Classic RITS- Mary's Musings: Ladies in Comedy/Take That, Horatio Sanz

Hey dudes! I've decided to "recycle" (or wait, let's call it "upcycle"; nothing obnoxious about that word) some classic Rip it To Shreds posts. I enjoy rereading them from time to time, and perhaps you will too! Now, a post about Comedy from 2008.

I started to read this Vanity Fair profile of Tina "The New American Sweetheart" Fey, and like three-quarters of the way through it, I realized it was entirely, entirely about the way she looks. She used to be 150 pounds! Ohmygod, so fat! And by "fat', we mean normal but of course that's unacceptable and she'll never be on the cover of VF half-nude! That scar! We have to know! But now she wears low-cut tops and Seven jeans and looks "like a really pretty graduate student!" Not old, guys! Kind of hot! She and Sarah Palin are both "hot librarian" types! Guys, she's smart and funny and PRETTY, did you hear? Inititally she was told she wasn't hot enough to be on SNL, haha! Keep in mind that's a show that featured Horatio Sanz! Then she went to Weight Watchers! Steve Martin used to ignore her but hit on her after she lost weight! That's fun and flattering, right? Not gross that an accomplished, talented writer and comedian can only get attention for being hot, right?

(By the way, Rachael Dratch was supposed to play Jane Krakowski's role on 30 Rock, but was nixed for not being hot enough. Also, whatever happened to Cheri Oteri? Also, is Jimmy Fallon really getting a late night talk show? Really? Is he going to start cracking up at his own weak delivery? Maybe bust out the acoustic guitar and forget some lines? Oooh, I hope Horatio Sanz will be involved. Have we heard from him since that movie with Cuba Gooding Jr. where he pretended to be gay on a cruise ship? Snow Dogs?)

At first, I was like, "Obviously a dude wrote this," but of course it was actually Maureen Dowd, who is one of those weird writers like Camille Paglia who are labeled as feminists but have dubious cred and kind of seem to hate women- Dowd, of course, once accused Al Gore of being so feminine (because he cared about the environment!) that he was "practically lactating." And, of course, Vanity Fair is a totally obnoxious, sexist magazine that I have always hated, long before I actually read the editor's letter about women not being funny. Which I did read, and not that many people seemed to concerned about at the time.

It barely needs to be said that funny women are rarely represented in comedy. Mostly they are the sexy girlfriends who roll their eyes at their hilarious manchild of a boyfriend (hey second coming of Seth Rogan's career), or, if they are in a romantic comedy, or tween comedy, they are the sexy but prat-fall prone hapless moppet, someone charmingly clumsy but with perfect hair. And then, the real female comedians are few and far between, and can rarely match the success of their male counterparts. And, of course, if they do, they are constantly subjected to an in-depth examination of their looks and/or massive amounts of airbrushing.

Anyway, I could go on about how I hate Sarah Silverman's ditzy "I am five years old" delivery (hey, even if you're making a "funny" pose, you're still just posing in Maxim in your underwear) or how we are sadly lacking the salty, older-woman comedy stylings of such luminaries as Phyllis Diller (up there in the yellow) and Joan Rivers, but what I'm really, really trying to say is that Amy Sedaris should be more famous, not only because she is hilarious and unique, but because she is one of the few comedians who actually challenges what it means to be a woman in comedy, and does not rely on being cute or airbrushed to make her point. And, unlike other female comedians who still try to hard to entice their male (and female) fans, she actually makes an effort to fearlessly gross people out, which seems to be one of the number one of- limits topics for female comedians, because it shows that you are more than your boobs and/or your potential hotness. At the same time, Amy does not deny that she is a woman and women are funny; she just celebrates ballsy, overlooked female archetypes in a way that distances her own looks from her characters, at the same time illustrating that women can be just as loud, campy, revolting, sexual, and funny as any other comedian.

PS: If you're not familiar with Amy Sedaris, I'd like to recommend both her TV show, Strangers With Candy, and her book, I Like You, which is a take-off on retro household hints types books. Speaking of which, I am obsessed with retro household hints-type books and will be doing a post on them soon!

Mary's Musings: Ten-year old Steve Martin fans, RomComs are for Losers, etc.

As a kid, I loved comedy. My main favorites were Bill Murray and Steve Martin, whose dry wit I both related to and adored. I was also a fan of John Candy, another comedian I felt I grew up with. I loved The Three Amigos (something tells me this movie would be significantly less watchable as an adult) Ghostbusters, Wayne's World, the non-corny parts of Father of the Bride 1 & 2 and L.A. Story, Twins starring Danny Devito and Arnold Scwarzenagger (I also have my doubts about that one holding up) and the work of Leslie Nielsen. Many of these movie were copied for me from video-store tapes to VHS tapes, and when the FBI warning would flash on the screen I would be terrified, anticipating a team of FBI agents breaking into my home and seizing my copy of Joe Vs. The Volcano as I watched it for the twenty-second time.

The Naked Gun series, as well as Hot Shots 1 & 2 were movies I rushed to see in theaters. My family saw Naked Gun 33 and 1/3 while traveling through Europe. We first chose to see it in England, but the British wouldn't let me see it as a ten year old, though I was with my parents. (Maybe because of the scathing Queen Elizabeth parodies such as this one?) We ended up seeing it in the formerly communist city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, in an extremely Soviet-style, all-cement movie theater. The theater creepily echoed the cement apartment we were staying in, where the lights would shut off if you didn't make it fast enough down the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, we were rewarded with an always ajar-door with red stuff on it leading to the apartment next to ours, where Czech people had violent domestic arguments. These terrifying settings did not spoil my enjoyment of the movie, which I loved. And Anna Nicole was in it, and I thought she was so beautiful. I also selected it as a film to watch at the very last birthday party I remember having, age ten or eleven, a sleepover where I felt alternately embarrassed at the crassness of my selection and annoyance that people weren't watching it.

I also remember when Wayne's World came out. It was really exciting. I was eight, and my mother and I went to see it, but we got there really late and missed the first half, so we stayed in the theater to re-watch it. I later received free or cheap copies of both Wayne's World and the equally excellent Addams Family on VHS from McDonalds as a pack. What a combo!

On a more 90's note, I enjoyed Tommy Boy and the works of Adam Sandler. I loved Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. Saturday Night Live as one and a half hours of pure enjoyment. At the end, when the cast waves goodbye and the credits roll, I would feel a great loss. It seemed extra sad because of the dramatic farewell, and I wished I was up there on that stage with my fellow hilarious castmates, signing off at the end of another great show. I didn't have cable, so there were no reruns. In vain, I would stay up, hoping something good would be on. I usually ended up watching the beginning of Showtime at The Apollo, which didn't really satisfy, just as Soul Train or Professional Wrestling would come on after cartoons and I'd watch it much more out of desperation that enjoyment.

Some of these movies have certainly held up- Bill Murray's Groundhog Day (besides Andy McDowell)/Ghostbusters 1 & 2/What About Bob? type movies are light years better than all his stupid mopey Wes Anderson/Jim Jarmusch/Sofia Coppolla roles. Dumb and Dumber is another I will not hesitate to watch if it happens to be on TV, and obviously the aforementioned Wayne's World and The Addams Family are some of the Greatest Films Ever Made. I still like Seinfeld, a middle-school age obsession neatly fitting in with my other dorky passions.

I think most comedy is really age-appropriate only for a precocious nine-year-old, whereas now the retard tingles you get after watching Michael Cera stammer his way through the same movie for the eighteenth time tend to overwhelm any "funny" aspects the movie promises to contain. Luckily, the trend of wacky sports movie died (Thank god the one starring Andy Samburg bombed) but looking at the comedies still set to be released in 2010, it doesn't look pretty. More romcoms starring Kristen Bell, and then more movies starring Steve Carrell and Paul Rudd as a duo, and then Owen Wilson is the live-action Marmaduke movie. Looks like the studios are taking some crazy, creative chances yet again!

Most comedies are geared toward men. Comedies geared towards women are called "romantic comedies," but they're not really comedies. Romantic comedies are not funny. I'm tired of women on feminist blogs being like, "We have to stop criticizing romantic comedies because they're for and about women. There's no shame in loving romantic comedy. Why aren't people ashamed of action movies instead?" Romantic comedies are insulting to women, that's why. The very format of a pathetic fairy-tale romance combined with the forced wacky hijinks of polite society makes me want to kill myself. They are simultaneously boring and embarrassing. They are almost always about women feeling stupid/ugly/single/uncool/bad about themselves. The women are never crass and funny. I think Tina Fey can be very funny, but to me 30 Rock is just like a romantic comedy- it's about hating herself (Like Chelsea Handler, I often get the feeling Tina Fey actually hates all women.)

The last time I regularly watched romantic comedies was in middle school, when friends would take me to see them. Even then, I cringed. I thought about selecting the The Wedding Singer as a movie to see for my birthday party, but after the final scene, wherein Adam Sandler sings a song called "I Want to Grow Old With You" to a very non-80's looking Drew Barrymore, I was glad I hadn't. It made me uncomfortable to watch such such treacle, and it still does.

Sure, action movies are retarded too, but they are exciting and exhilarating, and not always based on some series of horrible, cutesy, faux pas. I don't know how you can compare an entire yacht blowing up or someone getting stabbed in the face with some girl worrying whether she is too fat for her date with Hugh Grant. Only one of these scenarios should be fulfilling some kind of primal urge.

A lot of these modern, "I Love You, Man" style comedies kind of blur the line between romantic comedies and wacky retard comedies, both because the men in them appear to be in long-term, committed relationships with their male friends, and because they also have to resolve a problem with their nagging but inexplicably hot wives or girlfriends. Plus, they are always talking about their feelings. So many women seem to have embraced these kind of comedies, even laboring under the delusion that the men who star in them are attractive and sexually appealing due to their "comedic" "talents." I recently heard a young woman say she would have sex with Jonah Hill if he asked her to. Do you think, fifteen years ago, a lot of guys would be like, "Hey, she's such a great comedian, I'd have sex with Roseanne, wouldn't you?" Talk about a double standard.I mean, it would be cool if a guy said that in a way the opposite would never, ever be cool.

Also, I know I've been ranting a long time now, but I also am so sick of the faux-documentary style format I want to puke. It had already been perfected with the British The Office, some Christopher Guest movies, and Arrested Development, but, instead of thinking of something new, everyone just jumped on the bandwagon to play out a bunch of third-rate versions until it looks really dated and everyone hates it. I feel like I am the only person on earth to hate Steve Carrel and the U.S. The Office. The last commercial I saw for it promised Jim and Pam or whatever their names are having a baby and they were having a baby special episode! Way to stay true to the dry, realistic, melancholy spirit of the original, American colonialist TV producers!

Needless to say, I also hate Judd Apatow and think he directed all the most sexist, trite parts of Freaks and Geeks, which he wrongfully gets credit for and is the greatest show ever.

In conclusion, it's really hard to find funny comedies, and if you want to get high and watch a retarded comedy you haven't seen, please check out Spring Breakdown, starring Amy Poehler, Rachael Dratch, and Parker Posey, which manages to be feminist without being patronizing (alright, I can't recommend the scenes with Amer Tamblyn, but still, the movie is good.) If you are like, "Why is Jonah Hill in all these movies but these famous, established female comedians can't get their much funnier comedy released?", obviously the answer is the patriarchy, and I guess that is also the answer to the question about why I never watched any female-driven comedies or remember liking an female comedians, but we all know that.

Women In Comedy: Kathy Griffin

Kathy Griffin is one of those people you're kind of told not to like. After all, her female-stereotype-of-a-media-driven image (the annoying, yappy broad with the abrasive laugh) isn't particularly endearing. And Kathy, to her credit really, hasn't bothered to dispel it by attempting a quieter, gentler, femmier persona. Instead, she embraces her abrasiveness- remember how like every male comedian ever except for Bob Newhart has used a consciously abrasive personality? But the point is, she's really not that abrasive and is actually totally funny, and a total feminist too!

Of course, in our patriarchal culture, straight men are not supposed to like Kathy Griffin, which is why she is supposed to appeal to gays and women. I found this one photo of Kathy online with the caption "You can't see her penis," I guess because she is...not hot enough to be in the spotlight? How come she felt so bad about her looks she got tons of plastic surgery but Jay Leno has been on TV for years looking like that?

Anyway, as previously mentioned on this blog, I really hate stand-up, finding it dull and lame and joke-y in this sad set-up way, but Kathy Griffin's set-up is really great! (And she is better than Chelsea Lately, who I feel has more than a touch of internalized patriarchy, man) And it's great because she just tells mean, funny stories about celebrities. No puns, no exaggerated capering, she just dryly comments on the retardation of fame. It's like talking to a hilarious and well-connected friend. In many ways, I think she subverts the whole masculine idea of stand-up and comedy by being so chatty yet sharp and rejecting 90% of what stand-up comedy is about.

Also, her show, My Life on the D-List, is great. She really makes an effort to include female/feminist comedians, and how could you say no to an episode where she goes shopping with Margaret Cho and Cyndi Lauper or re-enacts the opening of Golden Girls with Betty White and her mom? Here are some hilarious photos of her dressing up to hang with Paris Hilton:




She is also constantly getting in trouble and being banned from The View and stuff for going too far, which always makes for a funny anecdote about Barbara Walters. At a New Year's Eve telecast:

"Shut up!" she yelled at a heckler. "You know what, screw you! I'm working! Why don't you get a job, buddy!"

Then the "My Life on the D-List" star added: "You know, I don't go to your job and knock the dick out of your mouth."

CNN deleted the exchange from recorded repeats of the telecast, but the original airing had already made its way onto popular file-sharing sites like YouTube.

Hi-larious!

Here is a really amazing discussion from Marie Claire about female comedians. Please read it. Kathy talks about how:

After Suddenly Susan, I went to every network and said, "What if you put four funny chicks together? Not newcomers, but four women who are proven in television: me, Jennifer Coolidge, Megan Mullally, Cheri Oteri, or Molly Shannon..." And the network people said, "What about Carmen Electra?

Can you imagine a show like that? Can you imagine?!

Here's a few more interesting quotes:

RIVERS: I was the first permanent guest host they ever had on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Then one day, a friend of mine who was the vice president at NBC got an internal memo saying, "When Johnny leaves, here are the 10 people to replace him." And I wasn’t on the list — it was all men.

GRIFFIN: The last time I was on Leno, he turned to me during the commercial break and said, "Why aren’t you up for my job? You should get a late-night show on Fox." And I said, "Jay, I’m very flattered, but tell that to [Fox president of alternative entertainment] Mike Darnell." Have you met Mike Darnell? He’s like 4'11" and puts on shows like Joe Millionaire. That’s who I’m dealing with.

CAROL BURNETT: When I started, the head of CBS said, "Variety is more of a man’s field: Sid Caesar, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle ... We’ve got a great sitcom pilot you could shoot. It’s called Here’s Agnes." I could just picture it: "Heeeeere’s Agnes." Oh, God.

Anyway, this discussion is really interesting, and Kathy Griffin is great. In a perfect world, she would have a show with Cheri Oteri and all that. Like, I still can't quite get over that Jimmy Fallon has a late-night network show. If there's any proof that comedy is a lame boy's club, that is it.

RIP, Mrs Slocombe

LONDON (Reuters) – British actress Mollie Sugden, best-known for her role as Mrs Slocombe in the television comedy series "Are You Being Served?," has died at the age of 86.
Her agent Joan Reddin told newspapers Sugden died on Wednesday after a long illness. "She was a lovely, lovely person. She was a great professional," Reddin said.
With her hair highly coiffed and referring frequently to her "pussy," Sugden played the bossy Mrs Slocombe throughout the run of the BBC's innuendo-laden Are You Being Served? between 1972 and 1985.

I love Are You Being Served? I used to watch reruns on PBS when I was a kid and my mother used to tell me that Mister Humphries (first photo below) was supposed to be gay, and I had no idea what she was talking about, even though on every episode there would be some sort of fashion show and he would dress up as a fairy and flit around the department store. I also didn't really get Mrs Slocombe's constant "pussy" references.

Anyway, Simone and I have discussed how Mrs Slocombe would make a great Hallloween costume, which we should probably do. First Bea Arthur, and now this! Who is going to replace these people! No one!

Also, AYBS? has the best theme song ever.

PS: Speaking of high camp/the recently departed, it's too bad there's not really going to be a showing of Michael Jackson's body at Neverland. If I were in Southern California, I would totally go. It would be a landmark moment in pop culture. Also I have this Michael Jackson half shirt from the 80's I could hawk for like $10,000.

Seal of Approval Again: Chelsea Handler

In the one post I've done on women in comedy, I neglected to mention Chelsea Handler, and her new late-night talk show, Chelsea Lately, airing on the E! Network. Chelsea Lately combines a typical late show format with a roundtable discussion and a hearty dose of bitchiness.

First of all, I hate stand-up comedy. Not to generalize or anything, but stand-up comedians are all bitter men with inferiority complexes who tried to buy into some patriarchal version of manliness and failed and are now trying to make it up in a pathetic bid for "crass" popularity.* Then they all get older and fatter and start talking about their kids and their wife and even if that is also "crass" I personally never want to hear about anyone discussing domestic shit like that. Also, as someone who's always aware of awkwardness, stand-up comedy is just so awkward, and everyone attends stand-up shows because they know they will laugh regardless of what the joke even is.

So, at its core, stand-up comedy often seems to be about proving oneself in an often "masculine" way. And what is interesting about Chelsea's show is that she sets up/makes jokes and then the other comedian panelists have to come back with something equally funny, and then she often shoots them down. She is almost always the funniest person on the show (in part because the guests are so often that tired and typical stereotypical stand-up guy) but her sense of humor tends toward the quick, dry and bitchy instead of the desperate, lame set-up style so often seen in stand-up. (Though Chelsea is actually a stand-up fiend and does it constantly despite also having the show.)

Also, Chelsea is a genius interviewer. As anyone who watches late-night shows, usually the guest comes out and the male host talks about how much he wants to do her and then she tells this totally quirky story about slipping at the food court at the mall that didn't happen and hahaha. But Chelsea is mean and probing! In one of the first interviews I saw, she asked Jodie Sweetin about doing meth.

In conclusion, I would not call Chelsea Lately perfect. Too often, her panelists are so lame, they ruin the show (seriously, I should be a panelist! Let's do a letter-writing campaign!), and she was also nice to Katy Perry. When Elizabeth Berkely was on, she was mean to her but she couldn't get a word in about Showgirls because Elizabeth acted like she was on Oprah the whole time. But overall, she certainly gets my seal of approval for sure.

Here are some youtube clips of Chelsea Lately:

1. Making fun of vests

2. Interview with T.I.

3. Chelsea on Cribs

*Alright, obviously there are some okay stand-up comedians, but this is the general format. Also, have you ever even watched Lenny Bruce onstage because that shit is totally dated and unwatchable. Sorry!

Middle School Role Models of 90's TV Countdown

3. Agent Dana Scully. I had been meaning to write about this for awhile, but this Feministing post galvanized me to finally finish it. God, I loved this show so much! It really brought out the sci-fi nerd in all of us. Agent Scully was a great character for several reasons- but what I loved most about her was her extreme dryness and skepticism. Even though she was usually wrong, and Mulder's outlandish theories about underground dwellers who came from the future and ate people organs to create a race of pod people were generally correct, Scully served as the much-needed straight man to Mulder's wacky ideas. Female TV and movie characters are pretty much always the hysterical and flighty ones, so her prediliction towards science-based logic was a true breath of fresh air.

Scully always seemed most at home when she was doing a tape-recorded autopsy, flatly (actually, both characters really mumbled their way through this show) discussing the stomach contents of some dead alien while nonchalantly peeling back its multiple brains. She rarely got scared or overly emotional, and her good looks were never exploited; Dana Scully could be found in a sensible pantsuit and bob combo. So often, women in sci fi/horror stuff are played as the sexualized victim, walking around weakly in a revealing tank top, the threat bearing down upon them both physical and sexual, but this cheap device was never (or rarely) used in Scully's place; she was smart, prepared and in control at all times, and always ready to refute whatever Mulder was saying with "There must be a more logical explanation for this."

PS: God I also had such a crush on David Duchovny but he is so one of those people that could never be in anything else/seems like a jerk in real life/the cover of the first season of the "Californication" where his old man head looks pasted on a younger body is totally revolting. Gillian Anderson, on the other hand, always seemed to be like a huge weirdo/nerd in real life. I remember reading this "Before They Were Stars" edition of People magazine and they had a picture of her in high school and she was all gothy and had a mohawk and stuff. I think she said she pierced her nose with a carrot. What's not to like?


2. Buffy. Gosh, considering all the non-girl positive crap crap I watched on TV, I'm glad Buffy was on when I was in middle school. Buffy was another show that everyone would watch and then religiously discuss the next day. The most notable, feminist feature of Buffy may have been simply that she was that rare phenomenon- a girl superhero. It's always frusturated me that the premise of the superhero is that an average person transforms- but that average person is nearly always male, and if not, then becoming a superhero also has something to do with becoming uber-sexy and bodysuited. It's like, this plot is totally fantastic, but the idea of a girl superhero is just, you know, too fantastic. Plus, it doesn't fit into the "nerd fantasy every boy can enjoy [because patriarchy has made us ALL felt like puny wimps]" theme of every superhero-related thing ever. Anyway, the point is, watching a small blond teenage girl kick ass regularly onscreen, without having to morph into a pleather-coated vixen beforehand, was totally empowering and exhilerating for my seventh-grade self.

What also was great about Buffy was how her superherohood translated into a high school environment, forcing a cheerleader who probably would have been quite popular (had she not burnt down her previous school, anyway) to instead make friends with the weirdos who hung out with the school librarian. Buffy's strange social circumstances obviously paralleled many people's experiences in middle/high school, as she and her friends conspicuously existed on the fringes of the social scene.

I think I related to Buffy because she wasn't a total nerd like Willow (whose character/general acting style I always found annoying) and was one of those rare characters who liked shopping and sticking up for herself. Often mistaken for a ditz or "slut" for her mysterious past and "hot" appearance, the levelheaded Buffy usually dealt with her hectic life in a mature and distinctly non-ditzy fashion, even when having sex with her boyfriend turned him evil and stuff on two memorable episodes titled "The Two-Night Event" on the WB.

1. Elaine Benes. Of all these characters, I must say I hold a special place in my heart for the rather unsung Elaine. I loved Seinfeld a lot, and Elaine's character was notable for being a a woman amongst a group of men who could hold her own without falling into all the various women-in-comedy cliches. Confident, sarcastic, sexual, and refreshingly unsentimental, Elaine could be found noting the ugliness of a baby she never wanted to visit in the first place, relocating to an apartment when an old lady died, recieving the lady's grandkid's phone calls, and pretending to be her and then eventually "dying" over the phone so the kid wouldn't call anymore, or forcing George's head through his straw hat in a fit of rage. She was even the first (I think?) to lose the masturbation contest after seeing JFK Jr. in workout clothes in her gym, even after Jerry and Co. insisted she not participate because women didn't feel that particular urge.

Though the show's men had an endless stream of unfunny and uninteresting girlfriends, Elaine could always be counted on to dream up crazy schemes with the best of them. I think her model was a confident single, professional, perhaps even feminist-coded (we can all remember the fight she got into about abortion rights with restraunteer Poppy) woman of New York, as she was always employed and dating someone, but she was also miles away from the men-obsessed ladies of Sex and the City and their ilk; Elaine could not be found moaning about marriage, babies, and hating men and their lack of willingness to commit. She also provided an excellent contrast to that other show about single New Yorkers, Friends, wherein all the women served some sort of feminine comedy cliche- the uptight nag, the ditzy dingbat, the spoiled rich girl, etc.

Elaine was attractive without being sexualized and trendy, and her oxfords and vintage-style dress combos of the first half of the show are still pretty sweet. But how she looked was always second to her role as a fabulous comedian, and I'm glad there was a woman on TV who (I can't think of anyone today who might take her place, unfortunately) was just plain funny without all the added crap that usually must accompany funny women. And she was funny in a powerful but sarcastic way that I related to when I was in middle school (and still do), providing a much needed alterna-role model to the various other daffy rom-com style female comedians so prevalent to this day. (I fucking hate you, Kate Hudson.)