Hysterical (2021) Movie Script

["Therefore I Am" playing]
I'm not your friend or anything, damn
You think that you're the man
I think, therefore I am
I'm not your friend or anything, damn
You think that you're the man
I think, therefore I am
It's very hard for a woman
who has been brought up to be
sweet and clingy to stand up
in front of 2,500 people
and say, "Okay, now listen to me."
You have really
a tremendous sense of power
when you're standing up
and commanding them to listen to you.
You must be a very strong woman.
[woman 1]
Women have always been in comedy.
Stop, what the hell
Are you talking about?
But now we're at such a critical mass
that we can't ignore
that women are hilarious
and making content that
everybody wants to consume.
Don't talk 'bout me
Like how you might know how I feel
Top of the world
But your world isn't real
[woman 2] It's not about talking like men
or talking about the stuff
that they talk about.
It's about our experience,
and that is as valid as theirs.
[woman 3] Women have
an advantage in stand-up comedy
'cause we've been dabbling in
our feelings for far longer than men have,
so that's why we're killing
the game right now.
I'm not your friend or anything, damn
You think that you're the man
I think, therefore I am
I'm not your friend or anything, damn
You think that you're the man
I think, therefore I am
[electricity crackling]
[horns honking]
[siren wailing]
[woman 3] Did I tell you the one time
I was in the bathroom there?
And I'd just gotten offstage
and I had, like,
not a great set 'cause
it was trying new stuff.
And, um, this girl walked in
with her friend.
She goes, "I love the girl that's on now,
but that last girl--"
And I just go,
"Please don't finish the sentence!
I'm the girl! I'm the girl!"
And the girl goes--
She stopped, and she's like,
"Oh, my God, I'm so sorry,"
which made me realize
that she was gonna say something bad.
But, um, she was like, "I'm so sorry,"
and I go, "It's okay. Just don't--
We-- We-- We are--"
I go, "We walk amongst you."
-[man] How is everything?
-Good. How are you?
[man] Wonderful. Good to see you.
-This is my girlfriend, Elysa.
-How you doing tonight, Elysa?
[woman 4] Almost
every famous comic started here.
Where should we go?
Do you wanna go back to the table?
[chattering]
[woman 4]
This is the infamous Comics Table.
We'd all eat dinner together
and, you know, tell jokes
and bust with each other.
I always hook up my phone
and, like, take him through
my funniest friends.
-You're on there all the time.
-That's awesome.
-You'll get there. And, um--
-[laughs]
-[Glaser] Keep submitting.
-What I strive for.
[woman 4] There's also a ton
of camaraderie here.
The Stand is like that in New York
and Comedy Store in LA and The Improv.
Like, every--
There's certain clubs where people
really become family
and close and hang out.
How are you? Good to see you.
-Hi. How are you doing?
-Good.
On the road and in a lot of other clubs,
it's very hard for women
to get stage time.
So this is where you end up
after you get all that stage time
and you can prove yourself.
Oh, here's Nikki's.
I don't have my glasses on.
"This is my favorite place. Thank you."
Oh, and Marina.
Here's Lisa Lampanelli.
Here's Carmen.
[applause, cheering]
[woman 5] The very first time
I performed onstage was for two minutes,
and right then, I felt
like I just got married and had a baby.
I'm like, this is what I wanna do.
I'd never felt that way about anything.
What does that even mean, "awkwardly hot"?
I've never even heard those
two words put together.
How do you even say thank you
to "awkwardly hot"?
-Th-Thanks.
-[audience laughing]
[woman] I love stand-up.
The joy I get from getting onstage
and being able to take people on a journey
to a place where they forget
what they're going through.
And I'll bet you you get up at 23,
and you just, "Mm! Ah! Ah! Ah!"
I can't do that
'cause that last egg just fell when I
It's mostly people's biggest fear
to get up in front of others
and try to make them laugh.
I told my mother when I was 14
I wanted to be a comedian, and she said
[imitating Korean accent]
"Oh, maybe it's better if you just die."
[laughter]
But for me, when I was starting out,
I was very different, very young,
and so I had to also convince people
that I had something important to say.
-[applause, cheering]
-They always show me doing stand-up,
and then the camera goes out
in the audience and looks for the Asians.
[laughter]
"Look at them in their natural habitat."
Genetics didn't work out for me,
so that's why I am a comic.
I figured my options were comedian,
softball coach or UPS driver.
[laughter]
[woman] The beauty of comedy
is that I have a voice and a microphone,
and I can just go out there
and do my thing.
I picked comedy 'cause
I don't look good in brown.
You have the mic.
It's-- It's-- It's your turn.
I was a weird kid. I was just awkward.
One of my breasts grew before the other.
I had, like, a starter tit,
which is not a hot look for a girl.
I have control, and I'm a storyteller,
so I get to tell my tale.
I was like, "Really? Okay."
And then he goes
[deep voice] "Little boys
think that tits matter,
but adult men know that ass matters.
That's all."
-I'm like, "But you're 14."
-[laughter]
Crafting a joke and feeling that energy
where you're knowing in your gut,
"I just delivered this high,
and now I have to say something deeper."
Or "I said this fast. I'll say
this part slower. It'll be funnier."
It's melodic, almost.
Girls have a more insidious kind of crazy.
Sometimes we'll start a fight with you
just to see if we can make it look like
you started the fight.
Every girl's done that, just to see
how strong your powers are.
It's almost like singing,
like you can just riff
and knowing energy-wise that
you can take them anywhere.
"Stop it. I don't wanna fight with you."
But in your girl head, you're like
-[deep, hearty guffawing]
-[laughter]
[deep voice] I wanna fight with you.
[woman] The best experience onstage
is when the whole room is with you
and you feel like you're
truly sharing a story
that they can connect with.
"Strong Black woman."
That never felt like a compliment.
That always felt like work.
So it was like,
"Hey, what you doing on Saturday?
I got this heavy couch.
I need a strong Black woman."
[Glaser] I used to be like, ugh,
when comedians would, like,
pat themselves on the back or,
"We are the last bastion of free speech."
And it's like, no, we kind of are.
Naked pictures.
I send those, and I shouldn't.
I shouldn't. The cloud is not secure.
But, like, neither am I,
and I need constant validation.
When someone tells me I can't talk about
something, I just wanna do it more.
I loved The Sixth Sense though.
And the ending,
when the guy came in my eye,
and I didn't have to watch the rest of it,
that was great.
In stand-up, there is no one
telling us what to do.
[faint chattering, laughter]
[female interviewer] What is it that beats
inside the heart and soul of a comedian
that makes you want to make people laugh,
that makes you want
to stand onstage alone?
Damage. [laughing]
No. I'm sorry.
Um No, I don't know.
Yeah, there's probably
a little piece of a lot of us
that is filling some sort of void, right?
[chattering]
[woman] Where are you guys from?
Here? Okay. What do you do?
You're a social wor-- That's probably why
you've been laughing so hard.
Yeah, my mother's a therapist too.
Yeah, it's incredible.
She saw clients in the basement
of my house my entire life,
so I had to be quiet.
"Judy's coming today,
and she's having a really hard time.
So I'm gonna need you
to be quiet upstairs,
'cause Judy needs help.
Judy's really struggling."
[laughs] I'm like,
"Well, I just ate six pizzas
and started cutting,
but good luck to Judy."
-[laughter]
-Okay, um
I say this onstage as a joke,
but, like, people start clapping.
I'm like, no matter how much you clap,
it'll never fill the hole.
Like, we're just trying to fill this hole
and get the attention that we've
always wanted that we can't get.
I think it really goes back to childhood
and just always wanting to be seen
and heard and not feeling acknowledged.
I was not a happy kid.
My parents weren't happy together,
and, you know,
my father would be tough on me,
so I just kept thinking
I'm bad, I'm wrong.
I used to fight boys
every day after school,
and I would normally not win.
I was very tomboyish.
No interest in dolls. Really tall.
I got teased from the minute I got up
to the minute I came home from school.
6'3". I'm very tall. That is kinda tall.
Actually, I reached this height--
I was about 13 years old,
which was horrible, 'cause I'd walk down
the halls in grammar school--
Everyone called me Sasquatch, right?
I didn't know what to do.
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Then I'd go home to my mother.
"Mom, all the kids are teasing me
in school. I don't know what to do."
She'd say to me [sighs]
"Judith, don't worry about it.
They're jealous of you.
Go upstairs and put on
your father's clothes.
Leave me alone. Get away from me.
I can't stand looking at you."
Yeah, I got bullied a lot.
We moved-- My family--
My dad moved my family
to the suburbs of Chicago.
So there wasn't many Black people,
and it was very prejudiced.
So I got called the N-word all the time.
I didn't like to fight.
I didn't like confrontation.
So I was always the one that came in
and tried to make people laugh.
But I didn't know what I wanted to do.
My family felt I should play it safe,
get something where you don't get fired.
So I chose to be a legal secretary.
It was, like, eons ago.
[Lynch] I come from
a very traditional family.
I grew up in Spain and moved to the States
when I was eight, and I was very shy.
I would say things incorrectly,
and then someone would laugh.
I'd just be like,
"Well, I'm not gonna speak up then."
[woman] To my family,
I was a very strange person.
I liked things they didn't like.
I found humor in things
they didn't find funny.
They were very hardworking.
We grew up on a farm.
For a long time,
we didn't have running water.
I'm from Canada.
I grew up on a farm there.
I live here now,
but everyone back home's always like,
"Hey, don't go Hollywood."
I'm like, I wanna go Hollywood, you know?
I wanna have it all.
I wanna have a convertible, a car phone,
a drug addiction.
-[laughter]
-I just have to get a convertible.
I am this close.
Everyone assumes you're kind of
the class clown that's, like,
"Look at me, look at me."
But I was a cautious kid.
My mom said I would always look both ways
before crossing the street.
So it's weird that I ended up in this job
that has such a lack of stability,
and you're having to take risks
all the time.
[Shlesinger] I grew up in
the suburbs of Dallas, Texas,
for many years with a single mom.
And I moved schools a lot,
so I definitely never felt like I fit in.
Especially growing up in Dallas, Texas.
All the girls had bangs.
They were perfect, Christian.
And then there was me.
You did wear an eye patch as a child.
-[Shlesinger] I did.
-I know that about you.
I had something called amblyopia.
-Which affects a lot of people.
-Really?
And so I had an eye patch,
and then a special one
that went over my glasses.
I went to private school.
In private school,
no one makes fun of anyone because it's--
Because public school,
it's like, "Yeah! Think fast, nerd!"
And in private school, it's like,
"We don't know how rich your parents are,
so let's err on the side of caution."
[Feinstein] I was, like,
an emergency moron in school.
Like, I mean, they didn't know what to do.
There was a lot of meetings about me.
Just like, D's, F's.
They were just like, "Uh, yeah, she's--
I mean, we don't know why she's dumb."
I loved voices. I loved affectations
and how people speak.
So since I was little,
I would get attention that way.
But I couldn't learn.
I couldn't stuff information in my brain.
So I moved to New York when I was 17
with this guy and his band
called Dick Sister.
All I knew is that
I really loved stand-up comedy.
I loved the art form.
And I knew that I was meant
to do it in some capacity.
But there was no real aspirations
of stardom or success,
'cause I'd never seen
Asian Americans do that,
and I'd never seen, really,
that many women doing that.
You know, maybe I would get
to open for a big star
when they came into San Francisco.
Maybe I could be a weatherwoman
in the local news.
I think I had a good childhood,
my mother asked me to tell you.
Um, no, but I had, like, a lemonade stand
with a two-drink minimum.
I was clinically depressed.
For me, personally, it was that
it didn't seem like I made a difference.
It gave me an identity
to be the funny one.
-Wendy Liebman, ladies and gentlemen.
-Let's talk about your coming up.
How was St. Louis growing up?
It was great.
It was-- I had the best childhood.
Really?
Something's wrong already. Hang on.
-Okay.
-Cannot compute.
-You had a sister--
-Yeah, I had a really beautiful sister.
Was that why you started searching for
ways to get attention and found comedy?
[Glaser] Yeah, I had
buck teeth and no value,
and so I was like,
I have to come up with something.
[Glaser's father] Here we are
in our condo. Kids watching TV.
It's the best talk show ever.
I loved Hollywood, and I loved models,
and I wanted to be them.
I just knew when I was a kid
that I was gonna make it happen somehow.
[giggles]
But then I realized
I wasn't as pretty as my sister
and that the pretty girls
were getting the roles in the plays.
Everywhere my mom took us,
people would stop my mom and be like,
"This child needs to be a model"
about my sister,
and I would literally creep from behind
my mom's legs like Nosferatu.
-Like, "What should I be?"
-[laughter]
Just waiting.
And what about me?
What's my future hold?
I had a therapist who used to yell at me
and be like, "You're not a beauty.
You're average-looking,
and it's enough, and it's fine."
-Yeah, she was really, really harsh.
-Oh, my God.
I've had some bad therapists.
-I go to therapy too.
-[laughter]
I have to.
Mine is very expensive too.
I actually told her.
I said, "You know, you're too expensive.
I don't think I can afford you."
She just looked at me and said,
"Let's talk about why that is."
[laughter]
I grew up in Chicago, Highland Park,
which is a very white neighborhood.
They weren't racist at my school,
but when I went to camp it was really bad.
They would say things like,
"Her skin's dirty."
You know, "She looks like she smells."
They would say awful things on the bus.
Bus driver never said anything.
Back then, you just had
to learn how to live with it,
and one of the ways I did
was by being funny.
I didn't know that I had
a thing for comedy.
I had no idea.
My mother was a big yeller.
She was-- Had a lot of rage.
She had these rageful attacks
when we were growing up.
And I think I was that middle child
who could make Mom laugh
to defuse the tension in the house.
Looking at this head, it reminds me
to go home and clean my dildo.
[snorts] That's not true.
Mine's black. Anyway
So I, as a comic, was doing jokes to
shut everybody up before they get to me.
Wait a minute. You're Hispanic?
Oh, my God. You look so employed.
Pretty soon 90% of my stuff
is all these insults
making fun of the audience.
I'm glad you people like me
because my mother hates me.
[woman] In my own family,
I've always known laughter
to be the most healing thing.
Everyone in the family has
touched trauma in some way.
It's mostly not something we talk about.
So we choose to laugh at funerals.
We choose to laugh
when somebody's getting divorced.
Someone has the job to make things funny.
We look to that person, and it helps.
And I made a choice
to be that person in my family.
A lot of people tell me
that I look really skinny,
as a compliment, pretty frequently.
They often wanna know
the secret to how I maintain this figure,
and, uh, the secret is definitely
irritable bowel syndrome
onset by severe stress and trauma,
so [laughs]
I guess a lot of people
want a skinny girlfriend,
but no one wants to know
how the sausage gets made, so
Fine.
[audience laughing, faint]
Jerry, who are
your favorite female comedians?
My favorite female comedian
was Cary Grant.
[laughter]
I cannot sit and watch a lady
diminish her qualities
to the lowest common denominator.
I just can't do that.
You know what you look like normally?
You look like the lady that looks
in a fun mirror at the Palisades Park.
-[audience laughs]
-Short and fat.
But you're regular like that.
Did you ever notice?
I look in the mirror, I see Raquel Welch.
I swear!
-She's staying with you?
-No, I got a picture of her in my mirror.
[laughter]
You're different from other girls.
That's what you think.
You're smarter. You're almost like a man.
[Gold] As a little kid,
I really didn't understand, like
why does he get to do that
and I have to do this?
Just 'cause he's a boy?
Like, I was really floored by that.
[narrator] Carol took a general
home economics course,
one which fitted her
for that very important career
of being Mrs. Johnson.
She was glad that her college training
had prepared her so well for home life.
[Gold] The idea of what femininity is,
and in a lot of people's minds, still is,
is dainty, quiet, ladylike.
You learn the most ladylike thing
is to shut your fucking mouth
and not have an opinion
and whatever your husband says.
And here were these women comics
who were like,
"Don't tell me what I can say.
Don't tell me what I can do.
Go fuck yourself."
[applause]
[laughs]
Thank you, children. Thank you, darling.
I know you children are
all relaxed back there,
sitting back there, looking at Moms.
You think you're gonna hear some jokes,
don't you?
Well, Moms don't know none.
Moms don't know no jokes,
but I can tell you some facts.
Moms Mabley, I admire her
on so many levels because she--
In order to really get out there
and tell her truth and for people to--
for it to be palatable to an audience,
she had to dress like an old woman.
She was very opinionated, but in order
for them to accept what she had to say,
she had to be an old woman.
[man] Do they call you Jackie
down there or Moms?
-I've never known. It's Jackie--
-No.
They like me down there to tell the truth.
-Yeah.
-They named me Roy Rogers's horse.
-Trigger?
-Trigger, yeah.
-That's what they call you in the South?
-Yeah. Everywhere I go: "Hello, Trigger!
What you say, Trigger?"
At least I think that's what they say.
[audience laughing]
In the beginning, it was a lot of people
that people don't know about.
Totie Fields, Belle Barth.
[Gold] Sophie Tucker, Jean Carroll,
who doesn't get enough credit at all
for being one of the first
female stand-ups.
I said, "Then I'll buy something
in satin to match my eyes."
She said,
"We have no bloodshot satin in stock."
[laughter]
Well, I said, "If you don't mind,
I'd like to bring my husband down
and have him look at it."
She says, "Jenny, look who's married."
You go back and look at all--
Women would get on stage,
acknowledge that they're pieces of shit,
and then go, "Okay, so here are my jokes."
It was like, "Hi. I know I'm a woman.
I know I should be home with my kids,
so I'm going to acknowledge that, and then
can you listen to my jokes, please?"
But look, I love my work. I really do.
Of course, it's scary. The lights
scare me to death. They're so bright.
When I was a housewife,
if I ever had this much light on me,
when I woke up, I had another kid.
[audience laughing]
Reading about your meteoric rise
in this business,
it says that your basic appeal
is to the housewife
-Isn't that amazing?
-somewhere between 25 and 45.
Take it up to 90.
[laughs]
Well, I'll tell ya,
my goal in life is to get everybody.
But first of all,
I had definitely one audience,
and it was housewives.
Because they identified with me,
I was their Cinderella.
I got out of the kitchen.
You know, I was finally able
to burn the ironing one last time.
Isn't it that you're putting down the man
all the time, right?
I pretend to, but if I weren't nuts
about men, I couldn't possibly do it.
I can't even imagine doing
stand-up at that time.
I don't even know how these women did it.
Here's my daffy little friend
-Our daffy little friend
-My little pixie friend
Little Joan Rivers.
[applause]
[Gold] I loved Joan so much.
Here's this brash Jewish woman
on television with opinions.
Well, it's all sex.
That magazine, you know--
The lead article, "How to use your breasts
to get a better apartment."
-And it's like, you know
-[laughter]
Ding-dong.
She was hysterical.
You know, on a show
with the whitest guy in the universe,
like, Nebraska, making him laugh.
I had no idea where you were going there.
You-- You always amaze me.
It was like, "Oh. That's--
That's what I wanna be."
[Franklin] I saw Wanda
on stage in college.
She was the first Black woman
that reminded me of myself.
I was like, "I can do this."
Now you see, that's love right there.
[Shlesinger]
I remember doing improv in high school,
and the boys would always
grab the mic first,
and I remember thinking,
"You motherfucker,
I'm gonna do this for a living,
so quit hogging the mic
with your garbage jokes."
It never occurred to me, like,
"I'm a girl. I can't get up there."
[McFarlane] I didn't wanna do stand-up.
I didn't think I was a good performer.
But I love writing jokes.
So on my 23rd birthday,
I booked myself on an open mic,
and I went down.
I was just frozen with fear.
[Shepherd] I was not fulfilled.
I had such low self-worth.
My mom was very sick
'cause I had a sister that was on drugs.
I just wasn't happy.
[Lynch] Just feeling frustration,
like I'd just shut everything down.
It's almost like it just filled up so much
that I was like, "I need to speak.
-My voice has to come out."
-Carmen Lynch, everybody.
[applause, cheering]
It was a huge step for me.
Sometimes I'm shocked that I did it.
I did really well. I was like,
[chuckles]
"This is my calling," and then, uh,
you know, the next 400 times
I bombed pretty badly.
The first time I got
off stage when I was 18,
I called my dad and was like,
"I know what I wanna do for forever.
And I'm gonna do it, and this is it."
We were both crying on the phone
because I was anorexic.
I was still battling the illness.
It was like, finally,
something that's gonna get me
to figure out how to beat this.
[Franklin] I was, like, 28,
and I went on stage,
and I killed, and it was
the best feeling in the world.
I was like, "This is where I need to be."
[applause]
[Shepherd] My life
was craziness and chaos,
but once I got on that stage,
it was like life was all good.
There was a peace that settled over me.
[Feimster] I started at the Comedy Store
performing at 1:00 in the morning
for four drunk guys, and it sucked.
But I liked that challenge of having to be
in the middle of Hollywood.
There's alcohol. There's cynicism.
You know, like, I'm gonna make you laugh.
I'm gonna figure it out.
I might not make you laugh tonight, but
I'm gonna make you laugh tomorrow night.
[Franklin]
There's the dream, there's the fantasy,
and then there's the reality check.
I had never understood sexism
until I got into the comedy scene.
[chattering, laughter]
Yeah, I'm not gonna guide any lady
through comedy.
That would take me, uh, first of all,
I'd have to figure out
how a lady could do comedy.
-[laughter]
-You know?
-And then I'd have to
-[Robin Quivers] Wow!
-[Howard Stern] There was no--
-[man] Easy, Jerry Lewis.
Stand-up comedy's a different
kind of thing, for some reason.
Why do you think it is that guys
are only funny in that?
-What is it?
-Artie?
[laughs] I don't-- I mean-- I just think
that it's a man's world, you know?
-I, uh-- I don't, uh--
-[Stern] Is that the answer though?
Can that be the answer?
It's a man's world?
[Gold] Still, to this day,
you hear over and over and over,
"Women aren't funny. Women aren't funny."
It's ridiculous!
There are funny men and funny women.
But I do understand
that men might not want women to be funny.
Wow, San Francisco.
People are so friendly here.
I was on the cable car, and this guy
offered me a seat on his lap.
Uh
Then he got off. But I-I was gonna, um
[laughter]
What? It was his stop.
[interviewer] Where do you think that idea
that women aren't funny came from?
Thought we weren't gonna talk
about this question.
We're not gonna talk about the fact
that women aren't funny, 'cause they are.
But where do you think the idea came from?
It's not what I think. It's what I know.
And the answer is,
men have always gotten to do things first.
Whether it's owning property
or having freedom of speech
or anything fun and expressing yourselves,
men got to do it first.
So by sheer numbers,
more men have been doing comedy for longer
because women for so long were expected
to stay home, have children and then die.
-That's pretty harsh.
-[man] Well, so's your coffee.
So it's not that women aren't funny.
Women weren't allowed to express
themselves and do it on a larger platform.
I'm Lilah,
and I-I don't know what I'm doing.
[Gold] Way too often, I would hear,
"Oh, we had a woman here three months ago.
She didn't do well,
so we're not booking women at this time."
It used to be like if you were doing
shows, like, even up to the '90s,
comedians would bring on
a female comedian,
and they would say,
"Okay, we got a woman,"
and people would go, "Ugh!"
Like, how dare you!
Sometimes they would put
their head on-- They'd just
put their head right down
on the table and not watch you.
There's always this guy
at every show that I do.
The arms folded, like, "You ain't gonna
be funny 'cause you a bitch" guy.
Sir, I know you had your arms folded
the whole time.
No, no, no, no. No, shut up.
No, he's great.
He's laughed at every single joke.
The arms folded was just to separate
the tits from the gut. I get it.
Tit sweat is a bitch.
I've been a victim of it myself.
You'll see the evolvement through the show
where they're like this and
Then, like, ten minutes later,
they're like this.
And then by the end of the show,
they're like
They will be the first ones
in the meet-and-greet line, being like,
[imitating man]
"I didn't wanna come tonight.
I thought this was gonna be garbage."
"I usually hate female comics,
but you're good."
Still have Facebook messages
from, like, 2010,
like, "Women aren't funny,
but I think you are."
I'm like, "Thanks, Mom." [laughs]
Okay, here we go.
Now we're gonna break it up
with a lovely young lady.
Really, she's funny, she's lovely,
and she's a good girl too.
-[laughter]
-I found that out.
This next comic, you're gonna love her.
She's very good. She's gorgeous.
We got a little lady coming up here.
I'll tell you what. She's funny as a man.
I mean it. Give her a hand.
I've been intro'd like the fact that
I'm a woman is like a wacky experiment.
They'll be like,
"We got a young lady coming up."
Like, "Let's see how this goes down."
[Kirson] I think we should
start doing it about men.
"Ah, this next guy coming to the stage,
his balls are bigger than you've
ever seen in your whole life."
"Yeah. You guys ready for some big balls?"
-"Oh, you guys like testicles?"
-Yeah.
'Cause this guy's got two of 'em,
-as far as we know.
-Right.
I think it's indisputable that
there has been a pipeline,
where there was a time when it seemed like
there really was only room for one.
[Feinstein] If there was
two women back to back on a lineup,
they would be like,
"Oh, we just had a woman on,
so we're gonna put a guy on,
then we're gonna put you on."
They would say that to your face.
It's not redundant
because you have two people
of the same race or sex on back to back,
but they would openly say that to you.
"Oh, we can't go vag, vag. Um, God forbid.
We can go dick, dick, dick, dick, dick,
but we can't do two vages in a row.
That would confuse everyone."
Okay, hold on, hold on. It's a night
of honesty. It's a night of honesty.
Where are the straight guys who
were dragged by the wife or girlfriend?
-[cheering]
-Yes! I know. I'm sorry, sir.
I don't speak your language. I'm sorry. I
I speak fluent gay. I took two years
in high school, and it just stuck.
As I started doing stand-up more,
I would see a lot
of other female comedians.
But I have to be honest-- 90% of them
just aren't even in the business anymore.
There's all these ways
that we control each other,
and to an extent, we do that
still as women to one another.
It was hard to like another woman
because you felt threatened by, you know,
only one person is gonna get the job.
I was bullied
by a female comic really early on,
like, so bad that I had to, like,
kinda leave town,
like, my home club in St. Louis.
She was so funny. I looked up to her
so much. All I wanted was her approval.
Girls hate each other,
especially during the day.
But when the moon comes up,
and there's white wine involved,
[nasally voice] "Oh, my God, Stacy,
you look amazing.
I love you. Can I just tell you?
I love you. I do. But you know who I hate?
[deep voice] Becky."
[laughter]
Yeah, the competition thing, you got
this one slot. "We need one woman."
Networks too. I will never forget
pitching a show to a network
and them saying to me, "We already have,
like, a blonde funny woman."
And I was like, "Okay, I'll dye
my hair red. What are you talking about?"
[Lampanelli] You basically go up
five, seven nights a week
for free at anyplace that has
a coffee shop, a laundromat,
a fuckin' noodle place,
whatever, and practice.
The open mics I used to do in this city--
I worked in a supermarket
where people would be checking out.
It was like, "Hey, wow, you got relish."
It was horrible.
And we didn't get paid, but we got
to have the salad bar downstairs.
I moved to LA, and I was like,
"How do I get stage time?"
And I would contact comics that had shows:
"Can I make your flyers?
Can I jump on?"
Did you guys see this? Oh, I didn't know
it was gonna be a thing.
How you guys doing? That's weird. Okay.
Got off work at 6:00 and wait till 8:00,
and I'd go to the bar, eat my sad chicken
finger dinner and wait for my spot,
which was at, like, 9:30,
and then you'd go get another one.
And then you would just cobble together
any spots you could get.
You'd drive to Santa Barbara
on a work night
because someone would give you 20 minutes.
Just kind of figuring it out
without realizing
what the limitations could be
or anything like that.
Just going.
[Franklin] When I came up,
if you weren't performing every night,
you weren't serious about it.
You were always told, "There's no excuse.
Do not use being Black as an excuse.
Do not use being a woman as an excuse.
You need to be good at this."
I do realize as a Black woman,
which is how I start
every conversation, um
[laughter]
I do realize it is my job
to address what's in the air,
but, um, I have to be honest--
I'm not good at it.
I say things wrong.
Like, I've been messing up
on my pronouns lately
'cause I met someone
who was not a guy or a girl.
They were a "they,"
which is how they wanna be referred to,
and that's important.
I care about that. It's just new to me.
And in a sentence structurally
it makes me sound like a runaway slave.
Like, "Where they at?"
[laughter]
"They's coming?"
"They down by the river?"
They gon' be mad at that joke.
Some people are lucky.
They find their voice in, like, ten years.
But you can't do that unless
you feel comfortable onstage,
and you can't feel comfortable onstage
unless you do it every fucking night.
[interviewer] Did it feel like
an even playing field for men and women?
Heck, no. [laughs]
An even playing field? Are you kidding?
What? It's not even
an even playing field now.
No, it was never an even playing field.
It was so hard to get stage time.
-Oh, Lord!
-[laughter]
As a Black woman, I had to fight.
I really, really had to fight
for my spots,
and I really, really had to prove
to the comics that I was funny.
I was at a club, and a guy had come up
to me. I was coming out the bathroom.
He said, "Excuse me, sister."
I said, "No, excuse me!"
[laughter]
"I make my own money.
I got my thing goin'.
I don't need you to tell me what to do.
I do my nails, my hair.
I got it all covered here.
Now, what you want?"
He was like, "I was just gonna tell you
you had some toilet paper
stuck on your shoe."
Oh. Oh.
[Gold] In New York, first of all,
you're lucky if you get on the schedule,
and then you're gonna get 15 minutes, ten.
On the road, I was getting
30 minutes of stage time as a feature.
I go to Flint.
I'm performing at this college.
Right before I go onstage,
I go up to the student body president.
I said, "Look, I just need to know for
my act, do you guys have any Jews here?"
She goes, "Jews?
Yeah, we've got, um, apple juice,
grape juice and orange juice."
This is every hotel key card
that I've used
since around maybe 2010.
I don't use my own name when I check in,
so a lot of these have a fake name.
You can kind of, like, uh,
relive your life.
You can demarcate it
by hotel star ratings.
[Gold] Some of the clubs
would buy condominiums.
Did anyone talk about this? Oh, my God.
Welcome to the comedy condo
at the Tampa Improv.
Not actually at the Tampa Improv.
Kind of a couple blocks down the street
into a pretty dangerous neighborhood.
There's no emcee staying with me.
He actually lives in this, uh, complex
in another condo.
Here I am, this sort of sheltered girl.
I'm living with two guys I don't know
for a week.
And you know, they'd bring home
waitresses, and I'm sitting there, like,
in my room with the locked door,
reading a book,
with, like, you know, Pauly Shore's cum
on the fucking comforter.
Ew.
It's the dues that you have to pay
to sort of get to where you wanna go.
But it's, like, so sad. [laughs]
You just think, what if this is my life?
I sat down on the couch,
and I started flipping through the TV,
and I came upon the Lifetime network.
Now, I don't know if you guys
are familiar with the Lifetime network,
but their slogan is,
"Lifetime-- Television for Women."
Now, if you were to watch some of these
Lifetime movies they are most famous for,
you would notice they often involve
a woman being murdered,
kidnapped, beaten, maimed, hoodwinked.
-You know, girl stuff.
-[laughter]
Usually when we're comedians on the road,
they don't give a shit about us.
They'll just send any sex offender
to get us from the airport.
I was in Alabama, and they sent this man.
You know when you meet someone and just
right away, you're like, "You're crazy."
Like, I could feel him
crackling with insanity.
Humming with madness.
I got into his car.
This is the first thing he said to me.
This is what he opened with. He just goes,
[imitates Southern accent]
"You is the first Jewish
that I have ever met in my life."
Which I guess is better
than being his last Jewish. I'm not sure.
It's tricky. When somebody asks you
to go on the road, you don't always know
you don't know why.
Does this guy respect my act,
or is he gonna be
just strange and gross
and lascivious all weekend?
[Shlesinger] They don't know the feeling.
They don't know what it's like
to physically not be as big as someone
and know that no matter
how much smarter or funnier you are,
if that person wants to hurt you,
they can.
I've had a fan follow me to my hotel room
before and somehow know my room.
I don't know how he did,
but banging on the door all night.
I had to call the cops. It was like,
you know, you're a little bit like--
You know, of course I got harassed.
Someone grabbed my boob.
It's happened so many times
where guys casually
just put their hand on my ass
when they're taking a picture.
And no one ever sees it.
I'll have security guards watching,
and I'll be like,
"Will you watch for men
touching me in weird places?"
'It's always weird for me to call out
'cause it's in front of their wife.
I don't wanna embarrass them
and make it a thing.
I had a guy lick me one time.
From that point on, I was like,
there will always be a security guard.
I've had male comics
follow me in the bathroom
and push open the bathroom stall before.
I mean, it goes on and on.
I was working with somebody on the road,
and he locked me in the dressing room
and he came for me.
But he was half my size.
That's really stupid and insulting
when somebody tries to rape you
and they're half your size.
I've been in so many situations.
I was assaulted by a comic.
It's-- It's rough.
You know?
[Franklin] You gotta be careful.
There are crazy people out there.
You know, I'm sure that's true
for men too, but not as much.
[Franklin] I thought about you, actually,
this weekend,
when I did that one club in Seattle.
[man] I think about you
on multiple weekends.
[Franklin laughs]
You told me that the hotel situation
was fine, and it was horrible.
-Do you remember that.
-I was younger in comedy at that time--
Do you remember that motel?
Yeah. But I was probably just used
to abuse at that point in my career.
You raved about it!
You said you could go get pancakes
[Sam] That pancake place is good.
[Feinstein] They have
a different set of priorities.
So Sam's thinking about, you know,
where he can get food and get laid.
We're thinking about, you know, safety.
No, no, when I was there once,
a meth addict--
it was a motel-style hotel,
and he passed out against my window.
And I was like, yeah,
I should probably move.
Sam's like, "It's great.
There's an outside entrance.
Girls can just walk right up
to your room."
[Franklin] Yeah, no, it's awful.
[Sam laughs]
Well, I don't know. I Yeah.
[Sam] I remember you called me
about that hotel,
and I guess I didn't really realize
how bad it was.
It is bad.
Women have so much more
to worry about, huh?
This summer I'm walking with my boyfriend.
He says to me,
"Gee, it's a beautiful night.
Let's go down by the river."
[laughs] I said, "What are you, nuts?
I'm not going down by the river.
It's midnight.
I'm wearing jewelry. I'm carrying money.
I have a vagina with me."
[laughter, cheering]
Wouldn't it be great if you could just
leave your pussy at home sometimes?
Just think of the freedom
that you will have.
You'd get home from work.
It's getting a little dark outside.
You're like, I would like to go for a jog,
but it's getting too dark.
Oh, I'll just leave it at home.
-And you
-[laughter]
And you're out jogging.
Yeah, it could be pitch black.
You still out there,
just jogging, enjoying yourself.
You know, if some crazy guy
jumps out the bushes, like, "Ahh!"
You're like, "Oh! I left it at home."
[cheering]
[Gold] I didn't wanna fuck
any of the guys.
I hung out with them. I heard every
fucking shit they said about women
and minorities and Jews and gay--
You know.
And I was like, okay, great. Whatever.
I just wanted to be good at my craft.
I didn't let them or anything
get in the way.
Hey. How was it?
Ugh. I don't know. I've been on the road.
I don't know what's happening.
-Where have you been?
-I was on, uh-- I was at Acme.
-Oh, I love Acme.
-I love Acme, too. It was great.
-I saw your name on the thing--
-On the thing on the dressing room?
Yeah. It was fun.
But I just feel disconnected.
-Whenever I come back, I'm exhausted.
-You gotta take Sunday off.
You gotta enjoy the work.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And you wouldn't be on the stage
if you didn't deserve to be.
Yeah. I gotta remember that.
I didn't trick anybody.
-Right. You're not a fraud.
-[laughs] Yeah.
You got in here, and you--
Do you think the guys, ever,
when they get in here, are like
-No.
-Never.
-You earned that time. It's your time.
-Yeah.
Don't let them in your head.
It's a process.
-Thank you.
-How long have you been doing it?
I appreciate that so much.
[Shlesinger] Confidence is only a question
that we ask women about
because it's just a given
that men will have it.
We're always telling un-confident women
to be confident,
and then when they get confident,
we're like,
"Why are you so confident? Tone it down.
That's making us feel less confident.
Let's build you back up,
knock you back down."
We have an obsession with monitoring
women's confidence and their hubris.
I truly believe our society operates
on a currency of women's insecurities.
Multibillion-dollar industries
thriving on, like,
"Make them feel like
their bodies are unacceptable
and then sell them some shit."
Look at any magazine. "You're amazing,
but you need to lose, like, ten pounds."
"Love your body, your hair.
Whatever you've done is wrong.
You look like a sea monster."
Everything's got a weird mixed message
and a weird whore-y undertone.
Like, "Be a bad girl. Own your sexuality.
But if you fuck more than one dude,
you're a whore."
Everything's wrong.
It's not easy. It's not.
And men and women are different, you know?
Do you ever notice, women,
whenever we look in the mirror,
we're insecure, we judge ourselves,
or just, we tear ourselves apart?
Just-- "Look at me. Look."
Even if you're stunning-- "Look at
my eyes. They're like a different shape.
I'm so-- Ugh, I hate my hair.
So unattractive."
This is how most men look in the mirror,
no matter how
horribly unattractive they are.
[applause, laughter]
"I'm fuckin' hot."
[Glaser] I know I'm smart. I know
I'm funny. I don't question those things.
I do question that I'm pretty.
And it's so stupid. It's so stupid to say.
Um, and it's so sad.
I wish I could just accept myself,
but, um, I was, uh--
I just have really low self-esteem
because I was born a woman, and so, um
Maybe I was born with it.
Maybe it's Maybelline.
-It'll just be
-Yeah, that's good.
It's so much easier to be a man.
I mean, you get it.
You're, like, you see--
You work with all--
like, mostly men on camera.
You see what work goes into them
being on camera versus--
As we sit here in hair and makeup?
Yeah, I get it.
Grateful for you and what you do,
but, you know, ultimately resent it.
You are just fed from the day--
at least I was from day one--
that looks matter.
Photo shoots send me into depressions.
Anything that makes me focus on my vanity,
that's what really makes me have anxiety.
My dad used to tell me I was so beautiful,
and I was an ugly child.
I legit was.
I was diagnosed as one at the age of 11
by a caricature artist at a Six Flags.
So I have the documentation.
[woman] Men look for looks. Remember that.
Don't waste your time
learning to read a book.
[laughter]
[man] I wanna congratulate you.
You've taken off a lot of weight.
Your hair's different.
Everything about you is different.
[Cho] A lot of really established
comedians-- men-- would say,
"Don't be so pretty.
You can't be too pretty,
because they're gonna be mad."
"The women will be jealous
because you're so beautiful.
The men will just wanna have sex with you.
So don't be too pretty."
A beautiful woman is a threat.
If you see any patches of archaic sadness,
just blot them.
Just keep plastering this lie on me.
I have some little dickhead in my head
that's like, "You look fat in that shot."
So I wish I didn't have those thoughts.
All I do is just bat them away
as much as I can.
You're smart. You're funny.
You're just a little insecure. That's all.
My mom was a girlie girl,
so she wanted me to dress more feminine.
So she started shopping for me,
and for some reason,
she started putting me
in these power suits.
[laughter]
Yeah, like a pantsuit,
which is just an older version of "gay."
I looked like a 50-year-old woman lawyer,
just going to court in my power suit.
Like, who's ready to litigate, ladies?
Of course I'm gonna get called fat.
I'm gonna get called a dude.
I'm gonna get called whatever.
You just kinda go, "Huh, okay,"
and move on.
But I don't understand shoulder pads.
Were people just like,
"Oh, your shoulders hadn't come in yet.
Let's get you some pads"?
But I'm never gonna be like,
"Oh, God, I felt so fat up there."
[blows raspberry] Who cares?
I have achieved more peace in my body
as I've gotten older,
but it took a long time to get there.
Once upon a time, I had my own TV show
called All-American Girl.
[applause, cheering]
I got a phone call
from the producer of the show.
"The network is concerned.
They think that you're really overweight,
and you're gonna have to do
something about it.
If you wanna be a star,
if you wanna have a show,
you're gonna have to do something."
I wanted to be a success at this,
and I was willing to do whatever.
And if that meant don't eat,
I just was fine with that.
I lost 30 pounds in two weeks.
[audience gasps]
And my kidneys collapsed.
It happened on the set of the show.
I guess the network had decided
that my face could now fit on the screen.
The first episode was about my character,
and I do stand-up comedy
and publicly embarrass my family.
So at the end of the episode,
I learned my lesson, I go back onstage,
and I vow never to publicly
embarrass my family again.
Quentin Tarantino,
who I was dating at the time,
called me up straightaway.
"What the fuck was that?"
[laughter]
"That is so fucking wrong!
I can't believe you!
You fucking live to publicly
embarrass your family."
[laughter]
"What's wrong with you?
They took away your voice.
Don't let them do that.
Don't let them take away your voice!"
I didn't get it.
I was like, "But I'm a size 4."
[laughter]
[Gold] All those years of "too tall,
too loud, too Jewish, too gay"--
It took me so long to realize I am angry.
-No one's funnier than us.
-No one!
-[man] Kathy Griffin! Sarah Silverman!
-[both] Fuck you!
But a woman can't be angry,
'cause if she's angry, she's mentally ill.
She's hysterical. She's a bitch.
Or a diva. Or a nag.
Difficult, bitchy, hard to work with.
[Shlesinger] When women, like, go crazy,
it's because people chip away at you,
and then you snap.
And it's like, "See? Crazy."
If someone's crazy,
of course you don't have to listen to them
or heed their warnings or take
them seriously-- you write 'em off.
Male comics are often really, really
celebrated for their very famous anger.
You fucking bitch! How do you live
with yourself? You piece of shit!
Yeah, you fucking cunt! You fucking bitch!
That gives me carte blanche!
I got a cunt, and I'm drunk.
I can do anything I want!
Shut up! I'll let go when you shut up.
Girl, I'll shake this weave out your hair.
I don't give a fuck.
Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
Talking about hitting women, sweetheart.
And I think you just added another reason.
We're not allowed to show
that we're angry, even though we are.
Women are filled with rage, but we have
to keep a smile and not show it
because of wrinkles and likability.
So we shove it down. Shove it down.
But it comes out.
It finds a way, like water.
[Cho] It was always very hard
to talk about trauma in comedy
because audiences don't want
the daily-ness of tragedy
to encroach upon when they are laughing.
And I find it really interesting
that this is becoming--
that that kind of admission of trauma
is part of comedy's venue these days.
Yeah, and nowadays, it's become really
a testament to comedians' skill
to use that suffering in a way as, like,
almost like colors
that you would paint with,
to use all of that darkness to, um,
I guess contrast to the lightness.
[chattering, laughter]
-[Gold] What's going on, beeyatch?
-[Franklin] Well
I'm about to go onstage.
Probably gonna bomb.
-It's an eight-minute.
-[woman] What are you gonna talk about?
How I was diagnosed with breast cancer.
-What?
-Aw.
[man] I don't remember
anything about this.
[Franklin] Yeah, but I'm gonna be fine.
-But you're gonna talk about it onstage?
-[woman] You're gonna be fine.
-That's so great. You can talk about it--
-[overlapping chatter]
So great!
She gets to talk about it onstage.
Most people who get breast cancer
have to live with the torture inside.
-You get to
-[Jeff Ross] Marina,
you have, and have always had, great tits,
just so you know.
-[Franklin] I know
-[laughter]
[Gold] What?
-[Franklin] All right. Here we go.
-[Gold] Have fun.
-If it doesn't work--
-[Gold] Break a tit!
[laughter]
[Franklin] Oh, Judy.
What would I do without you?
Hard to do in an eight-minute set, though.
Like, "I have breast cancer," and I'm out.
-[Gold] Bye.
-[Franklin] Bye.
When I found out my diagnosis,
everything flashed before me,
and I thought about
[voice breaking] when I was
in high school, what I wanted to be.
And then I thought about my career
and where it was and where it wasn't.
And I thought about all of the things
that I wanted for my life.
By the time I got to the comedy club,
tears were gone.
I was calm.
[emcee] Marina Franklin!
-[applause, cheering]
-Oh, yeah!
Not getting a hug. That's okay.
-These guys these days, you know
-[laughter]
They're so-- It's all right.
It works for my act, so that's fine.
No, 'cause they're not giving us hugs.
It's the Me Too movement.
'Cause this is how they're hugging.
They're hugging like--
I didn't even get one from him.
And I'm hugging like that.
-[laughter]
-Oh, yeah, I'll give you a good vag hug.
That's right.
'Cause I was with this brother and--
He came quick, and, um,
I was laying there, and he was asleep,
and I started feeling myself,
and, uh, I felt something.
And this is not the funny part, actually.
I don't want you to accidentally laugh
on the unfunny part.
But I have [laughs]
'Cause this is new material.
But, uh, I had-- I had a lump,
and, uh, it was breast cancer.
But [laughs] You guys are like,
"Oh. Where is she going?"
Uh, the thing is, I caught it early,
so I'm gonna be good, yeah.
Yeah, you can applaud that.
You can. You can. Yes. Caught it early.
'Cause of the bad lay that I had,
apparently.
If I hadn't had a bad lay,
I would never have caught it early.
-[laughter]
-So you guys are actually--
You don't realize it.
You're providing a service.
[laughter]
So I guess, come quick.
Thank you. I like that extra laugh.
Okay. You guys were really good for me,
uh, trying this material out.
Um-- [sighs] How do I get
out of cancer material?
[laughter]
It's not easy, I'm gonna tell you.
Okay, this is another new one.
Fertility. I gotta do fertility stuff.
That's aggressive,
coming at men 'cause I need sperm.
That's kinda creepy.
Just, "I need your sp--
I don't even need you."
I was like,
Louis C.K. is actually useful right now.
-[laughter]
-It's like, "You know that"
[laughs]
"You know that thing you do?
If you could do that into a cup, please."
Hey, you guys were amazing.
Thank you so much.
[applause, cheering]
[exhales deeply] I did it.
I was scared. I'm not gonna lie.
I was really scared to share it.
-They were so good. My God.
-[man] Weren't they crazy?
It was so good for me, and I could see
that I was actually reaching people.
[Shlesinger] The things that
we're talking about as comics,
like, this is your experience
on this planet.
Comics are here to hold up that mirror,
to be, like, "This is us."
I think it was George Carlin who calls
us comedians modern-day philosophers.
We're also whistle-blowers.
You're standing up for what you believe
is right, and you're calling things out.
It's my job to stand up there alone,
in the dark,
and tell you where I see bullshit.
-Should it be more straight up like that?
-No, it's gotta be centered.
-There you go. Just like that.
-You got it.
[woman on TV] It all started when
celebrity photographer Tyler Shields
released this video of Griffin
slowly lifting up
what resembles the head of Donald Trump
for all to see.
[Cho] After she was photographed
holding up Trump's head,
there was such a huge backlash.
[Griffin] When that photo went live
on March 30, 2017,
I lost everything within 12 hours.
I was in the middle of a 50-city tour,
and the last 25 cities
of the tour were all canceled.
A comedian is dealing with the aftermath
of what she now describes as a mistake.
I'm a comic. I crossed the line.
I moved the line. And then I cross it.
I went way too far.
For the first time in history
that we are aware of,
the president of the United States
and his family
is personally attempting
to ruin a comedian.
It was all so much bullshit.
She got so railroaded.
You know, I'm sorry, but Kathy Griffin--
men haven't liked her for years.
Many male artists have created
far more disturbing imagery.
A Marilyn Manson music video
shows him beheading a Trump figure.
The band Municipal Waste
has an image of Trump
with a bloody gunshot to his head.
The band GWAR has had
violent images like this
for president after president for years.
They're all just considered bad boys.
They would never treat a male comedian
that way. I've never seen that.
Even male comedians who threaten gang rape
don't get that kind of shit. [laughs]
I am a woman in
a very male-dominated field.
I think it's important to have comics
that do super clean comedy,
comics that do political commentary,
prop comics, all of it.
You don't have to like me,
but you shouldn't silence a comic.
Joan Rivers would have done
the same thing.
Kathy, Joan, just fearlessness.
Fearlessness in a way that I don't have.
Like that girl that was onstage
when Harvey Weinstein was in the room,
that was the type of thing I watched,
and I was like,
I don't know if I could have done that.
Harvey Weinstein's trip to a comedy show
ends in a Me Too confrontation
that's gone viral.
He's accused of sexual misconduct
by more than 80 women.
Right before I got onstage, I was asking
all the people around me,
"You know that's Harvey Weinstein, right?
Like, I need to say something.
I'm a comic, right?
I should say something"?
And a well-dressed woman drinking
a martini at the bar next to me went,
"No, don't say anything.
Are you kidding? Like, no."
And I was like,
"Oh, she's not gonna like this."
-[applause]
-I'm feeling a little tense.
Anybody else? No?
-I'm a comic.
-[laughter]
And it's our job to name, uh,
the elephant in the room.
Do we know what that is?
I saw the show
where this great female comic
was really calling out
the elephant in the room
with Harvey Weinstein being in the room,
and I'm like,
"Oh, my God, that is really badass."
I didn't know that
we had to bring our own mace
and, uh, rape whistles to Actor's Hour.
-[man booing]
-No?
Have them be booing you
and still stick to it?
I mean, it was one of the coolest things
I've ever seen.
-No?
-Shut up!
No?
Someone said, "Shut up,"
and that's the most triggering thing.
Oh, shut up?
Just felt like I kinda saw red.
That's the part
that is difficult in the room,
continuing to say, "Mm, you're booing me,
but I'm gonna keep
I'm gonna keep my composure
and say another funny thing."
This kills at, uh,
group therapy for rape survivors.
They love it. Yeah.
-[woman] Whoo, whoo! Yes!
-Yeah!
-Whoo!
-Yeah! Tell him!
I have been raped,
surprisingly by no one in this room,
but, um, I've never got to confront
those guys, so
Just a general "fuck you"
to whoever I, uh,
I am not making eye contact with.
[applause, cheers]
Um
That is nothing less than an act
of civil disobedience.
So for anyone out there,
and including the women that are saying,
"Oh, couldn't she have been more ladylike?
Couldn't she have said it
in a softer tone?"
I go, oh, my gosh,
we're still hearing that stuff.
All right, thank you.
I wrote her and told her, like,
"You've changed the way
that I've thought and behaved onstage."
And she's someone
who just started in comedy.
That's how cool that is that, like,
someone who's just starting out
can, like, make me feel so empowered.
The fact that these women
can get onstage and talk about rape,
that that is-- that's feminism.
Because you know what?
Women have been silent about this
for hundreds of-- thousands of years.
I'm so grateful to
this new generation of women.
They came along and they're like,
"Hey, have you been getting sexually
harassed like this your whole lives?"
And we're like, "Oh, yeah."
[laughter]
And they're like, "Yeah, you wanna
do something about that?"
And we're like "Oh, yeah!"
-[laughter]
-"That's a very good idea."
They're like, "Yeah, yeah."
We're like, oh--
We're so used to it, you know?
You're at work, and you're like, "Ugh,
I have to, like, make every guy think
that we also might fuck
and do a good job."
[laughter]
[Shepherd] What I do like is now
I'm seeing comics speak up.
I'm seeing a lot of badass girls
get into this field now.
I feel like they're equipped
more than we were.
I do just wanna confess the fame grab
for a second, though.
Like, I wanna fully confess it.
Um, when I was getting raped
five years ago [laughs]
I remember thinking to myself,
"I can't wait!"
[laughs]
"I can't wait to use this
to get ahead in comedy."
[laughter]
[Bachman] I think what people like
about my narrative right now
is that I'm like David and Goliath,
giant slayer.
This nobody little girl
stood up to the Big Bad Wolf,
and once you yourself stand up
against power,
then the narrative changes.
White guys
-White guys
-[laughter]
You guys have had a pretty bad year.
[applause, cheering]
I blow my husband whenever he wants,
so I do do that.
If he wants a blow job,
I just give it to him. I don't know why.
I love propping up the patriarchy,
you know?
[laughter]
No, that's what he calls his balls.
Maybe the Me Too movement didn't exactly
open more doors for women.
I mean, people were saying
it's gonna close doors for women.
Men aren't gonna wanna work
with women anymore.
And it's like, oh, go fuck yourself.
Really?
We're supposed to put up with that
so that everybody feels comfortable?
But on the other hand,
it really-- I feel like
there was a definite shift,
and we stopped competing with one another.
And we went, you know what?
This is it. We're in it together.
Kathy, I'm in a car with some--
with New York's finest.
Amy Schumer sent me
this really great video
the day the Trump photo went live
and the walls were caving in,
and I get this video,
and she's with three other comics,
and it was so supportive.
We just wanna say we fucking love you
and we're with you.
-We're with you.
-You're hysterical.
And you looked fucking great
in that picture, by the way.
-Yeah.
-Gorgeous. All the way.
And we love you,
and you make us laugh so much.
We love you.
I felt very supported by it,
very supported.
Especially at that time, where it was
not exactly popular to support me.
[McFarlane] People just started
going to each other's shows,
just hanging out with each other.
And it's really remarkable
when you do stuff like that,
how much it grows.
And not to sound too corny,
but that's how movements happen,
and that's what I feel like is happening
right now with women in comedy.
It's like we're all--
we're all fueling each other,
and it's becoming something bigger,
you know?
It's made me closer to women
and feel better about being a woman.
'Cause we've all been in the same hotels.
We've been, like, depressed
at the same Howard Johnson's in Toledo.
And you guys have been there.
I've learned to become
super supportive of other female comics
because people did that for me,
like Amy Schumer.
Look at Inside Amy Schumer.
There's so many female comics.
I know what you're all thinking:
You wanna see the doctors right away.
But you're just gonna have to settle
for the unsung heroes up here
who do all the real work.
Doctors can be very unapproachable.
It's like, we get it, Your Grace.
-You're super busy.
-And we're not busy?
Thank you.
[Feinstein] Inside Amy Schumer--
Comedy Central used to say
our demographic is men,
and it's gotta be a man of this age.
So Amy changed that,
you know, dramatically.
[applause, cheering]
It really does take one person
in a position of power.
Once they anoint you in this business,
it helps tremendously.
I had been coming up
against a bunch of walls
of people not knowing what to do with me.
I was different. I looked different.
And Chelsea Handler was
the first person who got it.
You have two lesbians already.
A third one would not kill you.
We'll be like the lesbian Destiny's Child.
[audience applauding, cheering]
[Handler] Yeah! Yeah!
[Feimster] Tina Fey gave me
some really cool opportunities,
which led to getting on The Mindy Project.
They definitely all got their arm back,
lifting people up.
I could hook you up
if you wanna be an Uber driver.
I'm good. I already have a job,
thank you very much.
I think women are becoming
a lot more powerful.
I also think it's gonna take a long time.
But I've seen that the more and more
we come together,
the more work everyone's getting
and the more money everyone's making.
[woman] You have a new special out.
[Glaser] Yes, I have a special called
Bangin', and I'm really proud of it.
I've been doing this forever,
and now I'm graduating from clubs
to actual theaters.
[Nolan] The other thing people might know
you from is how good you are at roasts.
[Glaser] Yeah, I did the roast of
Alec Baldwin, the roast of Bruce Willis,
and I did the roast of Rob Lowe.
I feel like it's my thing now.
You are fucking funny.
There's so many types of women
doing so many types of comedy now.
And there's more of an appetite.
I hope that when women
see me on the stage, they can go,
"Wow. I think I can too."
Our new co-host Sherri Shepherd!
-[applause, cheering]
-Fist bump. Put it in.
[Shepherd] But I wanna see more women.
I want to see a woman in a burqa
get onstage and tell her truth.
I followed a white comedian
talking about horses the other day.
No, it was great material.
It was funny shit.
It was great material about horses.
I was so jealous.
'Cause I knew-- I was like,
I know I can't get away with that.
[laughter]
If I was up here talking about horses
for, like, an hour,
you guys would be like,
"This bitch know what's going on?"
[laughter]
[interviewer] Do you feel like
there's been a blossoming of voices,
of women and women of color?
[exhales deeply]
Mm.
I think it's definitely going
in the right direction
for comedy for Black women.
I think they are getting
a lot more attention now.
But I think there are still
some roadblocks.
I wanna see a female comic
get a deal at Netflix
that's a $50 million deal
like all of the other men.
I don't know any woman that has done that.
[Griffin] I've probably earned about
$75 million over the course of my career.
Believe it or not, it's still, for real,
like a tenth
of what my male counterparts have earned.
Like, I'm not even gonna--
I have to be honest about that.
I brought a death threat for you.
"Go to hell, Kathy."
This is what I want you to know about
the Trumpers, how random they are.
"You are no different than Bill Cosby."
[laughter]
I can think of one way, but
We still have a lot of work to do.
As much as there's progress,
if you notice the progress,
it's not really a trajectory
for all women.
It's kind of like we're still
in a period of fits and starts.
[applause]
It's very rare and unusual
to see a female comic perform pregnant
because female comics don't get pregnant.
[laughter]
Once they do get pregnant,
they generally disappear.
That's not the case with male comics.
Once they have a baby,
they'll get up onstage a week afterwards,
and they'll be like,
"Guys, I just had this fucking baby.
That baby's a little piece of shit.
It's so annoying and boring."
And all these other shitty dads
in the audience are like,
"That's hilarious. I identify."
And their fame just swells
because they become this relatable family
funny man all of a sudden.
Meanwhile, the mom is at home, chapping
her nipples, feeding the fucking baby,
and wearing a frozen diaper
'cause her pussy needs to heal
from the baby's head shredding it up.
She's busy.
-[Feinstein] Okay. Oh, oh, oh, oh.
-[baby crying]
-Here you go.
-[baby fusses]
She's one month old. Be right back.
Just wanted you to meet her.
I'm scared about how I'm gonna juggle
being a mother and doing stand-up,
and I'm sure I'll fuck up a lot.
Uh, I know it's been helpful to me
to listen to other comics
talk about being a mom.
I just relate more when I can hear other
female comics talk about juggling it.
[McFarlane] I have a daughter.
She's my world. She's my everything.
She's like five or 12
or something like that, and, um
I did take my daughter on the road
with me when she was little,
when she could fly for free.
I mean, literally, she was, like,
six months old when I started taking her,
and I'd just hand her over
to somebody in the green room,
the opening act, in the green room,
and I'd say, "Read her a book until
I get offstage." They were so nervous.
-You're gonna save your chopsticks?
-This one or this one?
When I was a kid,
we used to save our chopsticks.
-Oh, Daddy forgot his--
-We have chopsticks at home.
I know, but I'm just-- We were poor.
So are we.
[Lampanelli] Hello!
-How you doing?
-Okay.
Good. Do you wanna play a little bit
of cards while these people are here?
-If you want.
-Okay.
I started working on all the traumas
that I've had in my life
and it's been fucking hard.
But I think this is good for me,
'cause it's making me face
literally all the stuff
I've never faced in my whole life.
I decided to retire from stand-up
about two, three years ago.
I wanna do something
that has a clear message
to make people feel better
about themselves.
Lisa quit. Lisa Lampanelli quit.
And I fucking love that she quit.
And now she does self-help.
I do not want any transgender kid,
any gay kid,
any African-American person
to feel like the jokes are real.
So I said, you know what? It's all gone.
I'm gonna send a message of love in
a funny way, and that's how it's gonna be.
[Glaser] She told me
she's never been happier,
and I was like, "God, someday,
I'm right behind you."
I wanna go do self-help because I love--
That's what my act is turning into.
That's the fucked-up thing
about being a woman,
is that I did the roast of Alec Baldwin,
and everyone called me old,
and the thing is,
these men are twice my age calling me old.
But to them, I truly am old.
I'm literally older than
all of their wives, so they're not wrong.
I wanna, like,
make other women feel less alone.
That's why I talk about sex all the time.
If you would have asked me, like,
a year ago,
"Nikki, will you ever eat ass
in your life?"
-[laughter]
-I would've been like,
"Yeah, I did two years ago."
But if you would've asked me four years
ago, I would've been like, "Never.
My whole life,
I'll go without eating ass."
But one time I got horny enough
that I was just, like--
It was right there by my nose,
and I was like, I'm going in.
And I went in, and I've only done it once,
and I haven't done it since,
but because I've eaten ass,
I know I am a woman who can do anything.
-Like, I can do anything
-[applause, cheers]
except be president 'cause I'm a woman.
[woman] You got the role.
You booked the movie.
[Shlesinger] Whatever this life
has in store, whether it's kids
or having a movie career
or something bad happens,
there's always comedy
to be mined from that,
and that's why I love stand-up comedy.
[nasally voice] Amazing.
I'm offering up myself
in an effort to find myself,
hoping that in doing so,
you will also find yourself.
[cheering]
[Lynch] Stand-up helped me immensely.
Please laugh at all my jokes.
I have a heart murmur.
Just to write a joke
and share it with somebody,
that's really just opened me up
as a person.
I believe in Jesus.
Just kidding. I don't, I don't. Um
I mean, I do, like, sometimes.
Like when there's turbulence, oh, my God.
[Kirson] I do feel success. I do feel
like things are really happening.
But I don't think that
I will ever get that hole filled,
and I think that's a good thing
because it'll make me keep doing stand-up.
Like, once you're content
and happy, then what?
I'm so glad that I've been
talking about breast cancer.
And I started talking about it
on my podcast.
And so I would get these e-mails
from women.
"After your podcast,
I'm, like, driving to get a mammogram.
I'm going now. Me and my mom are going."
And I was like, okay,
this is why you do this.
That's me as an ice cream. [laughs]
When I discovered who I was
and found my place in LA,
found comedy, I found myself.
Even if you don't like gay people,
maybe I'll make you laugh,
and if that-- if that makes you feel
less hate towards gay people, then great.
I'm doing something right.
I finally get the courage to tell her.
I'm like, "Mom, I'm gay,"
and her face just drops.
She becomes silent. She looks stern.
I don't know what she's thinking,
and this goes on
for what feels like an eternity.
I'm like, oh, my God. What's happening?
Is this the end of our relationship?
Does she hate me?
And finally my mom gets up very sternly,
and she grabs her purse.
She goes, "Let's go!
We're going to Hooters, and we're gonna
tell 'em it's your birthday."
-[laughter]
-And I was like, "Yes!"
I think that we changed
the landscape of what is comedy,
and I really appreciate that.
I am not gonna die
because I failed as someone else.
I'm gonna succeed as myself,
and I'm gonna stay here and rock the mic
until the next Korean-American fag hag,
shit-starter, girl comic, trash-talker
comes up and takes my place!
[loud cheering and applause]
[Liebman] I'm producing this show
called "Locally Grown Comedy."
It's a grassroots community
that I've created.
So there's food in there.
I want my comedians
to feel very cared for.
-Don't fuck it up.
-[laughs]
I've written to each comedian
to thank them for doing my show
and telling them how awesome they are
and how much I appreciate them.
'Cause that's what I would wanna hear.
I'm excited about finding
female comics for my show.
One time I had all females on the show,
and I didn't say anything about it.
I didn't say,
"This is a female comedy show."
It just was.
[Franklin] We're not just--
It's not shallow laughter.
It's not jokes just for the sake of jokes.
It's about a connection.
It's about sharing a story.
And that's a very spiritual thing for me.
It is a religion.
I love the fact that you guys
are laughing at this. It's important.
[Shepherd] This is an occupation
where you get to find yourself
and you get to get strong.
You get on that stage, and you go,
"I can say something.
I can change opinions."
[Gold] I think that's the power of comedy.
Kids would go with their parents
to see my show
and then come out
to their parents afterwards, you know?
And that to me was the greatest gift.
Lot of long, handwritten ones.
One time someone told me that I'm the only
person they've told that they're trans.
And they send me pictures
of their animals.
People pour their hearts out into 'em.
[woman] Sorry for stopping you
while you're doing this too,
-but you're so awesome.
-[man] We fucking love you.
[Shlesinger] What I love about going
on the road and around the world
is seeing how
my very human observations apply
to a person that looks nothing like me
from a place I've never been to,
and it is the coolest thing ever.
At its core, we all want love.
We all wanna feel seen.
We all wanna feel acknowledged.
Nobody wants to feel bad about themselves.
Everybody wants to be heard.
If you don't stand up, you get run over.
[applause]
Hopefully,
women in power become so ubiquitous
that we don't have to talk
about it anymore.
[Shepherd]
I always tell women, do the self-talk.
It's your time now. Make a difference.
You're gonna change the world.
And don't sleep with the other comics.
That's one of the--
Don't--
Do not sleep with the other comics.
It's just [inhales sharply] no good.
["I Like Myself
(Most of the Time)" playing]
[applause, cheering]
Thank you. Good night. I love you. Mwah!
Everybody wants to be the girl
Good night! Thank you for coming!
Everybody wants to be
Extraordinarily beautiful
Thank you.
Everybody wants to rule the world
Or the room, at least
And assume that they'll be
The one with a crowded funeral
I heard about you, honky.
Everybody wants to have the time
-Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
-Thank you and good night.
Everybody wants to
Count their calories
-Hey, my name's Adele Givens.
-Thanks so much.
Baby, my job Is just to rhyme
-And I'm fine with that
-God bless you.
I'll concern myself with all
Of the lives I might've had
-You freakin' rock!
-Thank you guys so much!
-Thank you very much.
-Thank you!
Good night, everybody!
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
Thank you.
-Thank you so much.
-Thank you, guys.
You only got one shot, let her rip
-Take a dip
-Good night.
-Have a smoke
-Thank you.
Try to laugh at the jokes
Ha! I like myself most of the time
Is that a crime?
Is that a crime?
I like myself most of the time
Is that a crime?
Is that a crime?
Even Planet Earth took seven days
Even if it looks real
You can fake it
In a million different ways
Nobody chose to have their face
But you're stuck with it
So rather than counting my curses
I try to stay positive
I don't think I'm perfect
But I've got some things together
I see photos of proposals
That I know are empty gestures
Get a grip
You only got one shot, let her rip
Take a dip, have a smoke
Try to laugh at the jokes, ha!
I like myself most of the time
Is that a crime?
Is that a crime?
I like myself most of the time
Is that a crime?
Is that a crime?
Is that a crime?
Ha!
Is that a crime?
Is that a crime?
Ha!
Is that a crime?
Some guys do this thing in cars,
which is so disgusting.
They actually think
they'll get a woman to pull over
and go on a date with them. Ready?
[imitates horn honking] Aah!
What the fuck is that?
Can you imagine if a woman was like
[imitates horn honking] Hi.
[mouthing words]
[continues mouthing words]
In Victoria's Secret
they have all the little silky things,
and they got the things
written on the back.
They got "PINK" written on the back.
I bought a pair of "PINK" underwear.
So when you get a certain age, your ass
likes to eat up all the letters on the
So literally the panties just said
[crunching sound]
It's a funny time period after sex.
You just did this series
of preposterous things together, really.
And the men,
their bodies were, like, important.
Like, 20 minutes ago, you had this, like,
powerful, sexual man body
that was commanding things,
and now you're just running
those pointless, post-sex errands
around the room,
just these flaccid errands.
Just grabbing washcloths.
There's no dumber time in all of life.