‘I’m a feminist, but...’: The women breaking new comedy ground
Women in comedy reflect on whether we should even be talking about women in comedy, and how they make the scene work for them. Sapeer reports.
“If you're not a Jimmy Kimmel or a Jimmy Corden or a Jimmy Fallon, and you don’t live in Santa Monica, after a certain hour your chances of doing a comedy show drop.” It’s a brutal assessment of the late-night comedy scene by comedian and podcaster behind The Guilty Feminist, Deborah Frances-White.
Frances-White, who is coming to
New Zealand as part of the New Zealand International Comedy Festival this May, isn’t exactly wrong. And while times are changing and women are making gains in the comedy world, progress is slow.
In 10 years, New Zealand’s festival has gone from being a predominantly male event to being almost evenly split between shows starring men only, or starring women (but not necessarily only women).
New Zealand Comedy Trust chief executive Lauren Whitney says it’s gotten easier to programme a more equally split festival now that there are more women comedians around to invite. This year, 40% of the programme includes women.
One of the clearest examples of where the comedy scene is at is the programme for the 2021 Comedy Festival which, due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, featured local comedians only.
That year, 39% of shows starred women, either on their own or with others (of any gender), and 4% were shows by gender-diverse comedians, leaving 57% of the programme as men-only shows.
While still less than half, it may be welcome news to the women who performed in the 2014 festival, when they represented just 11% of the programme.
The percentages are based on group shows or acts, and don’t include ‘line-up’ shows where comedians take to the stage one at a time.
Comedian Johanna Cosgrove says while she hasn’t heard she’s “funny, for a girl” in a long time, she’ll still join comedy nights as the only woman on the line-up or the bill, whether that’s for a stand-up event or a panel show such as 7 Days or QI.
She’s not inclined to believe it’s on purpose, but it’s not great either.
“Sometimes it just genuinely works out that way... People pull out and things happen, but when you see it happen a few times in a row you're like, oh, OK,” she says, ruefully.
“That ancient trope of ‘women aren't funny’, I think people have done heaps of work in New Zealand to get rid of their awful sexist mindset, but I don't know, things still hang around for a while, don't they?”
Indeed, even writing this feature raises questions of whether women in comedy should be singled out, and if it further entrenches the idea that there’s a conversation worth having.
“Women isn't a genre,” Frances-White says, when asked if she hates the topic. “Women in comedy do all sorts of different genres and there's a huge audience for it. I'm thrilled there are articles about it and people are writing about it.”
Cosgrove, meanwhile, is torn, because on the other hand, she can find herself as the token woman on a given comedy night.
“There are heaps of amazing women in comedy, especially in New Zealand, do we still need to be having the conversation?”
This year nearly 40% of festival shows star women, either on their own or in duos or groups. Those sorts of numbers finally free women up to write comedy or standup sets about almost anything.
“I think not having to be the one woman on a line-up allows you the freedom to just go out there and be funny,” Whitney says.
Cosgrove’s May show Iconoclast is a theatrical kind of stand-up, described as “a wild alt-cabaret ride”. She’s what millennials often call ‘extra’, or ‘a lot’, and that’s on purpose.
As an emerging comedian Cosgrove felt a pressure to “dial down” how she looked on stage, to be a kind of cool, jeans and
T-shirt comedian – think Ricky Gervais, Larry David. Instead, she went hard in the opposite direction, with outfits including thigh-high patent leather boots and custom Miss Crabb dresses.
“I get comments like, ‘that's pretty full-on for some standup’,” she laughs.
For audiences too, expectations about how to behave at a comedy show are changing.
Babies are included at some shows these days. Lana Walters’ show Don’t Lick That is specifically about motherhood (also known as #mumlife), and mothers are welcome with their babies.
It’s no longer par for the course for comedians to deal with hecklers; call-outs from the crowd that tend more to be rude comments than cute banter for performers to riff off.
In 2020, a survey of 48 women in comedy revealed widespread experiences of harassment, assault and rape of women in the scene, and prompted urgent action by the Comedy Trust and others to fix the problem.
Among their efforts was the work to make comedy a profession with its own industry standards, including a formalised Code of Conduct.
“I would still say there are people in the public and I would generally say trolls online that are quite abusive towards women in the comedy industry,” Whitney says. “I think people need to kind of check themselves and their attitude to how they talk to women sometimes.”
Is that why there have been more men on the comedy circuit? Cosgrove thinks maybe there is an innate confidence men are raised with that makes them more able to take to the microphone, and weather any storms it brings.
But collectives of women and gender minorities supporting each other, performing together – often also buoyed by allies like men in the industry – can help bridge that gap, boosting confidence and a sense of entitlement to the stage.
Frances-White says at some stage since starting The Guilty Feminist in 2015, she figured out she had created something unique.
“We discovered it was a micro-climate for success because so many women started saying, ‘Oh, this is what it must be like to be a man’,” she says.
It calls to mind American comedian Michelle Wolf, whose famous bit addresses women settling for equality when what they actually want is to be better than men.
“Admit it,” she yells into the mic. “You want to do to men what men did to us… You want to repeat what a man said in the meeting and have a boss go ‘good idea, Sheryl’.”
“I think it's really important we create spaces where women feel celebrated and magnificent and are allowed to be their full 360 brilliant, talented, wonderful selves,” Frances-White says.
“The greatest way to belong is to assume inclusion and to behave like you're included, even in spaces where you may be made to feel like you're not included or you don't belong.”
Yes, she acknowledges, that’s a ton of extra work, emotional labour to grin and bear it while you act like you’re wanted or that you deserve your platform when structures and systems try to tell you aren’t, or you don’t.
“But it’s your absolute best shot.” Of course it’s not just women who have to fight to be included in the comedy scene. Between 2014 and 2018 no comedians described themselves as a gender minority, being trans or non-binary for example; this year 4% do.
Then there is anyone who is not white. Facing the quadruple bind of being a queer, disabled, Asian woman, Jess Karamjeet has poured her energies into making space for other pan-Asian comedians and this May will host her third Asian Comedy Takeover, featuring six comedians both famous and emerging.
And just like women discovering they could be more than the token woman on
a line-up, pressured to perform womanhood and tell jokes about stereotypically female things, these comedians find liberation, Karamjeet says.
“Back in the day diverse comedians felt they had to present material that was stereotypical because it fits the the lens of that audience – you're not challenging their views, you're fitting into what they already think about you, whereas now we're able to just be ourselves.
“It makes us feel kind of transformed.”
Frances-White knows that transformation well. Recording her podcast in front of a live audience means she catches in real time how it feels to be that ‘full 360-degree self’ she talks about.
By inviting not only comedians onto the show but also academics, researchers, professionals in their fields, and letting the conversations be as serious or heartfelt as they need to be, Frances-White meets her audience at a deep level that goes well beyond any stereotypically ‘feminist’ or ‘female’ show.
It starts immediately, with the classic segment of each show: “I’m a feminist, but…”
Take this example from her April 8 episode, where comedian Abigoliah Schamaun admits: “I'm a feminist, but when my agent told me she was going on maternity leave, my first thought was ‘This is gonna negatively impact my career, isn't it?’”
Permission to be flawed – it’s so powerful, says Karamjeet.
“It's really brilliant for the community, and that's what is important and is the best takeaway from it. We need it and we appreciate it and we're gonna keep doing it.”
Karamjeet is basically saying it doesn’t matter if no one else likes the Asian Comedy Takeover or the performers who emerge from PACSA (Laughs), the PanAsian Comedy School Aotearoa, where she’s been incubating this generation of comedians who might not have gotten a break otherwise.
But she needn’t worry.
“Every time we do it we get a wonderful, sold-out audience of community members and allies,” Karamjeet says.
Of course with numbers as small as they are – in 2023 there were nine pan-Asians in the Comedy Festival out of 150 performers – everyone works double time.
Shift workers know the feeling of a small team feeling even tinier when someone has to take sick leave or go on holiday. So too for pan-Asian comedians.
“Pax [Assadi] last year didn't do a solo show because he had other creative opportunities, James Roque ended up moving to Canada, Angela [Dravid] had a baby.
“There's only so many of us and it’s got to the point where we need, as much as we can, to be performing on stage, building that community.”