Saturday, September 13, 2008

Cultural sensitivity, and what the **** is Eddie Izzard Wearing?

I'm watching The Secret Policeman's Ball: The Ball In The Hall, which BBC America saw fit to grace my TiVo with the other night --- and on comes Eddie Izzard, one of the more slightly funny folks around.
As you may know, he's usually dressed in a rather flashy, metallic bronzy-pink pants suit with ridiculously high heels and make-up. Tonight, by contrast, he looks ridiculous: he's got on a collared shirt, a casual blazer jacket, and a mustache.

There's some thing really strange when you see someone you're used to seeing in high camp drag appear in macho mode...


Yours, completely weirded out,
N.

4 comments:

Amadi said...

Eddie's toning it down lately, both to go along with his character on "The Riches" and because he's talked about a potential turn to politics, where having to explain his "executive transvestism" to the voting populace could be difficult. So tone down his "public" persona (versus his performance persona) and posit himself as a somewhat "eccentric" but generally sensible citizen who happens to be a performer (like Glenda Jackson) and get a seat in Parliament. Why not?

Joke said...

That's nothing. You should see him when he looks NORMAL.

I'm still doing double-takes.

-J.

BreadBox said...

Joke: that's exactly my point! I was completely weirded out by it!

Now, following Amadi's comment, I've googled a bit, and discovered he's two seasons into a hit tv show over here --- how did I miss this? --- but given the history (Billy Connolly) of my favourite UK standup comedians in US sitcom hell, I'm not sure that I'll watch.

N.

Joke said...

Do a YouTube search for the pilot episode of "QI" and you'll see him -- knowing the show would never air -- completely out of character. Still amazingly funny, but not "himself."

-J.

PS I love Phil Jupitus' impersonation of EI.