Jason Isaacs doubles down on support for trans comedian Jordan Gray
“I just thought she was funny,” Jason Isaacs says, sharing his unwavering support for trans comic Jordan Gray.
Harry Potter actor Jason Isaacs has once again voiced his support for trans comic Jordan Gray after her appearance on Channel 4’s revived Friday Night Live led to hundreds of Ofcom complaints.
Gray’s performance on 21 October concluded with her ripping off her clothes mid-song. The 59-year-old English actor was one of many lauding the performance.
“Jordan Gray just stripped naked mid-song on #FridayNightLive to show off her magnificent boobs and equally magnificent member, with which she played the keyboard as she brought her set to a close and the entire house down,” Isaacs tweeted after the performance aired.
Taking aim at the recent political shifts and uncertainty in the UK he added the display was “so much more dignified than parliament today.”
Since the performance, Ofcom has received over 1,400 complaints about the show.
A Channel 4 spokesperson told Metro it is “assessing the complaints against our broadcasting rules, but are yet to decide whether or not to investigate.”
On Monday (31 October), Issacs doubled down on his support for Gray.
Isaacs began his lengthy statement contextualising the “terrifyingly uncertain” world we live in, including wars in Europe and the threat of nuclear Armageddon.
He then asks: “So, what’s really going on with your outrage when someone strips off on a late night edgy comedy show, well after the ratings watershed and where the presence of adult material and nudity has been warned against and is almost ubiquitous?”
He continues, “Maybe, since nudity and sex is everywhere on the channel (have you seen Naked Attractions?), the problem is that, this time, the naked body was transgender? And/or that I called Jordan’s boobs and penis magnificent?”
The actor calls Gray’s performance a “magnificent, subversive act” and that it made for “challenging and sensational television”
“The tsunami of insulting tweets denigrating the shape of her breasts and the size of her penis spoke volumes about the body shaming and fear of the other she was trying to subvert,” Isaacs continues.
He adds: “Yes, ‘her’ penis. An enormous number of people dredged the barrel of playground taunts to find names to call me and Jordan for that grammatical courtesy.”
“So calling any transgender or [non] binary person by their favoured pronouns is a grammatical shift for me, hopefully increasingly easier with time, but it’s a huge deal to people who suffer so much from prejudice and violence that it feels pretty selfish not to make the slight effort to ease their journey.”
Citing Harry Enfield and Victoria Wood as edgy comedians that haven’t received the level of criticism Gray has, he calls those that refuse to acknowledge Gray’s comedy genius “angry” and “confused”.
Isaacs concludes his post by referring to conversations around women-only spaces, gender-affirming care, and more as “genuinely controversial issues”.
These, he says, “are areas for serious debate between serious people, conducted with respect and compassion on all sides. Not on Twitter and not about this. And, I suspect, not with you.”
Retweeting Isaacs’ message, Gray thanked the actor adding that his message “means so much to so many people.”
Gray was The Voice UK’s first transgender contestant, she appeared on the show in 2016.