Antoinette Lattouf has addressed the controversial prank she and Yumi Stynes, Clementine Ford and Inspired Unemployed comedian Jack Steele pulled on an unsuspecting audience back in April.
Hopping on her podcast The Antoinettes, which she co-hosts with American poet Azure Antoinette, Lattouf joked that she was going to “break her silence” on the issue. While it’s a funny jab at a common headline a lot of publications use, the fact of the matter is none of the individuals involved in the “prank” have yet addressed the incident.
Starting off the pod, Lattouf explained how the situation came to be.
She says streaming service Paramount+ approached the panellists to be part of a television segment on the Inspired Unemployed’s The Inspired Unemployed (Impractical) Jokers. The prank was designed to include “three high-profile Australian feminists” on a panel titled “Love Unboxed” as some form of humourous “punishment” for Steele, whose Aussie larrikin personality would clearly be out of place in such an environment. He was to be fed lines from his friends to say out loud, which would be so obviously hyper-masculine that the audience would laugh at how ridiculous he was.
“Yes he was pranked and uncomfortable but what we didn’t anticipate was that the audience felt punked and uncomfortable,” said Lattouf.
To this, Azure Antoinette comedically pointed out that the audience, who were genuinely excited to attend a free feminist event which promised genuinely engaging discussion, probably wasn’t the right group of people to pull an Inspired Unemployed style prank on.
“Which of the three of you, or was it all in unison, was like, this should go over well because our audience is quippy?” she laughed.
Lattouf explained that she and the other women involved genuinely believed the audience “would enjoy being annoyed at him”, but realised after that by not being in on the joke, a lot of the audience felt like they were “the butt of the joke”.
“When I realised I had upset the audience I was mortified,” she said.
“I took for granted my audience.”
Lattouf claimed the producers who were talking in her ear were supposed to come out to help explain the situation, but things went awry when they dropped all communication.
“I was always going to do a reveal, the producers were going to come out,” she said.
“Things got really tense, and the producers did not come out. I had them in my ear and then they were gone, as in nobody was talking to me anymore.
“The great irony of it was it was the three women mopping up, who don’t have the budget, who don’t have the TV show.”
It’s quite the interesting observation to be honest. A feminist event that doubled as a prank for an all-male television show, that devolved into women apologising for something that wasn’t even their idea. Truly this whole thing could be studied.
Azure Antoinette used this fact to make some hard-hitting points about the difference between men and women in comedy settings.
“There’s not a lot of room for women in comedy,” she said.
“There aren’t a lot of prank shows hosted by women. There is never [sic] where we’ve seen that the principal talent is female.”
She then pointed out that it was interesting that Lattouf was so introspective, self-aware and apologetic, while men on male prank shows never have to explain themselves or make statements when they do something “irreverent” in the name of comedy.
Near the end of the podcast, Lattouf spoke about why she hadn’t addressed the incident online.
According to her, she was at first worried that by saying something it would be breaking the NDA she signed, and a girl needs to be paid out here.
During the time since the event she said she was communicating with lawyers and members of the audience, and really wanted to avoid doing a “PR, Hollywood” style statement on her Instagram.
“I’m not giving in to people who just want another reason to hate on us,” she said.
“We had no power, we are not the production company.”
Finally, would she do it all again if she had the chance?
Surprisingly, yes.
Lattouf revealed if she was to do it again, she would have some caveats, such as bringing the audience along with her from the jump.
“Women need to be in all spaces,” she said.
“We are funny, we can be irreverent, we are pranksters.”
Honestly kudos to her for even taking the time to explain all of this.
You can listen to the full podcast ep here.