Hamilton’s Levity Comedy Club has cancelled this weekend’s two shows by Alberta-based Danger Cats, but the controversial comedy troupe will perform at another venue in the city.
Troupe member Brendan (Uncle Hack) Blacquier said the comedy club dropped the shows following CBC Hamilton’s Jan. 31 article, which noted the troupe’s history of racist jokes and appearances on white nationalist podcasts.
“The good news is, our good friend Jason Rouse, the jester of Hell, has lined up a new venue for us,” Blacquier said in a video posted online on Sunday, adding the troupe will perform at EndZone Bar and Grill in Hamilton’s east end this Friday. The troupe has performances booked in other Canadian cities in the coming weeks.
Rouse is a shock comic from Hamilton who now lives in Los Angeles, and has two of his own shows booked at Levity in August, according to his website.
In the video, Blacquier made jokes at the expense of trans people and individuals with HIV, saying, “We are very inclusive when it comes to standup comedy. We make fun of everybody. We include everybody.” Danger Cats’ other performers are Brett Forte and Sam Walker.
CBC Hamilton contacted Blacquier by email for comment about the Levity cancellation. He responded with no text, sending only an image of a smiling person’s face covered with what appears to be blood.
Levity booker and manager Patrick Coppolino did not respond to CBC Hamilton’s requests to explain why he booked and then cancelled the two shows.
CBC Hamilton left a message Tuesday for EndZone owner Grant Koropatnicki, but did not hear back by publication time.
Late last week, social media users called on Levity to cancel the shows.
Caitlin Craven, executive director of the Hamilton Centre for Civic Inclusion, said several people concerned about the shows brought the comedy troupe to her attention.
“Any institution or venue right now really needs to be thinking about the way these harmful ideas are spread,” she said in an interview last week. “Part of the bigger issue is that we definitely see a lot of alt-right and white supremacist ideas couched in the language of it just being a joke.”
Several local comics posted in support of Coppolino and Levity.
“Pat Coppolino has always carried the torch for comedy as an art form and lifted all comics up as artists,” wrote Andrew Duncan Cormack on Facebook. “If you aren’t a fan of something, don’t support it, but keep your opinions yours and don’t ruin it for the world.”
Other venues cancelled shows last year
Other comedy venues in Canada have dropped Danger Cats shows after a public outcry.
Last March, one in New Westminster, B.C., cancelled after the group promoted T-shirts depicting serial killer Robert Pickton holding a bacon strip, underneath the words “Pickton Farms.” Pickton was known for targeting sex-trade workers and vulnerable women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Many of his victims were Indigenous.
The troupe’s jokes have also targeted Jewish people and Indigenous children who died at residential schools. Danger Cats members have appeared on podcasts and in photos with members of Diagolon, a far-right group named in a 2022 House of Commons report as an example of “ideologically motivated violent extremism.”
Blacquier’s social media posts target numerous marginalized groups and refer to the Danger Cats’ shows as “desensitivity training.”
In an interview unrelated to Danger Cats, comedian Kliph Nesteroff spoke to CBC previously about the idea that people are too sensitive today.
Nesteroff is also the author of Outrageous: A History of Showbiz and the Culture Wars.
In an interview on CBC Radio’s Commotion, he said his research found society today in fact allows much more freedom of expression than it did in the past.
“Compare the fact that I can walk around town and see side boob everywhere I go to the Janet Jackson nipple controversy of 2004,” he gave as one example of evolving social norms. “Contrary to the idea that you can’t say anything anymore, you can say more things today [except] in the realm of bigotry, or perceptions of bigotry, where there are some new taboos.”
Nesteroff added that complaints about censorship and cancel culture often miss the fact that both sides — for instance, a comedian and members of the public who protest a comedian — are practising free speech.
He also noted the advent of social media makes it seem like more people are complaining about comics and their jokes.
People are more aware of other people’s opinions than they have been in the past, he said: “It creates this feeling that people are oversensitive.”
