Modern Women Comedians Will Not Hold Back for the Sake of Your Comedic Relief

I wrote a ten-page paper explaining how women’s comedy has evolved in recent years, and how topics that weren’t socially acceptable for women to even discuss a decade ago, they can now make jokes about including sex, politics, fears, trauma, sexual orientation, drugs, mental health, and death. My thesis is about how for years comedy had one sole purpose; to make us laugh. But over the years that has started to change. There has been a major shift in how women are represented in comedy within the past decade. The jokes about these risqué topics can now be told by women all over the world. There are three particular women in stand-up comedy that stuck out to me as pioneers of this ever-changing comedic scene: Hannah Gadsby, Jenny Slate, and Ali Wong. Rules be damned, they are going to change the way people viewed comedy all over the world. They even did so while wearing spandex dresses at seven months pregnant, or fancy pant suits, because they want to be remembered.

What I did for my project was break it down into three parts. I started with Ali Wong because she had more comedy in her segment than the other two women. The most unexpected topic she talked about in Baby Cobra was her miscarriage. Wong says, “ I’m very grateful to be… seven and a half months pregnant, because last year I had a miscarriage… when you’re thirty-three you’ll know plenty of women who’ve had a miscarriage. It’s super common and I wish more women would talk about it, so they wouldn’t feel so bad when they go through it” (50:25-50:57). It’s an unexpected move to talk about a topic as serious as a miscarriage, during a comedy special. It successfully pays off though, and she is able to get her viewpoint across without losing her audience.

This brings me to Jenny Slate, who made it possible to change the entire format of what a comedy special is. The most unexpected thing she talks about in Stage Fright is her stage fright. During a cut scene where it shows her being interviewed by someone, she openly discusses her mental health surrounding the issue, and the intense anxiety she experiences before performances. Slate says “I get such bad stage fright. And it’s not fake humility, I’ve tried to get hypnotized for it. It ruins my day. It fucks my body up, I get like crazy diarrhea” (45:33- 45:49). This is so important because there’s such a stigma around mental health and not conversing about it, but she includes it anyways. Not only does it work, it opens up a channel to now discuss mental health issues openly, and what better way to start than by adding some comedic relief to it.

This brought me to Hannah Gadsby who is, in my not so professional, but undeniably correct opinion, the most important comedic genius to have ever uttered a single word. In Nanette Gadsby discusses, mental health, fear, shame, and her sexuality, all of which are extremely surprising for a woman comedian to talk about, and under normal circumstances wouldn’t be considered funny. When explaining what it was like growing up in her town as a lesbian Gadsby says, “Gays, why don’t you just pack your aids up into a suitcase there, and fuck off to Mardi Gras. Because homosexuality was a crime in Tasmania until 1997. Not long enough ago” (4:08-4:25). She’s joking about it, and we’re laughing at it, but you can see the pain in her facial expression. This is important because it shows how comedians are now using their own traumas to, not only make us laugh, but help them heal, which is relatively new to the stand-up comedy scene. As these three women show us, comedy has evolved enough that you can now talk about the traumatic experiences of your life, but not enough that you can tell the whole story.

My project is important because it shows how comedy is evolving. It demonstrates how women went from not being able to even openly discuss many of these topics, to now being able to joke about them. This is especially important, because male comedians have been able to make jokes about these topics for a very long time without any repercussions. Women, however, were not allowed to, and if they did it often did not go over well. These particular women  go even further than some men are willing to by discussing their mental health, miscarriages, and traumatic events from their past.

I learned that it’s okay to be funny and vulnerable at the same time. We don’t have to limit ourselves to one emotion. All three of these women showed us almost every emotion throughout their one-hour segments, and it was beautiful. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed their stand-up comedy specials. I have never really enjoyed stand-up comedy before this class. It may have been because I’d only been exposed to male stand-up comedians. I now know that I do enjoy stand-up comedy, especially from women who know how to be funny and honest.  

My favorite part was getting to dive deeper into each of these comedy specials. I loved learning about what other people thought of these stand-up specials. Often when researching outside sources, I found the authors felt similarly to how I felt about each of the comedy specials. I also really enjoyed getting to re-watch them and laugh hysterically. I’m thankful I was given the opportunity to discover who each of these women are, and experience how comedy has evolved because of them.

Sources:

Karas, Jay, director. Ali Wong: Baby Cobra. Netflix Official Site, 6 May 2016, www.netflix.com/title/80101493.

Parry, Madeleine and Jon Olb, directors. Hannah Gadsby: Nanette. Netflix Official Site, 19 June             2018, www.netflix.com/title/80233611.

Robespierre, Gillian, director. Jenny Slate: Stage Fright. Netflix Official Site, 22 Oct. 2019,

www.netflix.com/title/81027753.