Attempt to ban Nikki Osborne stand up routine about son

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ASPartOfMe
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29 Mar 2018, 3:10 am

You can't make jokes about autism!

Quote:

Protestors are trying to censor a comedy show about autism – saying it amounts to mocking children with a disability.

Nikki Osborne is to talk about her experiences of bringing up a six-year-old son on the spectrum as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival later this month.

But the very idea of putting autism into a comedy show has caused offence, with objectors calling on the local council to ban the performances from its venue, Kingston City Hall.

Osborne even said that extra security had been called in for her brief run, should there be any problems.

Some have accused her of 'inviting people to laugh at a child's disability', and an autistic support service in the Bendigo suburb said they were 'fervently requesting this "show" be reconsidered' – their quotation marks –claiming that it may cause harm to the autistic community.

One local resident, Monica Fairbairn, 32, told the local Herald-Sun newspaper: 'I don't like the idea of someone who doesn't have autism making jokes about autism.'

But Osborne, who describes herself as an ambassador and blogger for autism awareness – as well as being an actress, former model and television presenter – defended the show.

Speaking on Melbourne's 3AM radio station she said: 'What comedians do is write based on their own experiences, and my experience as a mother for the past six years has been everything to do with the spectrum, pretty much“

What I'm trying to do is educate the broader public so autism isn't such a taboo subject. I want everyone to have a laugh without being bludgeoned over the head with facts and figures.

'I'm not making fun on an autistic child, I'm talking about the whole system.

'Everyone's ready to be offended… and what does it even mean? It doesn't change the facts, it doesn't change anything.

'But I've got security just to make sure.'

I generally really do not like people using thier kids as fodder but I agree that sometimes we need to laugh about pitfalls in our lives even ones that are painful and serious at the time. I would have to see the show to see if she says anything that will come back to hurt the kid later on in life like “To Siri With Love”.

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elsapelsa
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29 Mar 2018, 6:01 am

I am very careful discussing my daughter’s autism. I would never tell anyone without asking for her consent. We have only told 4 people so far and 3 of them are her school teachers and principal..... and i haven’t discussed it with friends and family, i feel like it is her information not mine. It sits uneasily with me to make a ‘show’ based on things and memories that you have not got explixit consent to share and i feel 6 is young to understand the full implications of such consent.

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ASPartOfMe
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29 Mar 2018, 9:02 am

elsapelsa wrote:

This is the selfie “look at me” era. I do feel like when parents write books or in this case make a comedy about their kids it is at least in part another way to take a selfie, another way to say “look at me”. This was completly different from when I grew up when any medical, mental health, or sexual issue was considered a “personal matter” or your “private business” . Only your immediate family and maybe your closest friend knew. Privacy was considered an important value but the technological advances made privacy quaint and there is no turning back.

elsapelsa
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29 Mar 2018, 9:46 am

^^ well if people want to make that choice about themselves that is fine but i find it hard when they make it for others. It is just that parents think their children and information about them is theirs to own that bothers me. It would be the same about anything. Not just autism. My children would both be mortified if i shared stuff about them that they didn’t want me to share.

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ASPartOfMe
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30 Mar 2018, 12:54 am

https://inews.co.uk/news/entertainment/nikki-osborne-autism-comedy-show-backlash-melbourne-comedy-festival/

Quote:

One group, the Bendigo Autistic Advocacy and Support Service, has written to the venue, Kingston Arts, “fervently requesting this ‘show’ be reconsidered in the interests of preventing harm to our community”. Osborne, has publicly defended her show, denying it pokes fun at disabled children. “It would be very counterproductive to do a show that would make life more difficult for my son,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted the comedian as saying. She added: “If we can’t learn to laugh through our struggles, we’re stuffed.”

Another performer on the festival’s line-up, Ryan Smedley, who has Asperger syndrome, has backed Osborne, arguing that as the parent of a child on the autistic spectrum she is entitled to make jokes about her experience. “The reaction seems ridiculous and over the top,” he said. “What we don’t need is people being banned from a performance by people who haven’t seen the show. If it’s unfunny or in poor taste, then people won’t go to see it.”

Tawaki
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31 Mar 2018, 7:34 pm

How is this different than any Mommy Warrior who has a wide open running blog on their ASD kid from birth to whatever?

I've seen all sorts of stuff on Google searchable blogs. Parents writing all sorts of stuff about potty training, melt downs, vid clips of all sorts of behaviors, and the child really can't give consent.

I refuse to clutch pearls since the horse has been out of the barn for at least a decade online.

kokopelli
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31 Mar 2018, 7:45 pm

Why do so many people want to eliminate Free Speech?

smudge
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01 Apr 2018, 8:27 am

elsapelsa wrote:

I wish my mum was like you.

ASPartOfMe wrote:

My mum is totally a selfie “look at me” person. She turns everything around as a result of autism and how poor her has to put up with me like she is some martyr.

.... Stephen Fry once made some little joke about Aspergers at this radio recording and my mum was there, and she complained.

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elsapelsa
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01 Apr 2018, 8:41 am

^^

:heart: thank you, I really needed to hear that today. Stuck on holiday with my own mum who is very different from me feeling like my parenting skills are constantly under attack!

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smudge
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01 Apr 2018, 9:15 am

elsapelsa wrote:

thank you, I really needed to hear that today. Stuck on holiday with my own mum who is very different from me feeling like my parenting skills are constantly under attack!

I’m glad it cheered you up.

Though I’m not a parent, I kind of get how personal it would feel to have my parenting skills criticized like that, it can’t be nice.

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CockneyRebel
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04 Apr 2018, 5:08 pm

I think that routine should be banned for more than one reason. The first reason is that she will be inviting people to laugh at her son's problems along with her. The other reason is the bad impression that she'd be making on others by joking about the plight of her autistic son. I think that comedians who are parents of special needs children really need to think about those two things that I've mentioned.

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Hollywood_Guy
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04 Apr 2018, 6:43 pm

I'm not for the routine being banned personally (even though it is happening on a different continent totally on the other side of the world from me), but I can see why others might take offense and want to ban it from being performed. As someone said earlier, I'd be careful in this age of information about something that is controversial or not "normal" by most of society's standards. I could see one concern that something or a concept that's not familiar with the "mainstream" could spread viral online and soon everybody seeing gets a bad or corrupted perception, particularly if it doesn't have any extra context.

That kind of thing probably happened many times with certain "non-mainstream" groups and ideas on the net before.

green0star
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05 Apr 2018, 10:44 am

As long as people have a sense of humor then it's not too bad.

ASPartOfMe
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10 Jun 2018, 12:25 am

Banned: A comedy show about autism

Quote:

Organisers are said to have received a ‘barrage of complaints’ that Nikki Osborne had been invited to appear at the expo in Brisbane, Australia.

And she accused those who try to silence her of bullying.

‘I'm not going to take down autism advocates but there's a line when an advocate becomes a cyber bully and there are a few that have crossed the line,’ she told local media.

She added that her ‘conscience is clear’ on the passages when she talks about her son, and said she would be happy for him to hear it.

‘But I do have concerns about what he is going to read online out of context, those advocates paraphrasing what they think I'm saying,’ she said.

Defending her decision to cancel Osborne’s planned appearance at the Source Kids Disability Expo on July 6, founder Emma Price said: ‘Unfortunately, we have already borne the brunt of a debate that is not ours regarding this matter.

‘Our intention is to deliver an event that is helpful and enjoyable for the everyone in the disability community.’

What I'm trying to do is educate the broader public so autism isn't such a taboo subject. I'm not making fun on an autistic child, I'm talking about the whole system.

'Everyone's ready to be offended… and what does it even mean? It doesn't change the facts, it doesn't change anything.

When complaints first arose in March, protester Monica Fairbairn, 32, said: ‘I’m autistic and I don’t like the idea of someone who doesn’t have autism making jokes about autism. It’s not that I don’t want autism being talked about. If it was an autistic comedian that would be funny and relatable.

SabbraCadabra
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10 Jun 2018, 1:13 am

Okay then, time to ban every comedian who tells stories about their children and about being a parent...which is only EVERY SINGLE COMEDIAN WHO HAS CHILDREN.

Idiots.

Next, those bullies will need to ban comedians who mention their parents, or their grandparents, or their creepy uncles :roll:

Let's just ban comedy altogether, it's too offensive.

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League_Girl
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10 Jun 2018, 10:35 am

Parents will even talk about their NT kids telling funny stories about them. I wonder if the child were NT, would there still be objections to this?

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