Director says the renewed focus on the comedy festival taking Humphries’ name off an award in 2019 is ‘really, really inappropriate’
, despite his name being stripped from the MICF’s main award in 2019 over comments he made about the transgender community.
The festival’s director, Susan Provan, defended the 2019 decision, telling Melbourne radio station 3RRRFM it reflected the event’s inclusive and diverse community. She said the criticism directed at the festival after Humphries’ death was “weird, sad and really, really inappropriate”.“We found this whole thing really distressing because as I said on Saturday night, we posted a tribute. So much of the media has claimed that we did nothing.
Provan said there was no doubt Humphries helped raise the festival’s profile at its inception almost four decades ago, but stressed this was a “tiny, tiny, tiny part of his career” and the focus on it was “a bit sad”. On Sunday, actor and Humphries’ friend Miriam Margolyes told the ABC that he had been “very hurt and saddened by what happened after the Melbourne festival” andFilm director and friend Bruce Beresford also said the decision to remove Humphries’ name from the award was “a disgrace”.
“I mean he’s one of the great comic geniuses … how can you take his name off an award like that? How offensive, how insulting,” he told ABC RadioProvan said the 2019 decision was very controversial at the time and criticised those who sought to highlight it after Humphries’ death, rather than focusing on his achievements. She said some critics had unrealistic expectations of how the festival should have responded.
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