Janey Godley is an actress and comedienne. She’s apparently very funny. Billy Connolly thinks so. This morning, Godley is facing calls for her to be fired from an upcoming Pantomime over offensive historic tweets.
Godley is currently appearing in coronavirus safety commercials. This prompted disability rights groups to demand that she be cancelled because of her jokes about disability. The tweets were posted between 2009 and 2018.
I don’t know exactly what she said. Most of the tweets have been deleted and the press won’t reprint them lest someone with a disability keels over presumably. The use of the term spaz has upset the Twitter lynch mob though. She also made jokes about Chernobyl victims.
Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden took to twitter to say that he’d contacted Godley’s theatre bosses to express his concerns about Godley’s tweets. In his letter he said; “I would ask what checks Aberdeen Performing Arts made as to her suitability for hiring, and its position on her unacceptable references to the disabled.”
You read that right. A member of Parliament is calling for the termination of someone’s employment, because of comments she made in the past. With any luck, his constituents will send him into early retirement after the next election.
I’ve always preferred comics who punched up rather than down. I don’t find jokes about disability particularly funny although there is no evidence that Godley has specifically mocked disabled people. It seems that when she used so-called offensive language she was replying to hecklers.
This is the era of cancel culture, where your career and even your life can be destroyed by social media lynch mobs. In this world there is no room for nuance. There is absolutely no room for forgiveness either.
I’m pretty sure that most people who live with disability would be happy enough for Godley to say; “You know, I was immature there and a bit insensitive. I’m genuinely sorry for using that language. I’d never intentionally cause any hurt to disabled people.”
That’s not good enough. She must be banned, fired, excommunicated and ultimately destroyed. Apparently she has nothing in the bank. She has never done any good. On Planet Dystopia you are forever judged on the less salubrious aspects of your character.
Quick, get scrubbing that Twitter account. You could be next.
Hello everyone. Please have a read. pic.twitter.com/IhL35XSmcR
— Janey Godley (@JaneyGodley) September 7, 2021
