Women Aren’t Funny? Oh Yeah We Are!
Women aren’t funny! This statement has echoed through the halls of every comedy club, movie set, writers room and any other venue that hosts creators and performers of comedy. It’s a statement that every female comedian is all too familiar with. It’s a statement that we lady comics play over and over in our minds like an emotionally abusive mantra drilled into our subconscious by a toxic lover. It’s a statement that, regardless of how demoralizing and inaccurate, continues to be regurgitated by men in positions of power within the entertainment industry today — in 2018 — the age of enlightenment and tolerance. It’s a statement that has allowed ‘well known secrets’ regarding crimes against women in the industry to be kept in the dark — like Cosby’s proclivity for incapacitated women — or Luis C.K.’s penchant for exposing himself to female comics with the promise of exposing them to bigger opportunities — or even Aziz Ansari’s much milder, yet equally nauseating, inability to recognize social ques on a first date as if he were entitled to repeatedly pressure said date into unwanted touching, groping and kissing. It’s this very statement that drove me to work my corporate job all day and then perform stand up all night hitting 3–4 mics every single night for 2 years straight until men started saying, “Wow, she’s really funny.”.
Needless to say, when Pete Fejaran, General Manager for the DC & Arlington Drafthouse Comedy Theaters, asked me to produce and curate an all-woman comedy show I said, “Hell yes!”. In addition to wanting to improve the perception of women in comedy, I found the opportunity interesting because the Drafthouse brand was the first major comedy venue that gave me a real shot as a professional comic after having worked as an amateur for about 3 years. One of the strangest things about comedy is that you can work for free for 5+ years before ever having an opportunity to showcase your talent for pay (plus a few more years if you’re a woman and even more if you’re a person of color). I was “lucky” that I got my first shot about 3 years in. I put quotes around the word “lucky” because though it may seem like luck to outsiders looking in, I sacrificed everything to earn the opportunities I’ve received in comedy. I learned the hard way that the influential individuals don’t tend to help women in this industry which and therefore it’s paramount that we pull each other up. We are each other’s responsibility — I am because you are.
Regardless of where your passions lie, we can all agree that throughout history the female voice has been stifled. We have been intentionally ignored, denied access to education, and, at one point in time, literally burned at the stake for being outspoken. Many public and private positions have an incredible capacity to offer the leaders in those fields an immeasurable amount of influence and reach but none are as powerful and infectious as laughter — stand up comedy is a powerhouse of social engagement that said, I knew I couldn’t pass up the chance to work on this project with DC Drafthouse and help them give a platform and an opportunity to one of the most marginalized, necessary & deserving voices in any medium — women. The Funny Is Female!
