‘This was harassment’
SPEAKING OUT: Female comic in tears over lewd heckler
OTTAWA — Comedian Jen Grant has performed in many a gritty club over her 16-year career.
She says she knows hecklers, and how to deal with them.
But a recent corporate gig in Toronto took on a darker tone — one she says was sexual harassment — prompting her to walk off stage and take her story public.
“I’m not the type to just complain for no reason, I’ve done a lot of hard gigs with hecklers,” said Grant, who now lives in Toronto and has performed at comedy festivals across the country.
“Even though it’s not something comics like, necessarily, people are vocal sometimes and you’ve got to deal with it when they come at you. But this was beyond heckling, this was harassment.”
On May 13, Grant was hired to deliver a 45-minute comedy routine at the Ontario Printing and Imaging Association’s Excellence In Print awards at a Toronto-area country club.
Unlike typical nightclub gigs where comics are uncensored, there are performance guidelines at corporate shows that implore comedians to “dress classy,” as Grant describes it, and avoid talking about sex, politics and religion.
“I get introduced to the stage and within about three minutes I am interrupted by a male in his late 30s/early 40s saying to me, ‘There’s a 51 per cent chance that my buddy here will have sex with you, and I will take the other 49 per cent,’ ” Grant wrote in a Facebook post. She said she tried to maintain her composure when the heckler’s abusive language took on a “rapey” tone.
As the man continued harassing her, she became emotional and walked off the stage in tears. “I was publicly humiliated,” Grant said. She said the next day the vice-president of Montreal-based printing firm TC Transcontinental called her to apologize on behalf of their employee. The employee has been suspended with pay pending an internal investigation, the company said.
Grant said TC Transcontinental’s swift response to defuse the situation shows that tolerance of sexism is wearing thin.