Yahoo News Debate Ignites After Comic Arj Barker Ejects Breastfeeding Mother From Venue for “Disrupting” His Stand-Up Performance
A debate has been sparked about who should be allowed into performance spaces after an American comic interrupted his set at the Melbourne Comedy Festival to ask a mother to leave the venue, as her baby’s gurgling during breastfeeding had disrupted the show.
A walkout from several attendees followed the awkward moment on April 20 at Melbourne’s Athenaeum theater when American comic Arj Barker stopped mid-set during his performance of The Mind Field show to ask mother Trish Faranda to leave the venue with her 7-month-old daughter; the baby’s fussiness during the performance led the mother atempting to soothe her with a breastfeeding, as she told Australian radio station 3AW.
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“She wasn’t screaming,” explained Faranda, who says she sat at the end of the row in case a quick exit was necessary. “She was just being a baby, she gurgled a little bit, she had a bit of a whinge … nothing loud.”
As the baby’s gurgles became increasingly noticeable, Barker made a crack about the noise, saying “I speak baby and she said ‘Take me outside.’” This escalated and soon Barker asked Faranda to exit the auditorium — leaving her feeling “humiliated,” as the mother said.
“I was not comfortable to stay,” she told 3AW. “People were out to have a good night, and that’s fine if he was not coping with [the baby’s noises], I don’t want to impact other people.”
Any humiliation may have been assuaged when 10 to 12 women left the auditorium after Farranda in an act of solidarity, she confirmed to 3AW. The women’s protest also saw “one lovely gentleman” join in and make an exit after the incident, she said.
Other men in the audience weren’t so understanding, according to comic Ellen Mahoney, who gave a raw account of what she saw at the Athenaeum Theatre, calling it a “Masterclass in what not to do.”
“What ensued was a tense silent standoff of confusion between the woman who was not sure if it was a joke she had to leave and Arj trying to get the show back on track,” she explained in a social media post that made its way to Reddit, adding that the following moments made the whole thing “awful and gross to witness” from the audience.
“Men in the crown loudly started telling the woman to get the fuck out. Loud, aggressive male voices,” Mahoney wrote. “Arj did not intervene or tell the men to calm down, to not speak that way, to treat these people with respect in any way.”
Other accounts of the incident from audience members vary, with some indicating that the comic did the right thing at the moment and others refuting the claim that the baby was disruptive. .
“Arj got distracted, he was trying to tell a joke, he quite politely stopped and said, ‘Would you mind? Could you please leave?’” attendee Steven Adlard told The Guardian. “She just sat there, and the baby settled down, and a few minutes later it started again. He was trying to perform and he couldn’t. He wasn’t rude to her, he just said ‘All these other people are here to hear the performance, and they can’t.’”
Another man who was identified by The Times of London newspaper as David said the baby was not being disruptive, yet Barker stopped the show and asked that she be taken outside. “The crowd wasn’t sure whether he was serious — but he was dead serious. It was unbelievably awkward,” he told The Times.
Barker said in a statement following the incident that a 7-month-old infant should never have been present at his show to begin with, while refuting the notion that it was the breastfeeding that led him to eject her from the audience.
“The show is strictly aged 15-plus, as clearly stated on the ticket site,” he said. “She had an infant with her, the baby was disrupting my performance. On behalf of the other 700 people who paid to see the gig, I politely told her the baby couldn’t stay. She thought I was kidding, which made the exchange a bit awkward.
“I could just make out a woman holding a baby, I had zero idea if she was breastfeeding — nor would that have been a factor, because I don’t have any problem with that.”
Barker indicated that Faranda was offered a refund but reiterated his assertion that no baby should have ben present to disrupt the show to begin with: “Theater staff should not have seated a baby in my audience in the first place,” he said.
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