Michelle Grace Hunder
Read Part 2 of Jim Jefferies’ Rolling Stone AU/NZ Cover Story
The Australian comedy giant on being labelled a misogynist, his difficult relationship with his mother, and the one joke he regrets
For most of his career, Jim Jefferies has earned criticism for vulgar jokes that he himself admits are misogynistic. While less so these days, overly graphic sexist jokes and the repeated use of the word ‘cunt’ were something of a trademark of his set. But Jefferies rejects the suggestion that he hates women.
“I don’t believe I’m a misogynist, no. But that’s, you know, that’s probably what a misogynist would say. I would rather this be a part of an interview where people could actually hear me talk rather than read what I’m saying. But look, you’ve never watched a female comic on stage go on about some guy they fucked who had a little dick who didn’t make them cum and thought, ‘How dare she?’, right? Now, if I was to make a joke about some woman’s genitalia being too large and me not ejaculating, I’m the worst man in the world, right? There is no difference between these two jokes. There just isn’t. Do you believe that that woman, when she makes that joke, hates men? No, you don’t think she hates men. Like, you know I don’t. Women are half the population, I’m going to make jokes about them. I do self-deprecating comedy all the time where I make jokes about myself. Oh, I guess you could make an argument that I hate myself [laughs].”
So why did Jefferies focus so much anger towards the women he joked about? It’s not actually a question I get to ask Jefferies, because before I can, his laughter stops and there’s a change in mood. I can see him debating with himself, before he decides to “let [me] in on something”.
“My mother was a hard person to grow up with. She was a very hard woman. [She] was physically very abusive and verbally a very abusive person. So sometimes, I imagine I have had a chip on my shoulder about women. And it’s probably been unfair for much of my life. […] Because my abuser was a 300 pound woman growing up. You know what I mean? So that’s where that might come from. Now if you were to hear a female comic in an interview say that their father was abusive and belittled them and was physically abusive and all this type of stuff, and then they said something about, you know, how fucking men are, you wouldn’t begrudge them. You could see where that’s coming from. But for some reason there’s no grey area with this, that you can’t see where I’m coming from. Or why is this the one subject where you don’t know I’m joking?”
I put it to Jefferies that there will be some who will sympathise with his trauma, but ask why he chose to work out his issues with women on stage, rather than in therapy?
“If what I’m saying is making people laugh, I’ll do it wherever the fuck I want. If what I was saying was so unrelatable to other people it wouldn’t resonate.”
So are there any jokes that Jefferies regrets? One. In his 2016 Netflix special, Freedumb, the comedian took aim at actress and renowned anti-vaxxer, Jenny McCarthy. Or more specifically, at her son. To a theatre of laughter, Jefferies jokingly asked whether he was actually autistic or “just Jenny McCarthy’s son.”
“I was more doing it because she was an anti-vax person. And I thought what she was doing was very detrimental to the world. And I felt like she was a person who was more of a hindrance on the planet than anything, and so I made a joke about her child. As a parent now, I’m deeply sorry I did that. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Although he’d likely hate the observation, these days Jefferies’ comedy has matured, and while it has seen a broadening of his audience, not all of his die-hard fans are stoked about the change.
“People write to me all the time going, ‘You used to be much funnier’. And I feel like going, ‘Well, to you I was much funnier. And to other people, I’m much funnier now’. I’m just trying to evolve. I think it would have been very sad for me to be in my fifties wearing the tight leather jacket with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth saying ‘fucking cunt’ all the time and ‘someone’s a bitch’ or something. You know what I mean? So you just evolve to where you are as a person.”
Despite being clinically depressed — something the comedian feels an obligation to talk about in his stand-up specials — that evolution has seen a healthier and distinctly happier Jefferies — and he’s determined to keep it that way.
“I’m not on meds for the first time in many, many years, so I must be in a pretty good state, but I just always keep an eye on it […] I find therapy is the key for me and also marrying my wife helped a lot as well and not because she makes me so happy but just the fact that I know that there’s someone who’s got my back all the time. So no matter how bad things have got, I’ve got my best friend with me all the time.”
I’m curious to know, given he’s spending more time in Australia again after leaving over 20 years ago, what Jefferies’ opinion of the current state of comedy in Australia is.
“I always felt through living in Britain, ‘Oh, the British comics are so good. Oh, the American comics have got their own thing’. And I always sort of felt that maybe Australia was always a few steps behind. But I’ve been completely proven wrong.”
Talking with Jefferies over a number of hours, two things strike me. He’s quick to deflect compliments, and even quicker to praise other comedians around him. While discussing his new show, Jim Jefferies and Friends, Jefferies says a number of his guests have what it takes to make it big overseas. Like a giddy kid excitedly reciting the line-up of a fantasy football team, he reels off a list of names that includes Amos Gill, Katie Wainhouse, and Mel Buttle.
“Fucking hell, [Buttle] was good, man. I hadn’t seen someone that raw-product-good in years. So I was just mesmerised in the wings. She did a 10-minute routine about when you’re a kid and you want a soft drink and your dad’s at the shops and you have to hint about it the whole time, and it was like, fuck, it was good.”
And what of Jefferies’ place in Australian comedy? It’s complicated. While these days he can sell out tours across the country, the comedian confides for a long time, he felt his career was deliberately hampered here. He says his style of comedy saw him unfairly written off and denied opportunities. In true Jefferies form, he’s happy to name names, and one person the comedian accuses of standing in his way continues to hold an influential position in the industry. It hasn’t stopped him having the last laugh.
“Because I was a ‘smut peddler’, and I wasn’t ‘what Australian comedy was all about’, and ‘in Australian comedy we are more highbrow than this’. Yet I was the bloke who did the gun control bit that went viral […] I’ve done more for Australian comedy in a left and right wing agenda way than anybody else has done it and I don’t get the credit because of my past. But I do get the credit, because right now I’m on the cover of fucking Rolling Stone [laughs].”
Read part 1 of the Jim Jefferies Rolling Stone AU/NZ cover story.
This article features in the September-November 2024 issue of Rolling Stone AU/NZ. If you’re eager to get your hands on it, then now is the time to sign up for a subscription.
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