Book Alert! Funny/Pretty: Women Comedians and Body Politics

Awesome- a new comedy & feminism book is on its way to publication. Written by Ohio State University's Linda Mizejewski, it's due to come out in March of this year.

From the website for the book:

Focusing on star writer/performer comedians—Kathy Griffin, Tina Fey, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykes, and Ellen DeGeneres—Pretty/Funny demonstrates that women’s comedy has become a prime site of feminism in the twenty-first century.

Looking forward to it's release...

Hari Kondabolu on the year 2042...

 The awesome Hari Kondabolu on race and the projected year whites will become 49% of the US population. Enjoy! h/t Feministing

Hillary Rea on Being a Girl in the Stand-Up Boys' Club

True story: Back on Black Friday I had the good fortune of meeting Hillary Rea on a street corner in Miami Beach. We were both on our way to the same conference (coincidentally run by Jen Dzuira, who was featured a few years ago on Wisecrack) and were able to pick each other out on the street as... probably not belonging in Miami Beach.  Hillary is an award-winning storyteller and comedian from Philadelphia. Fun fact: She also runs a show called Tell Me a Story, and you can see where she'll be appearing here. Below, she tells a true story of standing up to a fellow comedian... 

Congrats to Jane Wagner and Lily Tomlin!

OLIVER MORRIS/GETTY IMAGES

Comedy writer Jane Wagner and comedian Lily Tomlin have gotten married after 42 years together!

I saw Tomlin's one woman show in Minneapolis a few years ago. I'm pretty sure Wagner still does a lot of her writing. It was amazing. In college, I had an email signature from Search for Signs of Intelligent Life, but I didn't know whether to quote the more famous Tomlin, who delivered the line or Wagner who wrote it:

"I refuse to be intimidated by reality any longer."~Lily Tomlin & Jane Wagner

SNL Responds to Criticism, Hires Sasheer Zamata

Photo: Cate Hellman 

Meet Saturday Night Live's newest actress Sasheer Zamata.  Sorry to write the headline that way. I'd much prefer that they just happened to hire Zamata, rather than that it took months of SNL shaming to finally convince SNL to hire at least one female comedian of color. Anyhow, she seems pretty dang charming. You might recognize her from an MTV show called Hey Girl, if you still watch MTV. (Who does that?) She was also on Totally Biased, and if you poke around her website, there's lot of videos to peruse.


You can hear Zamata chatting on Julie Klausner's show over here, but jump to minute 45 or so if you want to cut to the interview. There's a lot of talk of Beyonce and Kanye. if you want to cut to the talk about her webseries, The Pursuit of Sexiness, as well the lack of black women in comedy and the need for diverse writers go ahead to 1:18:18.

There were rumored secret-not-really-secret auditions recently in NYC, so this isn't a surprise. But still, it's about damn time and too bad SNL only chose one actress of color to join the cast. I'm fairly sure that this is only the fifth time in SNL history that they've cast a woman of color. (Sidenote, since I no longer watch SNL, it's really harder to care about it as much...)

Congrats to Sasheer Zamata. Too bad she has to start under so much pressure. Looking forward to catching her sketches on SNL.

Update: They've hired two additional writers from the auditions! Congrats to LaKendra Tookes and Leslie Jones.

Jennifer Hudson's Funny or Die video on the Affordable Care Act...

Amy Poehler and the White House were in on making this, too, says CBS.
 

Scandalous with Jennifer Hudson from Jennifer Hudson

Fake Geek Girls: The Show

Hey Nerd-Muffins, check it out:



Writer/director Sara Clarke was inspired to create this show after seeing controversy over the "fake geek girl" phenomenon explode online. As she puts it, "I saw a lot of feminist criticisms of geek culture that I thought were very powerful. I wanted to contribute to the discussion, but instead of a blog takedown or a documentary series, I decided to talk about awesome female nerds through comedy. Meanwhile, in the apartment downstairs, my hilarious neighbor Julie-Joy was looking for more material to stretch her wings as a comedic actress. That's how Fake Geek Girls was born."

Pretty awesome, huh? So here's the deal. They've only made this episode and to fund a whole series they're looking to raise a little cash. After you've checked out the show, you should go donate over here. I did. You can too. Everybody's doing it. 

What better way to inspire you to chip in or share the Kickstarter campaign than this Double Clicks music video:

Your Friends You Haven't Met Yet: Pony Ride

I'd like to introduce you to some friends you haven't met yet: Pony Ride aka Katie Smith, Jessica Spaw, and Alexa Green.




Let's get to know our new friends:

So how did you get starting making videos together?

The three of us all did improv at University of California Irvine (on the team Live Nude People *With Clothes On) together but parted ways once we graduated, it wasn't till a year later after moving each separately to LA, that we reunited and realized the best way to pursue comedy was to make our own content.

Awesome! What does your writing/editing process look like?

We have all studied at the Upright Citizens Brigade and feel that has had a major influence on our writing. Sometimes we write individually, sometimes together, and other times we have a concept and beats but we improv a majority of the sketch. Improv has taught us to ask ourselves when writing "if this is true what else is..." and that can really take us anywhere, which is a lot of fun.

Who are your comedy heros?

We have A LOT of comedy heros since there are three of us the top being: Tina Fey. Amy Pohler, The Mighty Boosh, Ricky Gervias, Carol Bernett, Kristin Wiig, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Zach Galifianakis.

Find more Pony Ride  Facebook or  YouTube. Can't wait to see future awesome from Pony Ride!

(I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that former Wisecrack-mentioned comedian, Lauren Lapkus from The Money Kids is now on the best show ever, Orange is the New Black. I think we can extrapolate this data to mean that Pony Ride will have a Netflix Original Series in approximately two years.)

If only this Daria movie were real...

The sad thing: The target audience of Plaza's new film has never heard of Daria.

Totally Biased Takes on Street Harassment

Okay- I don't know if this is some kind of karma-retention program after setting up the "Feminist vs Comedians" debate (which really revealed some undeniable cultural misogyny as previously mentioned) but W. Kamau Bell gets major props for this segment.

Awesome for a few reasons:

1) So often women fighting street harassment are portrayed as people who take things too seriously. He's setting the segments up so that the women are making/in on the joke and the guys who harass aren't.

2) It's for a Comedy Central audience: Mostly male 18-35 year olds (correction: it's on FX... but the same point holds true).

3) There's a cameo featuring Emily May from Hollaback! She's great.

Patton Oswalt on Joke-Thievery, Heckling and Rape Jokes

May I direct your attention over here to Patton Oswalt's honest and self-reflective analysis of the rape joke debate.  It's pretty long, here are few excerpts:

...See if any of these sound familiar: 

There’s no “evidence” of a “rape culture” in this country.  I’ve never wanted to rape anyone, so why am I being lumped in as the enemy?  If these bloggers and feminists make “rape jokes” taboo, or “rape” as a subject off-limits no matter what the approach, then it’ll just lead to more censorship.  

They sure sound familiar to me because I, at various points, was saying them.  Either out loud, or to myself, or to other comedian and non-comedian friends when we would argue about this.  I had my viewpoint, and it was based on solid experience, and it…was…fucking…wrong. 

Let’s go backwards through those bullshit conclusions, shall we?  First off: no one is trying to make rape, as a subject, off-limits.  No one is talking about censorship.  In this past week of re-reading the blogs, going through the comment threads, and re-scrolling the Twitter arguments, I haven’t oncefound a single statement, feminist or otherwise, saying that rape shouldn’t be joked under anycircumstance, regardless of context.  Not one example of this. 

In fact, every viewpoint I’ve read on this, especially from feminists, is simply asking to kick upward, to think twice about who is the target of the punchline, and make sure it isn’t the victim....

There is a collective consciousness that can detect the presence (and approach) of something good or bad, in society or the world, before any hard “evidence” exists.  It’s happening now with the concept of “rape culture.”  Which, by the way, isn’t a concept.  It’s a reality.  I’m just not the one who’s going to bring it into focus.  But I’ve read enough viewpoints, and spoken to enough of my female friends (comedians and non-comedians) to know it isn’t some vaporous hysteria, some false meme or convenient catch-phrase.

Alright, if you're reading this blog, you don't need Patton Oswalt to tell you any of this. But I think it's awesome that he's written it, and I hope it gets widely read.

On a side note, I wonder if he's friends with Diablo Cody (who wrote Young Adult, and Juno, and that book, Candy Girl, about stripping in Minneapolis). Probs.


H/T Russ Rogers

Issa Rae and Amanda De Cadenet on Awkward Black Girl and P.O.C. representations in media

Issa Rae is awesome.

Badass of the Year: Lindy West

Lindy West, you are our hero.

Thank you for standing up for the power of comedy to shape our world. 

In case you haven't heard, Lindy did a rape joke debate with Jim Norton on Totally Biased.  The crux of this argument is basically the same thing we've been writing about here for years- Lindy says comedy influences culture, a point Jim denies ("as long as you're trying to be funny, you're okay.")


She did an amazing job. My favorite of Lindy's lines:

"I'm sure it's super comfortable and nice to believe that there aren't systemic forces affected by speech, but it's not true and those of us who are affected by those forces know that that's not true.... you don't get to say that comedy is the sacred, powerful vital thing that we have to protect because it's speaking truth to power and also be like, 'oh it's just a joke, I mean, language doesn't affect our lives at all, so shut up.'"

YES. So much love and appreciation for her. To be fair, this match was fixed. Lindy's straight up smarter than Jim. And she's right.

And everyone on Twitter thanked her and comedians who make shitty rape jokes realized the error of their ways and apologized! We wish. Actually, enter hundreds of hateful tweets aimed at Lindy.

In response to the backlash, Jim Norton made a ridiculously wimpy half-hearted suggestion on Opie and Anthony that his fans not write her hateful messages. Actually, he said "you can write whatever you want, but you're not helping the argument" but mostly he just sat around while the hosts of the show mindlessly trash-talked Lindy. Keep it classy, Jim! [Update: A way classier note from Jim was posted and can be found here.]

We love her work at Jezebel and look forward to all the awesome things she will no doubt do in the future.

Thanks, Lindy, for doing what you do.

Okay, we're not quite done talking about sexual violence and comedy...

Sady Doyle wrote to comedian Sam Morril about his jokes about rape/hurting women.

If you've seen much stand-up, you've likely been in her situation before. You go to a show, you're having a grand old time, and then some ass gets onstage and thinks it's funny to make a date-rape joke. I paid $4 for this? Then Sam Morril wrote a response where he says he knows more about comedy than she does, and it's ironic and Sarah Silverman makes rape jokes so he can, too, blah blah blah, and he obviously doesn't get it. He says that because his feminist mom, manager and ex-girlfriend think his rape jokes are funny, it's cool. Sounds a lot like "but my best friend is ________."

Hey Sam:

1) Sure, you have the right to make jokes about rape (and the Boston marathon and the n-word.)

2) You're still responsible for the impact of your comedy on the world.  

3) There's a huge difference between a woman joking about being raped and a guy joking about raping. There are rape jokes that make fun of people who think rape is okay, and there are rape jokes that make fun of people who get assaulted. Many guys have proven that a rape joke doesn't have to be "rape=funny." It can also be "people who have sex without consent are assholes." 

4) Look at where your power is aimed. Is it challenging groups in power? Or making fun of groups or the experiences of groups that are already being shat upon? 

I'm totally appreciative of Sady Doyle's article. Yet, the world has no shortage of dudes who make shitty and cheap shock jokes about rape onstage. And some of these guys don't care that half a dozen folks in the audience have been raped. And some just don't realize it or realize how their art is supporting a world where wink-wink rape is hilarious. 

I don't care if comedians aren't onstage to make the world a better place. But it makes me mad when that power is used for supporting things like racism, sexism, ableism, fat phobia, heterosexism and other forms of discrimination and cruelty. You can joke about race, sex, disabilities, fatness, gayness and murder without (whoopsies! it's-ironic-so-it's-cool) accidentally endorsing hatred.

Recommended reading:

"Stop Saying Rape Jokes are Never Funny" by comedian Sarah Mowrey

Anatomy of a Successful Rape Joke by Jessica Valenti

3 Points about Rape Jokes that People Seem to be Ignoring by Guante

Ugh.What a drag, right? This is why Wisecrack prefers to highlight amazing comedians who are making awesome shit. For instance, Issa Rae's Awkward Black Girl series. If you're not already familiar, go check it out. 

On Making a Rape PSA

A Guest Post by Annie Laferriere

When I find myself annoyed with or upset with something, my general reaction is to throw jokes at it. Not being the most aggressive of people, I find it a cathartic way to state my opinion. The babble going on a few months before the election, spurred by the rape comments made by Todd Akin and Richard Murdoch made me laugh a lot.  Then I got annoyed that such stupid statements were getting so much air time. Then I laughed a little more.  And then I texted ten of my comedienne/actress girlfriends and said, "Hey I have a really funny idea for a sketch about rape.  Do you want in?"  Luckily almost all of them trust my comedic sensibilities and two days later we had our cast of five beautiful funny chicks.

Rape is such a sensitive topic and I worried about offending people. Not really just any people. But survivors. That thought horrified me, and we tried to approach it in such a way that wouldn't be offensive but would make people laugh, but also think about sexual violence and the reality that we live in a world where rape is way too common. 

The PSA was scripted, but a lot of improv ended up in the final cut. I'm so happy with the way it turned out. I'm proud of what it says.  I hope people enjoy the satire but understand the statement.

Annie is an LA-based stand up and improv comedienne. See more of her stuff at http://3rdwheelcomedy.com/.