Bad apology department
A BBC radio presenter apologised for “misgendering” Eddie Izzard on air – despite the comedian not caring about pronouns and gender labels.
Anita Anand said she was “very very sorry” after referring to Izzard as “the man” while presenting Radio 4’s PM programme on Friday.
Yet Izzard, 63, who identifies as gender fluid and uses she/her pronouns, has previously confessed an indifference to such labels, telling The Telegraph last year: “He, she – it doesn’t matter.”
In any case it doesn’t matter what pronouns he “uses”; accuracy trumps faddish luxuries. Izzard is a man, so BBC Radio 4 shouldn’t pretend he isn’t. It’s not the BBC’s job to lie to us.
Izzard appeared on the afternoon news and current affairs programme to promote a new production of Hamlet, which is set to tour the UK with all 23 roles played by the comedian.
During the pre-recorded interview, Mrs Anand had asked Izzard to perform a snippet of the play for listeners…
Wait wait wait. What’s this “Mrs Anand” crap? Why is Izzard Izzard while Anand is “Mrs”?
Last February, the BBC upheld a complaint against Justin Webb, the Today presenter, after he called trans women “males” on the BBC Radio 4 programme in 2023.
A listener complained that the comment amounted to Mr Webb giving his personal view on a controversial matter in breach of the BBC’s requirements on impartiality. The BBC’s editorial complaints unit agreed, saying it “gave the impression of endorsing one viewpoint in a highly controversial area”.
Oh get a grip. It’s controversial only because a bunch of pests have systematically and tiresomely made it controversial.
It’s certainly biased to refer to a man by female pronouns! But, I suppose, that’s OK. GRRRRR.
Save me. I saw something similar done in Lincoln, but probably not the same one man version (certainly not the same man). It was awful. It’s the only time I saw the audience laugh when Ophelia kills herself.
Any such play not performed by a member of the RSC would require bringing raw egg projectiles.
But Eddie Izzard? Not in a hundred years. Gross.
He’s been embarrassingly awful even in the bit parts I’ve seen him in on screen recently. Didn’t he get terrible reviews for his previous one-man show? I’m just looking online now and only seeing positive ones – either I’m misremembering or there’s been some selective internet censorship.
He was decent enough in Mystery Men…
BKiSA @5: Well, that was almost two decades before he was involved with gender woo. At that point, he was still calling himself simply a ‘transvestite’, simply a male who wore women’s clothing. So his level of self-absorption was nowhere near what it is now.