Everyone is talking about Arj Barker, an American comedian and actor, and for any good reason. Barker was performing at the Melbourne Comedy festival on 20 April when he was subjected to backlash for asking a breastfeeding mother to leave the venue.
The mother, Trish Faranda was breastfeeding her seven month old in order to calm her down as she won’t stop gurgling and fussing. Trish told The Guardian that she felt “humiliated” as she had to leave in front of a live audience of 700 people. She said Clara, her 7 month old daughter, was just being a baby. “ she was not screaming or crying, just gurgling a little. She was not loud at all.”
The mother explained how she was sitting towards the front of the theater as the seats are pre-allocated but made sure to sit at the end of the row, in case a quick exit was needed. Any humiliation caused may have reduced a little when she noticed that after her exit around 10-12 women followed, as a protest. The women’s protest also saw a “lovely gentleman” participating in the exit.
Ellen Mahoney, who saw the live controversy at the athenaeum theater, called it gross and hard to witness. “It was a tense and silent moment of confusion between the woman who was not sure if she was asked to leave as a joke and Arj trying to get the show back on track,” she explained on a social media post. She also explained how the men in the audience were insufferable as they started cussing at the women to get them to leave the venue in loud aggressive tones. The worst part? Arj did not utter a single word in order to get the men to calm down.
However, there are other accounts of the event, some other people who attended the show commented how the baby’s “fussing” was actually very loud and there were instances where the baby was definitely crying. These people believe that Barker did the right thing by ejecting the mother and her baby out of the show as they were a real disturbance to his whole set. An attendee Steven Adlard commented how Barker’s way of asking the mother to leave was actually very polite and not rude at all, whereas the mother, when asked to leave, did not move at all.
Barker said that a 7 month old shouldn’t be at a comedy show at all, it is not for them. Responding to the backlash, he said that the reason she was asked to leave was because the baby was loud not because she was breastfeeding. “I could just see a woman holding a baby, I had no idea that she was breastfeeding — not that it would have been a factor, because I don’t have any problem with her breastfeeding.”
“She had a baby with her, disrupting my performance. On behalf of the other hundreds of people who paid to see the gig, I politely told her the baby couldn’t stay. She thought I was joking, which definitely made the exchange awkward.” Arj stated.
The comedian stated that he did feel bad about the awkward interaction and even offered her a refund.
The whole drama has two sides. The “Arj was absolutely right” and the “he humiliated an already tired and anxious mother.” While both of the views are correct, the way the situation was handled could’ve been better. Arj could have politely asked trish, off mic, to leave the show or Trish herself could have not attended the show.
