Miriam Margolyes has scolded people labelling the late Barry Humphries a transphobe.
The tributes quickly rolled out following the comedian’s death last week, but many were also quick to point out Humphries' controversies regarding his stance on transgender people.
In 2018, Humphries referred to being transgender as ‘a fashion’, during an interview with Spectator magazine.
While in a 2016 Daily Telegraph interview, he said those who undergo gender reassignment surgery are ‘mutilated men’.
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The comments prompted the Melbourne International Comedy Festival to strip his name from the prestigious award, ‘The Barry Award’, which is given to the most outstanding show.
Past winners of the award, Hannah Gadsby and Zoe Coombs-Marr, were among the artists calling for the prize to be renamed.
Festival director Susan Provan has since defended the decision, telling ABC Radio Melbourne that the name change award was because Humprhies ‘made some comments that just did not reflect the values of our community’.
However, she insisted the festival had ‘not cancelled him’ and is now taking the time to consider an appropriate tribute for the Aussie icon.
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"He passed 24 hours before the last show [of the 2023 Melbourne International Comedy Festival]. We had over 300 shows that needed to be put on yesterday. So it's been pretty frantic," she added.
But while speaking to ABC, Harry Potter star and a longtime friend of Humphries, Miriam Margolyes, ripped into his critics.
“I don’t think he was properly appreciated by Australia, and I don’t think he was properly treated, particularly by the Melbourne [International Comedy] Festival, who cancelled him rather late in life,” Margolyes said.
“How dare they. He had more talent in his little finger than they had in their whole bodies, all of them. I’m outraged by it, and I want to speak up now to support him.”
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She continued: “It’s not about transgender.
"This was an artist, a great artist. A hugely funny, talented, witty satirist and observer of the human condition. He was acerbic, and he was often quite nasty. But he was a genius, and sometimes you have to accept that.”
Margolyes added that while she disagreed with Humphries' politics, she’s ‘disgraced’ at how he was treated in the country.
She added: “If people can’t see that, they need something shoved up their bum.
"I’m not saying he was right in his politics – I told him to his face that he was wrong. But he was the greatest comic who ever lived.”
Charisa Bossinakis