice you would give for those of us of the depressive tired set?

Nearly, but never.

Because Hannah Gadsby heard this story and then was going to put them all in their special.

Because they just made a video version of Wolf, their latest album.

And they were going to put the Beanie Babies in the special.