An allergy to pandering: Q&A with Gianmarco Soresi

Gianmarco Soresi is Italian, Jewish, critical of Israel and a pretty nice guy. But he’s a comedian first. 

Interview: Jonty Langley 

Photo: © Mindy Tucker

If you like crowd-work comedy, you’ll know Gianmarco Soresi – the tall former theatre kid with a complicated relationship with his dad and the very Italian name – who also happens to be Jewish. (This article is from an issue of S(h)ibboleth magazine which featured several essays and interviews with Jewish people critical of Israel and its actions in Gaza and beyond)

He’s very popular online, his quick and winsome responses to audience interactions never straying into cruelty, but always very, very funny. He is one of the most gifted comics working today. And while he’s not a ‘Political Comic’, he’s not afraid to tackle politics – Israel included. He talks to S(h)ibboleth about ‘legal comedy’, pro-Israel expectations and walking ethical lines in art. 

Here's a clip of what he does, but you should check all of his stuff out, because he's the best. 

Here's the interview: 

What percentage of your work is art versus craft? There’s a smooth effortlessness in your performance. It feels like pure art. But I imagine there’s a whole lot of work that goes into crafting it to make it look that way?

If I were to break it down like that, I would think of it more like inspiration versus the craft. And they’re both kind of the art at the end of the day. 

I really just kind of float around the day, sometimes a little bit stoned, sometimes just busy, and I just take a lot of notes – any funny thought, any funny idea. I write it down, and the craft part can be: how do I put these two things together? Where do I move the word? How do I build it up? How do I make more of a clause to mislead from the punchline? And that’s kind of the really technical side of things. 

And then when I’m on stage, I allow my mind to wander. I go back to the inspiration. I think a lot more about the musicality of what I say and the rhythm of what I say. And so, it really is this flow from being a writer and being a performer.

Your movements on stage are very distinctive – how much of that is choreographed and how much of that is just you being you? Is that part of what you craft?

There’s definitely some things, some moves, some turns that evolve naturally and then I codify it. But I think I struggle staying still. Whether it’s ADD, whether it’s anxiety, it’s many little things that just result in me moving in that way. I definitely lean into it and allow whatever I feel to happen, but I’ve always sat in a strange way. I’ve always felt just a little bit too long and lanky. When I was a little kid, four or five, I used to dance in the living room with my mom and dad separately. And I had this urge. I told them: we need to put our living room on a stage so people can watch this. Whatever that desire is, to be witnessed, that feeling joy isn’t enough – like the joy has to be witnessed to complete the picture... that’s part of my DNA. 

I’m not a dancer, but in a way, I literally am fulfilling what I wanted as that child. I have a stool on stage. I have some furniture, and I am dancing, in my own way. That’s ultimately what I want to do, a kind of pure form of expression. My mind, my voice and my body. Stand-up comedy is literally getting to do all of it, all at once.

You do a lot of crowd work, but lately I’ve seen you tackle quite a lot of political topics. Your vibe is not ‘political comedian’. How would you define yourself?

It’s a tough balance, because when I think of people that are described traditionally as political comedians, a lot of times they’re so partisan or they’re so in line with a particular political ideology, that they isolate themselves from anyone that might disagree with them. And I think it almost defeats the purpose of saying anything. They literally cultivate the choir to preach to. And especially in today’s comedy and media landscape, the algorithm, you don’t have to see anyone you don’t want to. So, if you are constantly frontward-facing about all your views, or they all fit in this one particular way, you’re just not going to be seen by anyone who disagrees with you. 

I like that old Groucho Marx adage: “I wouldn’t belong to a club that would have me as a member.” I want to be critical of all things at all times. I think that’s what my role is as a comedian. I’m not a solution proposer. A lot of times, people will respond to a criticism I might have of someone’s actions: “Well, what would you do?” I don’t know. I’m not in charge of it. But I can for a fact state that this in front of me is bullshit. Pointing out the hypocrisy of something in front of me is where my role starts and ends. To do that in an entertaining way. 

How do you navigate that in a context now where the demand must be enormous for you to propose a solution and give us your programme?

I just think I have an allergy, that I try to keep sensitive, to pandering. Because in my mind, that’s not comedy. It’s just a collective cheering of “yeah, we all are right.” And I just don’t think it’s funny.

I want to surprise. I want it to be a new thought. 

It’s not a bit that I’ve released yet, because I’m still fine tuning it, but… as a Jewish comedian who criticises Israel, people online will sometimes assume, if I say that I’m Jewish, that I must be a Zionist. And then other people say that if I’m not a Zionist, that means I’m not Jewish. And the literal form of that is where I go: “this is weird”. The comedic version is: “You know, sometimes I feel like I need a country of my own.”

How do I take the original thing, which is just, here’s life, and come up with an absurd, funny, irreverent solution to it in a way that is not proposing a policy? I’m just taking it to its comedic but weirdly logical conclusion. And that’s what I strive for more and more, especially in another Trump era. I feel like I really witnessed a lot of great comics feel the need so deeply to talk about everything Trump was doing, that they lost anyone who didn’t agree with them, so they no longer were swaying or challenging everyone. And also, they turned a blind eye to anything anyone did outside of Trump. 

Photo: © Courtesy of Netflix

How do you navigate not pandering but also having ethics in what you do? You seem to make that tension itself exciting. 

I think I’m constantly having to fortify and question: what are my lines? For example, me and my podcast co-host, we have a policy of no politicians on the podcast, at least right now. And it’s partially because I don’t want my podcast to become a hangout for politicians. I don’t feel that I have the requisite skills to question them as intensely or with as much intelligence as I think they should be. I don’t want to be responsible for them if they turn around suddenly and now I have to revoke my support. 

And maybe there’s a time where it will change and I’ll feel like oh, this is meaningful or good or interesting, but at least right now in the moment that I think entertainers have gotten to, we need to create a little more distance again. 

I did a fundraiser where some money went to Zohran [Mamdani, now Democratic nominee for Mayor] in New York recently. I like him. Wouldn’t have him on the podcast. 

Coming back to being Jewish and assumptions of Zionism, how much of that do you get?

It really just depends, with the internet, whether a joke is going viral or not. It’s never come up at a show, no-one’s come to my shows and heckled me with that. 

Sometimes I speak pretty harshly, I’ll make jokes that are purposely a little bit pointed because I see Jewish Zionists so weaponise the Jewish card or the Holocaust card to win an argument. 

There was one show where someone, wrote: “I’m gonna come and beat the shit out of you,” or something. I don’t get too many threats, but this one rattled me a little bit. I think I brought pepper spray with me to the show, just in case. And that was because I saw that someone took a picture of a Palestinian, he was sitting in a chair, drinking an espresso, amidst the rubble. And this person had said, something like, “My husband’s great-grandfather survived the Holocaust and I’ll tell you he wasn’t wearing a nice pair of pants, sipping an espresso.” They’re basically intimating, [what’s happening in Gaza]’s not what you’re saying it is because of this one picture.  

It’s such a misuse. It literally is counter to what I was raised to understand to be the lessons of the Holocaust, which is that any group of people can suffer, that humanity was capable of horrible things. And I see the misuse, I see the fact that most people struggle to weigh in there, so I come in, I think I quote-tweeted: “It’s not our fault your husband’s great-grandpa didn’t have any rizz,” or something. 

It’s purposefully crass, but also, if it was the great-grandfather commenting, maybe that might have been too harsh or whatever. But it’s this person literally using it as an undefeatable tool. And I say, as is the comedian’s wont: “You’re full of shit,” and undermine it completely. 

And people got mad at that one, of course, because they go: “You’re being flippant about this thing.” Well, you were using this thing, you were weaponising this thing. For my money, you’re exploiting the Holocaust to prove your own personal political point and to undermine a whole group being bombed mercilessly. And I have the social clout, simply by being a Jewish person, to speak honestly about it. 

Did you have to decide “I’m not gonna be mean. I’m not gonna make people feel like shit”? And how much does that run alongside “how is this going to play on the internet?” 

Look at the end of the day, if there’s an interaction I don’t think it’s good, I’m not going to put it out. And of course sometimes an audience member says something that’s kind of fucked up, and I decide that’s not worth putting out there. 

And then there’s just lessons about self-righteousness. I did a gig in North Carolina a couple years ago, when Brittney Griner had just been released from the prison in Russia, and I had a joke that was subversive that wasn’t about Brittney Griner per se, but it started with that setup. It was a good, twisty, mean joke that I was proud of, that wasn’t preachy. But I started it, saying: “Brittney Griner was released from foreign prison…” and this audience member said “Boooo!” And I hadn’t learned my lessons yet, I said: “I think it’s good when an American is released from a foreign prison,” and it was so not funny. No-one in the audience liked it. That guy came up to me afterwards and he felt bad – which maybe he should have – but he was like, “I was just joking, man,” and then left. And then I felt like an asshole. 

People bought tickets to a comedy show, so if I want to do anything extra, if I want to sway people, if I want to challenge people, it’s got to be funny first. 

In the new Trump era, people are proclaiming the end of cancel culture, the idea that ‘comedy is legal now’ thing, Where are you on that?

Comedy has context. This idea of comedy being legal or comedy not being legal is as simplistic a way to look at the world as when people go: “we need free speech.” No-one in the history of the world has ever fully believed in this childish version of pure free speech. Everyone has caveats.  And the same thing with ‘comedy is legal’. A lot of those people have a series of jokes that they wish they could make, but you won’t see any of those comedians really make fun of Joe Rogan. Because their employment is tied to that. 

And ultimately, they got it back to a degree. There’s more spaces they could go say more slurs and not get fired from their job. I don’t think the comedy is better though. And I think they’re ultimately going to find the hollowness of it. I think they’ll quickly find out that there’s just nothing to it. Anyone can say a word. 

Comedy exists within society. That’s one of the reasons comedy can age really poorly, because it talks about the thing in front of it. 

I think there was certainly a time during the Covid era, when we were all online and you could get in what felt like outsized social consequence for one joke, particularly a joke you put out at a different time. And I do agree there was some overzealousness. We couldn’t change the power at the top, so we punished very intensely with things within our control. And I do agree some of it was absurdly outsized and some people were a little too excited to do it. But the world’s also changed since then. Comedy moves on. Living and having your art be born just of that resentment is very boring and two-dimensional.

Are religious audience members harder to deal with?

I haven’t done too many shows where everyone is the same religion. I would honestly say the hardest audiences are homogeneous. 

I certainly do shows where I see people with a crucifix or a yarmulke and I’m surprised that they like me. Because I sometimes, if I’m in a in a particular mood, I will go pretty hard. But that’s fine. 

I haven’t been invited to many temple shows since sharing my views on Israel, that’s for sure. 

This is an edited version of a longer interview with Gianmarco on the Beer Christianity podcast.