Ansari returns from exile both defiant and remorseful
Aziz Ansari Hammersmith Apollo, London W6
★★★★★
In January 2018, the feminist site Babe.net published an essay from an anonymous woman which stated that she had gone home with the comedian and actor Aziz Ansari, famed for beloved US comedy series Parks and Recreation and Master of None, and spent the night repeatedly fending off his sexual advances. The specifics of what was written, which included consensual sex acts and an apology from Ansari after the woman told him the following morning of her discomfort, quickly became a cultural Rorschach test.
The pair’s encounter was interpreted as either a hookup gone awry (and undeserving of its sensationalist framing by the site), or a highprofile example of casual male ignorance about consent.
In any case, many believed that Ansari had betrayed his public persona as a male feminist and he took a self-imposed break. Now, he’s in the UK as part of his international standup tour and appears both defiant and remorseful.
On Wednesday night, defiance initially took precedence. Ansari took aim at internet outrage and political correctness, for example mocking white liberals who compete against one another to prove their progressive worth.
It was particularly disappointing because Ansari was
strikingly astute elsewhere. A hypothetical scenario in which Osama bin Laden released a seminal jazz album 20 years before 9/11 worked as a brilliantly ludicrous analogy for our collectively disparate reactions to recent historical child abuse allegations levelled at Michael Jackson. Material related to wildly diverse subjects such as Alzheimer’s, death and contraception felt like a blissful return to form, with Ansari finally replicating the wonderful tragicomedy of his TV output.
It also meant that his last-minute references to the Babe.net story came as far more palatable than they otherwise would have been. Acknowledging the elephant in the room shortly before the lights went up, Ansari expressed regret over his actions, and deep gratitude over
Shortly before the lights went up he expressed regret, and deep gratitude over still having supporters
still having supporters. On the heels of so much misplaced anger at the top of the show, you wouldn’t be amiss to respond to Ansari’s claims of selfreflection with a certain degree of cynicism. But as he soaked up the climactic applause at his gig just a little too long, hanging around the stage even after audience members had begun to make their way to the exits, it truly looked like he meant it.