Comedy is cancelled, what does that say about us?

"Taking the piss" is a national pastime in Australia, and most have run rampant in the trenches.

It is also what Humphreys did. It is different from ridicule. Ridicule is a form of bullying, of verbal violence. You want to demean your subject.

"Taking the piss" is a sign of affection reserved for your mates or a friendly overture to someone who might become a mate. You don't waste your time "taking the piss" of someone you dislike.

The laugh you aim to elicit is a form of affection. It is not a cause for war, but a cause for thoughtful retaliation, all the time widening mutual understanding.

Barry Humphries poses for pictures after he received his Most Excellent Order of the British Empire from the Queen at Buckingham Palace, in central London, on Oct. 10, 2007. (Steve Parsons/AFP via Getty Images)

Humphries was all about "taking the piss," and he did it because he loved his countrymen.

Dame Edna may have swollen to Gargantuan size (or maybe that should be Gigagantuan), but in a way that made you shake your head and smile at what a "ratbag" she was, the mirror image of the other ratbag she'd pass on her way in or out of the dressing room-Sir Les.

His humour was also insubordinate (a quality for which our troops had a reputation). It humanised the powerful and elevated the powerless. It refused to take things at face value or to honour the gravity that they might claim. Edna and Les were insubordinate to a T.

Within the constraints of the theatre, he was a Lord of Misrule, producing a world of equity where up was down and down was up, where men could dress as women and simple housewives be elevated to dames and beyond.

Cancelling Funny Comedy

How could Humphries fall foul of a comedy festival and the lords of cancel culture? Well, comedy isn't comical anymore, it's a progression of sneers.

While comics like Humphries took risks, current comics are prosaic.