The Hodgetwins: No Filter (SCF)

Judging by the length of the queue stretching an almost gratuitous distance down the street outside Factory Theatre, YouTube stars the Hodgetwins [sic] are pretty damn popular. But, popularity is by no means an indication of quality where comedy is concerned. No doubt the overflowing coffers at box offices will keep the Hodge brothers, Keith and Kevin, in the good graces of promoters for the foreseeable future, but believe me when I tell you, I've seen mouldy bread with more relevant culture than you'll find at one of their gigs. Maybe I'm a snob. Maybe I'm not their target demographic. But as I dutifully shuffle in with the opening night crowd, I can't help but feel like a prissy theatre critic at a fuckboi convention. In fact, there's no simile required: I am a prissy theatre critic at a fuckboi convention.

But prissy as I am, I'm no prude. I have no problem with dick jokes. I have no issue with inexplicable quantities of wank gags. I've LOL'd a-plenty at the grubbiest of toilet humour punchlines. But the pesky thing about comedy is that it has to be funny, and just loudly bleating naughty words and bullshit anecdotes about sexual conquests has all the comedic finesse of making a baby laugh by jangling keys in its face.

I must admit, this was the first time the Hodgetwins had come onto my radar, but it was clear from the admittedly delighted audience's singalong-a-stand-up, as they recited punchlines and pre-emptively laughed, that this American double-act have a limited and apparently regurgitated repertoire. For those of you reading this who have yet to discover the joys of the Hodgetwins, they somehow boast over 1.2 million subscribers to their YouTube account, where they mostly give running commentaries on things they're eating, or offer exercise tips. The fact they are now an internationally touring stand-up act makes as much sense as Donald Trump winning the Presidency.

I'm of course aware that where our respective senses of humour are concerned, it's different strokes for different folks. I can appreciate that not all comedy can or should be high-brow, and that sometimes an easy, thought-free laugh is the perfect entertainment. But for all their undeniable popularity, for all their legions of impressionable fans, this pair of bodybuilding knuckleheads seem completely oblivious to the fact that what they put out into the world has an influence.

Inane smack-talk bravado about the gigantic size of their junk is one thing. But peddling stories that deride, humiliate, and degrade women for a few cheap laughs, that promote dangerous and non-consensual sexual behaviour, that expose a thinly veiled level of nauseating ignorance to the fact women's rights, right now, are being trampled in their native US and elsewhere in the world, doesn't make me laugh. It makes me fucking furious.

It is telling that Hannah Gadsby's extraordinary and excoriating Nanette, a show that blasted the hate and discrimination of our patriarchal society, should win the top award at this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival just days before the Hodgetwins arrived Down Under. Their show is the polar opposite of Nanette, and if Gadsby's comedy is officially the best, then the Hodges' is unquestionably the worst.