“Being Cool About It”: Performing Gender with Eddie Izzard

Abstract

Eddie Izzard in every single performance, just as Michel Foucault in his inaugural lecture, has got an obligation to begin. But, I would argue that within Izzard’s discourse predominantly structured according to the conventions of stand-up comedy, he is able to also incorporate other discourses that were started before that performance and that he actually takes part in from a subversive point of view. Izzard’s position within that discourse is a position of strength, as he – from a position of power as the person on stage – presents his interpretation which, according to him, is the way the world will look at things in the future anyway. There is no anger or bitterness in his analysis of the society as it is today, but he rather presents a position of sovereignty and a strong belief in the generations to come. When Foucault talks about other people’s “desire to find themselves, right from the outside, on the other side of discourse, without having to stand outside it” (1971: 7), the way Eddie Izzard deals with the topic of gender in his stand-up performance as a transvestite might give pointers for what Foucault is talking about.