The Debbie Downer Origin Story

Rachel Dratch revisits Massachusetts and supports women in comedy.

Rachel Dratch attended the Women in Comedy Festival in Boston this weekend, partaking in an interview and Q&A session Sunday morning. She…

Comedy, Policy, and the Language of Casual Intimacy

You Have a Good Heart, John Munch

Happy (slightly belated) birthday, Richard Belzer.

Richard Belzer turned seventy-two this past Thursday, adding another year to his over four decade long career in film and television. Belzer’s most notable…

On Difficult Women and Wanting More

Megan Boone, of ‘The Blacklist,’ speaks out about women in film.

Roxane Gay dedicated Difficult Women, her most recent short story collection, to “difficult women, who should be celebrated for their…

‘In the End, We’re All Just Passing Through’

On the ‘Law & Order: SVU’ season finale.

Law & Order: SVU finished up its seventeenth season with a series rarity: the death of one of their own. Other than the late ADA Sonya Paxton (murdered in…

Seven Season Theory

The art of gaining a cult-like following without jumping the shark.

“Jumping the shark,” a term coined by John Heim after the Happy Days episode where Fonzie literally jumps over a shark while waterskiing, is the moment…

‘Sometimes People Just Break’

Please watch ‘Chris Gethard: Career Suicide.’

“And I think to myself: you should hit the brakes,” Chris Gethard says, aware that he was in the other driver’s blindspot. “And then I think: no, don’t. Because this way it’s…