JIM JEFFERIES
Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, 1925 Blanshard St.
When: Tonight, 7 p.m.
Tickets: $39.75-$107.75 from the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre box office (1925 Blanshard St.), selectyourtickets.com or 250-220-7777
Most celebrities avoid controversy. But the bravest of comedians — Jim Jefferies, for example — run headfirst into it.
Jefferies, 45, is the type who laughs openly in the face of cancel culture, begging ardent opponents of his politically incorrect comedy to come straight for his head. So far, critics have been unsuccessful.
“It’s very hard to cancel someone who’s got 40, 50 stupid things he said that he could have been cancelled for,” Jefferies said recently, during an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
“Every time I hear there’s an inkling that I could be cancelled, I’m like ‘Which one was it?’ Like someone found an old interview of you saying something stupid and I’m like, ‘That sounds like me.’ But you can’t live your life worrying like that and let’s face facts here – you’re only cancelled for the people who want to cancel you.
“The people who still like you, still like you. And, look, I’m at a stage of life where I’m like ‘All right, whatever.’ I’ll sit back on a beach somewhere being cancelled. I’ll be fine.”
The past few years have been full of change for the newly sober comic, from a surprise autism diagnosis nine years ago to the cancellation of The Jim Jefferies Show, in 2019, after three excellent seasons. During the show, the Los Angeles-based Jefferies railed against everyone from Donald Trump and the Royal Family to Jordan Peterson and Sean Hannity, delving further into the world of politics that began with his popular 2014 gun control rant during his Neftlix special, Bare.
“It’s not your day-to-day world, where you will be walking down the street worried about people with opposite opinions to yours,” he said, bemoaning the sensitivity of subjects he talks about.
“But I haven’t felt a time more in history that when I’m at a party I have to watch what I say. And not just my political beliefs but I might say something very mundane and then find myself talking to a QAnon supporter. This will be a person that you’ve liked for the last hour you’ve been talking to him and then you’re like, ‘oh, f—- me, this person’s bats— crazy.’ ”
Jefferies comes to Victoria tonight as part of his Moist tour, which will be turned into a Netflix special next year. If judging by the content of Jefferies’s well-attended dates at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre in 2016 and 2017, the performance will push the boundaries of … well, everything.
He’s happy to go down that road in concert, but stops short of doing so in print interviews, he said.
“I know with print interviews not to answer this. I’ve gone over the line many times, and I have a few I wish I could take back. Most of the bad jokes I’ve said never made it onto a special, so I’m pretty happy with that. But you’re about to ask me: “What were the topics?” Naaah, I’m not tellin’ ya. I’m not gonna get caught having to apologize for something I don’t want to apologize for.”
