The Sneaky Feminism of Comedian Lydia Popovich

If my interview with Lydia Popovich were a bumper-sticker style mantra, it would be “I love being a woman.” That statement, delivered half-maniacally, pops up in many of Lydia’s sets. Though ostensibly our interview was about Lydia’s comedy, our topics of conversation, which ranged from self-confidence, body positivity, food culture and boobs, all came back to what it means to be a woman.

Lydia says that comedy restored her faith in humanity. She also tells me that comedy has made her think more about working with people in the community because she sees “how much influence you can have as an individual in a room full of people just talking about dicks.”

I think I know what she means.

[Editor’s note: Interview has been condensed and edited.]

Nina Foushee: Tell me about how you got into comedy.

Lydia Popovich: My dad was a record collector and radio DJ who loved music and loved comedy. He liked comedy records. I was introduced to comedy at a young age with classic comics like Richard Pryor, Moms Mabley. I didn’t realize it was something that women did because my dad listened to a lot of raunchy male comics. But it wasn’t until I saw a handful of women on stage, like — like Elayne Boosler — and was like, “a lady can do this job! Thats crazy!”

NF: What’s an example of a recent time when your comedy impacted someone?

LP: I did an all-female show at the Punchline. This girl came up to me afterwards and she was 18, maybe. She tells me she’s on a break from college and that it’s her third night in a row that she’s been to comedy shows. And she was having that moment that I had as a kid of “women can do comedy!” We [all the comics] were giving her advice. I was telling her some Facebook groups to go on, and I could see the light in her eyes. And then her mom came out of the bathroom, and saw her, and her mom said, “Don’t tell her that, she needs to be in school,” with this very condescending, very overbearing energy.

I pulled the mother aside and I did something I never do. I do have a day job that I don’t talk about. But I told her about my day job. I told her that her daughter could follow her dreams and be a functional member of society. I remember being a young girl and wanting to have a profound experience and here this girl was having it and her mom was just shitting on it.

As the girl was leaving, I put my card in her hand and was like “Facebook message me, I’ll send you links!” Like I was trying to sell her drugs or something. I was just like: FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS. DON’T SETTLE (operatic voice). I hope she gets on a stage, partly because her mom was so cunty.

NF: What are your favorite jokes that make people uncomfortable?

LP: I have one bit about female empowerment and it’s a take on feminism. There’s a lot of aggressive feminism and representations of the patriarchy about women being held down and being held back as opposed to [focusing on] empowerment and acceptance that if you give that patriarchy the power, you’re going to feel subjugated. The point of my bit is not to denounce or undermine that [subjugation] exists. But I believe that women have power and we have to let ourselves come into it.

The bit is about how I’m not worried about feminism or the patriarchy because I have tits. If you have boobs, you’re kind of in it. All you need is to use your womanly wiles basically. Men use whatever they want to get what they want, so why shouldn’t women?

I also get down to brass tacks and I start talking in graphic detail about how no one motorboats balls and how balls are gross, and how guys can’t be in a bar with ball cleavage out and getting beers bought for them.

And it’s very fart butt dick — very low brow, but it’s great because about two thirds of the women in the audience fucking get it immediately. They know that I’m on their side. They realize I’m being over the top for a reason, they see all the nuance in it. They love it.

But the best ones are the women who are so caught up in their staunch feminism that they can’t laugh at anything. I do want to alienate people, because I want people to think about why I’m doing it. I think if they think about it they’ll realize why I’m doing it which is: don’t tell me how to be a feminist.

NF: My sister and I talk about how, in some strands of contemporary feminism, things to celebrate about the feminine form, and hormone-related lady things like a better sense of smell, get devalued or ignored. Of course, there is a huge range of body types and manifestations of femininity. Not everyone has prominent boobs, etc., but at some point there needs to be room for thinking, without being a biological determinist, that, if you do identify as a woman, this woman thing is cool.

LP: I agree with you completely. And in my bit, too, I say, “I don’t care if you have bee-stings or national geographic swingers,” the thing I’m getting at is owning your femininity. Owning your sexuality and owning your power and not feeling shame about it.

NF: What are some things that you want to change people’s minds about through your comedy?

LP: My other thing is body positivity, because I’m a big person but I don’t hate myself. I’m not unhappy. I love clothes, I love the way I look, I’m very confident. That, for me, goes hand in hand with feminism.

I feel like the female form is so subjugated from woman to woman. I know the male conditioning has got us to that point, but I feel like as women we perpetuate those stereotypes of what we should look like.

We’re even harsh on women who are happy about themselves. It’s like, if this woman is happy with herself and she’s 400 hundred pounds and she wants to wear a bikini and she wants to put it on Instagram, God bless her. Who gives a fuck what you think about it?

On Instagram there’s a whole body positivity movement that’s happening and lots of big women are posting outfits of the day. And the first 12 comments will be positive and then there’ll be this ugly chunk that’s like, “But you’re fat” or “If you lost weight those clothes would look better on you.” And it’s women writing that. That shit really bothers me.

I’m writing a lot now about my body specifically. I used to not talk about it at all, because I wanted it to be a non-issue. And I talk about that in the tits bit where it’s like if I can love my tits and get what I want why shouldn’t you? Why should you spend your whole life keeping yourself down when that’s what the world is doing?

If anyone should love you it should be yourself and you should be unapologetic about it. No one else is going to love you until you love you.

NF: When I think about myself and my friends that are in their early 20s, very few of us have achieved that.

LP: Oh, I spent a good chunk of my 20s trying to figure out who the fuck I was. As an individual, as a human and later I started coming into who am I as a woman. You spend your teens thinking you know everything which bleeds into your early 20s. As you age, you look back on yourself and you’re like, “Oh my god, I was a piece of shit! Oh my God, I was so fucking terrible!”

But you have to love yourself where you are right now. If I am working towards loving myself in five years, what if I don’t make it there? Oh, I’ll love myself on Thursday when I have everything together. No.

NF: How do you think people concretely do that though — how do people love themselves?

LP: It’s forgiveness. That’s a huge thing — is daily forgiveness. And that goes in line with also realizing that some days you can’t forgive yourself and that’s okay, too. And knowing that every day you gotta wake up and and think alright, I can do this day. I’ll love myself today.