MAKERS: Women in Comedy
WOMEN IN COMEDY tracks the rise of women in the world of comedy, from the “dangerous” comedy of 70s sitcoms like Norman Lear’s Maude to the groundbreaking women of the 1980s American comedy club boom, to the honest shock comedy of today.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
JOAN RIVERS: Comedy is masculine. You're out there and you've got to be in charge. I'm a lion tamer. Snap, snap, snap, snap. Now we can all be friends because you know I'm in charge.
[LAUGHTER]
- Yes. First wives-- we were never told what counts. We were never told that men care about looks. We would told men care that you keep the house clean, which is junk, am I right? Second wives don't carry on. They don't dust. Once a month, they ago-- [RASPBERRY] I mean, it's a whole other thing.
[APPLAUSE]
Yes!
JOY BEHAR: Comedy is a defense. I mean, let's face it. It's a weapon of mass destruction.
- Now I've been married 15 years. I got three kids, so I breed well in captivity.
[LAUGHTER]
JANE LYNCH: Comedy is about pushing the limits. It's about going to the absurdity, because that's the impulse.
SUSIE ESSMAN: It's pure power. You're up there by yourself. You got that mic. That's your cephalic symbol, for God's sake.
- He's single-- why? Why is it? What is it? Intimacy difficulties? Commitment problems? What is it? Tell me, Eric.
WHITNEY CUMMINGS: I killed. I destroyed. I annihilated. It's not an accident that the terms we use are all very violent.
- Argh.
WHITNEY CUMMINGS: I mean, it's a very combative art.
[LAUGHTER]
I don't think women are funny, you said.
- I never said that. Some women comedians make me uncomfortable, because a man comedian can do anything he wants and I'm not offended by it.
KATHY GRIFFIN: I have been introduced in the following way. We have a little lady coming up here who tells jokes. How about that? She's a lady who tells jokes. Come on.
[APPLAUSE]
MARGARET CHO: Women generally have to be better than men to survive in comedy. There's just so much more at stake.
- I like having sex. Any sex people? I think it's really good. You know, it gives you that feeling that you're working together to achieve a common goal, his orgasm.
[LAUGHTER]
SARAH SILVERMAN: I think there's a time where you're only good if the comedy you did could be related to by men. And I just was like, wow. I bought into that for so many years, it took so long for me to go, fuck that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LESLIE MANN: In the 1950s and '60s, comedy was a man's domain.
- I finally found the perfect girl. I could not ask for more. She's deaf and dumb and oversexed, and owns a liquor store.
[LAUGHTER]
LESLIE MANN: Late-night variety shows and celebrity roasts were strictly a boys club.
- Is that the wife? Oh, ee. She's going home, right. I married a dog.
LESLIE MANN: And the few funny female characters on TV remained under the thumb of their husbands, even the magnificently talented Lucy.
- Lucy, if you're gonna act like a child, I'm gonna have to treat you like one.
- You wouldn't dare.
- Oh, I wouldn't?
- No, you wouldn't. Ricky! Ricky! Ricky! Ricky! Ricky!
JOY BEHAR: Well, you know, when I was a kid, a girl was considered to have a good sense of humor if she laughed at your joke. That's what the guys thought. Like, somebody-- [CHUCKLES] and they'd say, oh, what a great sense of humor she has.
[APPLAUSE]
LESLIE MANN: And while the vaudeville era had produced the great Moms Mabley, to see a woman telling jokes on stage in the 1950s was a rarity.
JOANNE ASTROW: It was "Mad Men." Everyone wanted to look like a beautiful Midwestern Grace Kelly. And only the funny girls-- Totie Fields, and you know, the ugly girls, Phyllis Diller-- they could be funny.
[LAUGHTER]
- Now, Phyllis, let's find out some more dope about you.
LESLIE MANN: In 1958, a 40-year-old housewife from Lima, Ohio, appeared on "You Bet Your Life." Host Groucho Marx hadn't seen anyone quite like her.
- Now, Phyllis, what do you do to break up the monotony of housekeeping and taking care of five small gorillas?
- Well, I'm really not a housewife anymore.
- You've got five kids. You're not a housewife?
- I beat the rap.
- How is it you're able to get away from housewifing?
- I'm an entertainer.
[LAUGHTER]
- Here it is, Phyllis Diller.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LESLIE MANN: Diller's stage persona evolved into the ugly duckling who constantly poked fun at herself.
- [LAUGHS]
JANE LYNCH: You know, Phyllis Diller based her comedy on the fact that she felt ugly, and that she knew that the first thing men were going to say to her when she walked on the stage was, you're ugly. And they probably And she was like, yes, I am. I'm so ugly. It became her thing.
- Actually, I went today to the scalp clinic again. Practically live there with all the old, bald man. And today, they told me that the hair on the top of my head is so thin, the part is on the roof of my mouth.
[LAUGHTER]
SUSIE ESSMAN: Phyllis was a very beautiful woman, and she had to wear those wacky outfits and talk about how ugly she was. And she was gorgeous. Funny was just too threatening to come from a woman.
JOAN RIVERS: Phyllis Diller, who [MOCKING MOANS], was the chicest woman offstage. Dior suits-- oh, amazing-- Yves Saint Laurent-- elegant, elegant women, and lived elegantly. Nothing to do with this crazy [MOCKING LAUGHS] onstage. But in those days, people were very intimidated by a very good-looking woman. They want to know their husband is safe with you.
- Phyllis, about you, in 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--
- Or take it up to 90.
[LAUGHTER]
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.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- Miss Diller, Miss Diller, a few last questions, please.
- Anything at all, my dears, to put your mind at ease.
- How do you avoid housecleaning in the fall and in the spring?
- Well, develop housemaid's elbow and put it in a sling.
[LAUGHTER]
- (SINGING) Phyllis Diller's finishing soon.
LESLIE MANN: Diller's finely-crafted image made her an icon, proving that a woman could be a popular mainstream comic, as long as the joke was on her.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
In the early '60s, the West Village of New York City was a place that counterculture comics, like Lenny Bruce, came to ply their trade.
- Word about hookers is that they're very disappointing, always. The Jews are always hungry after they schtup and there's nothing in the ice box ever. Hooker's icebox is a club soda and that's it.
LESLIE MANN: But very few women can be spotted in these underground comedy haunts.
JOAN RIVERS: When I went into comedy, which was the late '60s, there were very few places to work.
- Hi, everybody. Here we are in New York, where the thermometer reads 66--
- Argh.
[LAUGHTER]
JOAN RIVERS: And I would go into bars and say, could I perform? I performed in strip joints in between the strippers. And of course, was fired automatically. Always one show, fired. One show, fired. I was on stage one time-- god-- where the owner over the-- the owner said, get her off. Never mind the audience. And they would come in and they would say, you're too outrageous. Oh, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection, rejection.
And I was bombing one night in The Bitter End, and Lenny Bruce came in to see me, and sent a note backstage saying, "You're right. They're wrong. Lenny Bruce." And I kept it in my bra for years-- years.
- Now, if you've seen this next attractive young lady on "The Tonight Show" and other talk programs, you know that she's an accomplished conversationalist. And we're happy to have her on our all-girl team tonight, Miss Joan Rivers.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE]
DAVID STEINBERG: Joan Rivers was very witty, funny-- you know, what could be better? That was my not just my first exposure to women in comedy, it was my exposure to comedy, period.
- A lot of people thought I wouldn't get married, because I don't know how many of you here are in show business, but it's very hard, really, to meet anybody in the business because everybody you meet is either married already or a dancer. And--
[LAUGHTER]
MARGARET CHO: If you look at Phyllis Diller or if you look at Joan Rivers, they they were in a different place. They were speaking about themselves within the context of their marriages and their their lives as mothers, but it was, like, always through the frame of being in a man's world.
- I wouldn't be single again for anything in the world, because I was the last girl in Larchmont, New York, to go and I was desperate. And I said, I was desperate. My parents had a big sign saying, last girl before the throughway. I mean, that's how desperate I was. I went out with anybody. I'd get obscene-- I'd get an obscene phone call. I'd say to the guy, hang on. Let me get a cigarette. I went. I mean, I used to hang around pet shops hoping somebody would. I just, I kept on moving.
[APPLAUSE]
JOAN RIVERS: I was furious about having to get married, furious-- I was Phi Beta Kappa. I graduated at 20. And all they want me to do is get married? It all comes out on stage. I'm angry. I come out. What can be better? So that's what I do on stage. I really tell them the truth.
LESLIE MANN: Joan Rivers did not play a character. She was her own, unapologetic self. Rivers discovered that comedy could be used for something new and radical to riff openly on the unfair lot of many American women.
- I feel sorry for any single girl today-- the styles and the whole society is not for single girls. You know that. Single men, yes. A man, he's single, he's so lucky. A boy on a date, all he has to be is clean and able to pick up the check, he's a winner. You know that. A girl-- a girl, you're 30 years old, you're not married, you're an old maid. A man, he's 90 years old, he's not married, he's a catch. It's a whole different thing.
[LAUGHTER]
Isn't that so?
JOAN RIVERS: I look back at what I was talking about, and it was so sweet. But in those days, it was very wild. Never, ever thought, I should not be doing this, or it's harder for a woman, or they're not going to laugh because I'm a woman. I never-- it never, ever occurred to me.
You know, I would imagine that being a woman in the '60s and saying, I want to step on stage, and I want to have opinions, and I want to make you laugh, and I want to make men laugh-- you know, that's basically a revolutionary.
[WOMEN CHANTING]
LESLIE MANN: In the 1960s, women vocally challenged the idea that they should be bound to the traditional domestic roles. Many men, threatened by the movement, accuse feminists of being too strident and void of any humor.
MARGARET CHO: There's this idea, like feminism is humorless in a way that's like a whistleblower, like you're going to make sure nobody has any fun. And that's not-- that's not true.
LESLIE MANN: In 1967, entertainer Carol Burnett debuted her own show, using skits to send up the era's stereotypes of working women.
- Mrs. Wiggins, do you have any idea what I'm saying?
- Yeah, I think so.
- That's close enough.
LESLIE MANN: A few years later, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" began illuminating the core issues of feminism with humor that was both sly and truthful.
- I would like to know why the last associate producer before me made $50 a week more than I do.
- Oh, because he was a man.
[LAUGHTER]
- Let me get this straight. The only reason he was paid more than I am is because he was a man?
- Oh, sure. It has nothing to do with your work.
LESLIE MANN: As the liberated single girl, Mary Tyler Moore became an icon with aspirations beyond those of wife and mother. But it took a powerful male producer to bring the most provocative feminist characters onto the screen.
- My name is Norman Lear.
[APPLAUSE]
LESLIE MANN: In the early '70s, Norman Lear was television's most successful producer. The creator of "All in the Family," Lear used humor to address civil rights and the Vietnam War. He was also intrigued by the early sparks of feminism.
NORMAN LEAR: When Betty Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique," I was married and the father of three daughters. I had girls I wanted to see grow up in a world that gave them their fair share and recognized their abilities and talents the way they did men. So we all became feminists.
- You know what I like about you, Archie?
- What's that, Maude?
- Nothing.
[LAUGHTER]
- This is just funny.
LESLIE MANN: In 1971, Leary used his power in the business to introduce a feminist firebrand on "All in the Family," Maude, played by Bea Arthur.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) Lady Godiva was a freedom rider.
"Maude," which debuted in the fall of 1972, was built around a 40-something woman who was on her fourth husband. She was strong and independent with a razor-sharp wit.
GAIL PARENT: Bea Arthur as Maude, just this ballsy woman, what? You can do that? She's not wearing an apron? She's not wearing high heels?
NORMAN LEAR: Mom dented the car, and how did the kids help her keep that fact from dad? You know, those were the problems comedies dealt with. If TV is mirroring life, and you don't show what life is about, you're not mirroring it fairly.
[APPLAUSE]
LESLIE MANN: "Maude" quickly developed an enthusiastic fan base of women.
NORMAN LEAR: When "Maude" was on the air, I used to get letters from the First Lady Betty Ford, and she would write and say she missed an episode, and I would send them to her. And she always signed every letter, Maude's Number One Fan.
[DOOR SLAMS]
LESLIE MANN: "Maude" broke new ground for women and TV, but it was the shock of an unplanned pregnancy that really pushed the boundaries.
- Mother, you're 47 years old. Walter's 49. This is no time to be having a baby.
- No time for who to be having a baby?
- Miss Carol--
- No, not me, Florida.
[LAUGHTER]
NORMAN LEAR: It was a big question whether to have a child at 47. Wouldn't you consider that a huge decision? And she battled over it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LESLIE MANN: In the end, Lear and his writers had Maude go through with the abortion, a first for American television. Many religious groups were deeply offended.
- Neither CBS television, which is rerunning the "Maude" abortion episode, nor American Home Products, which declined to sponsor it, has any comment.
LESLIE MANN: Despite, or maybe because of, the protests, the episode was watched by 65 million Americans.
GAIL PARENT: People were watching, and people were applauding, and they were winning awards, and you know, they were winning Emmys. Everything changed. And guess what? Everybody wanted that. They didn't want things that didn't push the envelope anymore.
[APPLAUSE]
- Live from New York, it's Saturday night.
LESLIE MANN: 1975 saw the debut of "Saturday Night Live," a show that sprinkled its sketches with edgy commentary about a woman's changing role in society.
- Meet Ellen Sherman, Cleveland housewife and mother.
- Thursday's my day at the daycare center, and then there's my work with the deaf. But I still have time left over to do all my own baking and practice my backhand, even though I'm on call 24 hours a day as a legal aide--
- How does Ellen Sherman do it all? She's smart. She takes speed.
[APPLAUSE]
LARAINE NEWMAN: It was the beginning of what was clearly comedy was going to be the new rock and roll. You could see it happening.
- Let's go. You got 30 seconds.
- You're not supposed to be in here.
LESLIE MANN: The original SNL cast featured three female leads, Laraine Newman, Jane Curtin, and Gilda Radner.
- (SINGING) But they can just say what they want.
LESLIE MANN: But behind the scenes, there were few women writers, and getting screen time proved challenging.
- Was there competition between the men and the women?
- A tremendous amount of competition
- Really?
- Yeah, between the men and the women.
- For time?
- Yeah.
- Or did you feel, well, the men have the good parts?
- Well, it was-- the show was primarily written by men, and there were, in the very beginning, there were only two women writers. And I mean, we were welcome to write our own material. But chances of getting it on were very slim. Hey, stud muffins. Want to make bouncy bouncy?
[LAUGHTER]
YAEL KOHEN: There were certainly issues. They had funny sketches about hardhats with the women basically whistling at the guys. A lot of, you know, men didn't want to be in that sketch. It made them feel uncomfortable.
- Hey, crazy pecs. Where'd you get those pecs? Why don't you flex them for me, Butch?
LARAINE NEWMAN: In the hard hat sketch, we were able to take every single obnoxious thing that a hard hat worker thinks is charming to say to a woman walking by, and we're able to know reverse the roles, and show them just how charming it is. And it reduces this big burly guy to tears.
- They were real mean to me.
LARAINE NEWMAN: So in that sense, I think it might have been groundbreaking.
- [VOCALIZING]
LESLIE MANN: While women at "SNL" continued to push for more exposure--
- What's happening?
LESLIE MANN: --their counterparts in the tough and macho world of stand-up comedy were steeling for fresh battles.
- I passed this big dude walking around in circles with a picket sign talking about, stop abortion. I said, motherfucker, when was the last time you was pregnant?
[LAUGHTER]
- And he looks at me. He says, I don't have to discuss that with you. I said, oh, but you should, because I have the answer to abortion. He said, what is it? I said, shoot your dick.
[LAUGHTER]
Hey, man.
LESLIE MANN: By the early 1980s, a comedy club boom was in full swing, with venues popping up in nightclubs, bars, and bowling alleys.
SUSIE ESSMAN: Comedy was king in the mid-'80s. We would be at Catch a Rising Star on a Saturday night. Lines would be around the block.
MO'NIQUE: There were these clubs that were these, like, juke joints, the Chitchat on Chandler Road. And everybody was drunk, but you was, like, so proud to be up on stage. It was all these little places that you could go to and work on your craft. For me, when I got up on that stage, it wasn't like it was a slew of black female comedians or a slew of female comedians that I could connect to.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
- Thank you very much.
RICHARD LEWIS: That was the time on Leno, and Crystal, and me. And there weren't that many female comedians on. I don't know-- I don't know why. I mean, I'm sure it was, like, 95% male comedians.
[CHEERING]
- Look at you. Twins-- nasty, fucking little twins. God. [ROARING]
Yeah.
ELLEN DEGENERES: It's a tough life, especially for women. It was very clear that women could tell one kind of joke and but men could tell a lot of different kinds of jokes.
- Bottom line, do you suck a good dick? Yes or no.
I kind of slowly figured out, oh, women aren't treated with the same respect that men are when you're on stage. It was a kind of, oh, I see. I'm gonna have a harder time here.
- Why are people stupid?
[LAUGHTER]
Not us. It's the others. You ever notice?
SUSIE ESSMAN: They were always afraid to put two women together for some reason. I don't know. They thought we were both gonna talk about our periods or something. I don't know. But they put male, after male, after male. So it was competitive, if you were a woman, to get that slot.
GINA BRILLON: Stand-up comedy is a giant boys club, always has been. Some clubs just don't like using women.
LESLIE MANN: Some popular clubs went so far as to segregate the female comics from their male peers. The Comedy Store in LA, ironically run by a woman named Mitzi Shore, was the most egregious.
JOANNE ASTROW: And there was this little room upstairs and through the corridor, and Mitzi got the idea, I will make this a room just for women. And I will call it the Belly Room.
- I have that old hair. You know, like, nobody will ever give me my car keys when I'm drinking.
[LAUGHTER]
It's true. You ever see women like this in bars? It's like, I can drive. I'm fine.
LOIS BROMFIELD: It just felt desperately segregated. It felt like, how dare you ask to be working with the men? Get upstairs. You know, it felt that way. It was a place to hide women. I hated it.
- It's a male-dominated field. You know, it's you're up there with a microphone. It's a powerful position. People were not used to seeing a woman in that position.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
Thank you.
LESLIE MANN: Joy Behar was working as a schoolteacher in the Bronx when she first tried stand-up.
- Oh, this is good. I used to teach English to high school dropouts in the South Bronx. Eh? Do you understand what I'm talking about? You know, the kind of kids who go to jail because they kill their parents? Then they send them to me to teach them the difference between who and whom. This is the job that I had, ladies and gentlemen.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
JOY BEHAR: I did really well the first time. I killed, as they say. There was a guy. I remember, he was banging the table laughing, and it scared the shit out of me. It's terrifying. But for some reason, we are compelled to do it, some of us. It's like a craziness that exists in our heads. I've got to do this.
- How many of you girls have ever had, like, one hair growing from your breast? Let me see-- let me see hands.
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, just me? OK, fine. What a bunch of a-holes.
JOY BEHAR: When I look at tapes of myself back then, I think, who would date her? Who would go out with her? Which is why I kept it a secret from my husband for a year. You know, there I would be up there. Testicularity up there, you know? I mean, I didn't want to scare him yet. I wanted to enjoy the sex. And I didn't know if he would hate it or not to see me like that, because I was all cutesy with him, you know.
LESLIE MANN: But not everyone cared what men thought about their act, particularly one new comic who materialized in the early 1980s.
- It's a thrill to be out of the house.
[LAUGHTER]
LOIS BROMFIELD: I came to the Comedy Store one night and I heard this voice. I don't think she even knew what the Belly Room was. She just came in, and I'm great. I'm working here. She came in with her sister. Yeah, my name is-- I heard that voice, and I went, wow. Who is this? And a bunch of us, we went and watched her.
- Well, that's what that bugs me about being married, like having a husband and everything. Says, god, Roseanne. I could not even remember the last time we had sex. Well, I can, and that's why we ain't doin' it.
Roseanne Barr, like Phyllis Diller a generation before, was a mother and housewife. But unlike Diller, who belittled herself to gain mainstream acceptance, Roseanne Barr didn't give a fuck what you thought of her.
- You know what I mean? I saw it on "Donahue." A lot of men are impotent. It's true. It's really true. How many men here are impotent?
[LAUGHTER]
Oh, can't get your arms up, either, eh? Well--
[LAUGHTER]
JOY BEHAR: Roseanne Barr was a tremendous pioneer in a certain way. She came out there hilarious with a nasty little attitude. Just funny, funny, funny. Male-bashing-- the best.
JOAN RIVERS: Roseanne was the uber-schlub. And you loved her because she just didn't care. Didn't give a damn. It wasn't like trying or the good wife. She was that what you see in the supermarket, and funny about it.
LOIS BROMFIELD: I worked with her in Las Vegas. And every night, we had like 90 people showed up out of a room that held a thousand people it was horrible. And Roseanne said to me one night at the bar, one day, they're gonna come here just to see me and they're gonna pay like $100. I said, do you think so? She said, yeah. But that was the last time that she and I ever did anything normal like that, because after that, she just got famous.
- Here's Johnny.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LESLIE MANN: In the 1980s, landing a spot on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson" was still the single most important career move for a comic.
- David Brenner.
RICHARD LEWIS: One "Tonight Show" was like doing the Improv, or "Caroline's," or "The Comedy Store" three times a night seven days a week for 50 years.
- Would you welcome, please, Garry Shandling.
ELLEN DEGENERES: Everybody wanted to be on "Johnny Carson." It changed your life. I was the first woman in the history of the show to sit down. It was, you were anointed, you know, by the king.
- Would you welcome Roseanne Barr.
[APPLAUSE]
- So I'm fat. I thought I'd point that out.
[LAUGHTER]
But it's good that I'm fat, though, because I'm a mom and fat moms are better than skinny moms. 'Cause what do you want when you're depressed? Some skinny mom? Well, why don't you jog around a while and that'll release adrenaline in your blood and you'll better cope with stress? Or some fat mom? Well, let's have pudding, oreos, and marshmallows.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
LESLIE MANN: Roseanne's "Tonight Show" appearance made her an overnight sensation.
- [INAUDIBLE] That's Roseanne Barr.
[LAUGHTER]
Funny lady. We'll be back. Stay where you are.
LESLIE MANN: Powerful TV producer Marcy Carsey took notice.
MARCY CARSEY: Tommy-- my partner, Tommy Werner-- and I used to believe that you should put a show on that is not on that's talking about stuff that isn't being talked about on television. And that's how Roseanne came about, because there was no show that focused on-- there were wives of husbands who were working at interesting things. But there was no show that focused on what was really impacting 85%, I think it was, of American households, which was the woman having to work.
[MUSIC - DAN FOLIART, "ROSEANNE"]
LESLIE MANN: But in Hollywood, where looks often matter more than talent, selling an overweight blue-collar mother of three proved to be something of a challenge.
MARCY CARSEY: We brought Roseanne first to NBC, and they rejected it out of hand. They just-- they said, no. No. We just don't get it. We don't get the appeal of this. And so we went to ABC. And ABC had difficulty with it, so I did-- I said to the top executives, just bring a copy of the pilot home and watch it with your wives, and then let's talk tomorrow. You know, and they did, and we did, and they bought it.
I was hoping to have a little extra money to play around with.
- Well, do you want extra money? Because you know, I have my own system for extra money.
- All right. OK. First, we send in the phone bill and we forget to sign the check.
- There you go.
- Then we send the water bill to the electric company and the electric bill to the water company.
- Now, you're cooking.
- And you know that charge card bill? It never even showed up.
WHITNEY CUMMINGS: Roseanne was the first time I watched television, and instead of feeling like I was escaping into another world, I felt like, oh, that's like my life. You know, I felt like, oh, they don't have money, and they were talking about things that nobody else was talking about. It got real on that show.
LESLIE MANN: Success brought Roseanne something few women comics had ever experienced-- power. She was in control, determined that her show not lose its unique voice.
[APPLAUSE]
- You know, there are people who would say that you pick on men a lot in your humor. Do you worry about men not liking the show?
- Only the men who have never had sex would be mad at me. Men who've really had sex, or liked women, or you know, even had women as friends, they would know that it was the truth. This is really the way we live.
LOIS BROMFIELD: She just wanted to be real and honest. She would sit there and go, I don't like this, or I don't like this line. I don't like these couplets. I don't like this act. I would never say this, or this is not something that I would do. This is a woman really running things and saying, not only am I gonna run my show, I'm gonna run everything. So I'm gonna go down there and my golf cart and I'm gonna fire these two bastards. She wasn't afraid of anything. She didn't have fear, you know?
- Ma, I need a towel.
- It's in the closet, second shelf from the--
- Divorce?
- No, thanks, I already had one.
LESLIE MANN: Roseanne was not the only new female voice reaching the mainstream.
- If all I wanted was meaningless sex, I would've stayed married to Ted.
LESLIE MANN: In the 1980s and '90s, sitcoms began to feature divorced women, single moms, and career-driven types--
- Get me the federal building right away, please.
LESLIE MANN: --a picture that actually resembled America.
- No, I don't want a settlement. I think we have a very good case.
LESLIE MANN: Meanwhile, Ellen DeGeneres debuted a sitcom that translated her stand-up act into a successful primetime slot.
- How many tickets you writing there?
[LAUGHTER]
Big, strong handsome policemen like you. Tall, too. Your crotch comes right up to my window.
[LAUGHTER]
Hello. I'm talking to it. Can I get some fries with that ticket?
[GRUNTING]
LESLIE MANN: Ellen's show was unique. The main character was less interested in finding love than in commenting on the everyday absurdities of life.
ELLEN DEGENERES: I didn't really focus on the difference between men and women, because why narrow the topic? Why not just talk about human behavior, instead of focusing on strictly something women can relate to? I just thought, comedy should be comedy and it shouldn't be gender-specific.
LESLIE MANN: Despite signs of progress on the screen, behind the scenes, the writers' rooms haven't changed much since the early days of television.
GAIL PARENT: I was the only woman out of 10 men on "The Carol Burnett Show." What's even more amazing is that I was the only woman out of 12 men on "Golden Girls" for three years. They didn't want a woman on the staff, period. Why? Because the writers' rooms are filthy. The language is-- well, I mean, I considered it one of the perks. But they thought a woman would inhibit the writers. They didn't want to squelch the men.
NANCY FRANKLIN: The key is really in the writing. It opens doors. It creates opportunity for people. And then you have a flowering from that. It's how you become a producer. It's how you get your own production company and then create other shows. It's always, in a way, where the power is, because if you don't have writing, you don't have anything.
LESLIE MANN: Nell Scovell wrote for numerous TV shows in the '90s and had to get used to being the lone female voice.
NELL SCOVELL: I was writing an episode on a show where an agent-- a government agent-- had become magically pregnant. And one of the side effects was that she had this very sensitive sense of smell.
One of the executives said to me, well, you know, I don't understand this whole smell thing. Does it-- does that even happen? And I realized I was on a call with nine people, and I was the only one who had ever been pregnant. So I was like, yes. It happens. And they were like, are you sure? I don't know. And they still didn't trust me. [LAUGHS]
I don't want to say, oh, well, women offer a different voice, because the truth is if you're a good craftsman, you can adopt any voice. But there are experiences that a woman brings to the room.
You shouldn't have to be the greatest person on Earth, the greatest woman, smartest woman, funniest woman on Earth to get these jobs. You should be pretty darn good, and then you get better as you have them. But that's the way it works for men. Men learn on the job. You know, you have to get into the room.
LESLIE MANN: By the early 1990s, the comedy boom had gone bust. Hundreds of comedy clubs across the country closed when cable TV began to bring so-called brick wall shows directly to people in their homes.
It's "An Evening at The Improv."
[LAUGHTER]
The national chains that remained favorite mainstream comics that delivered the traditional setup punch line brand of comedy.
Kids today.
There was just all these rules, these unspoken rules, about comedy, and gender, and attractiveness, and all this stuff that I kind of noted as I went along.
- [LAUGHS]
LESLIE MANN: Many women comics just didn't fit the mold.
KATHY GRIFFIN: I did amateur nights at "The Comedy Store," and "The Improv," and any club that would have me. And I bombed for two years. But I bombed so bad that all I could hear was good night, everybody, and I could hear my own shoes just walking off stage.
- Welcome to The Un-Cabaret.
- Yes.
- You've never seen a show like this before. We've never done a show like this before.
- Julia Sweeney.
LESLIE MANN: In 1992, performance artist Beth Lapides launched The Un-Cabaret, a space where unconventional comedians could come and tell improvised stories.
- Here's the gift. It's a makeup mirror.
LESLIE MANN: This new form became known as alternative comedy.
W. KAMAU BELL: The alternative comedy scene opened up because women, and male comedians who didn't feel like they were like, I'm here to say stuff, needed a place to perform where they could feel was a more accepting space.
BETH LAPIDES: I wanted a place where women could be with men, but not at a slight disadvantage. There's an intimacy at Un-Cabaret, and part of that intimacy comes from that it's a conversational comedic form.
- I'm not telling the story for any kind of shock value or anything like that. I'm just telling the story.
LESLIE MANN: Up-and-comers, such as Janeane Garofalo and Margaret Cho, took well to this new style.
- [INAUDIBLE] No. Well, I don't know. I feel really unresolved.
[LAUGHTER]
MARGARET CHO: I just started to talk about my family. I talked a lot about my mom. I talked a lot about what I understood about sexuality. I mean, there was a lot of different stuff that I was cycling through and trying to figure out as a comedian.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
- OK. As you guys know, because you're here, this is the kind of stand-up that the Un-Cabaret is about. It's the only kind I do.
LESLIE MANN: For alternative comic Kathy Griffin, no venue was too small or too derelict, so long as it gave her a chance to make people laugh.
KATHY GRIFFIN: We would do shows for free at coffee houses, bookstores. In those days, it was like I was basically taking the audience hostage. I might just show up and start telling you stories about a date I had been on. I wouldn't say I killed, but I did learn to be louder than the cappuccino machine.
(SINGING) Get out of my way, you A-list bores. Boring.
LESLIE MANN: With the help of a large gay following, Griffin would break out of the alternative scene and into the mainstream, skewering pop culture, celebrity, and herself.
(SINGING) When you're living life on the D-list.
KATHY GRIFFIN: Maya Angelou was wrong when she says, when you know better, you do better. That's not the case with me. I have always said inappropriate things in my life. If people laughed, it was in, and those are the rules I live by now.
- I'm a comedian. That's what I do. How do we become whatever it is that we become? How is he a lawyer? How is she a hooker? How are we whatever it is we become?
LESLIE MANN: The take-no-prisoners style of alternative comedy unleashed a young woman who is more than happy to offend the few conventions that remained. Sarah Silverman was her generation's first woman shock comic.
- 1, 2, 3, 4.
[MUSIC - SARAH SILVERMAN, "I LOVE YOU MORE"]
(SINGING) I love you more than bears love honey. I love you more than Jews love money. I love you more than Asians are good at math. Maybe it's like when black guys call each other niggers.
W. KAMAU BELL: Sarah Silverman, when she became known, existed specifically to transgress.
[LAUGHTER]
And also, it was sort of destroying the notion of pretty isn't funny. So not only is she being really funny, and she's purposely using the vessel that she's in to sort of help goose the jokes.
SARAH SILVERMAN: I grew up in a home that was very free speech-oriented. There were no taboos. I was rewarded by shocking. You know, my dad taught me swears. And I would-- when I was three-- and I would say them. And grown-ups would laugh, despite themselves, and it felt so good. It felt like power and it felt like love.
- I was-- I was raped by a doctor, which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.
[LAUGHTER]
JANE LYNCH: I love Sarah Silverman. I love people who push it, and she pushes it. And she does it with the sweet face.
SARAH SILVERMAN: The unreliable narrator, you know? The arrogant ignorant. I can talk about every race, and talk about the Holocaust, and talk about know all these terrible things, and rape, too, and I'm not trying to say that those things are good, or light, or OK.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LESLIE MANN: Silverman represented the end of conformity. She used her comedy to subvert and criticize. But not everybody got the joke.
[LAUGHTER]
- Jury duty-- I don't want to do it. You know? And I'm filling out this form and everything, and my friend is like, well, why don't you write something really, like, inappropriate on the form? Like, I hate chinks. I wanted to do it, but then I'm like, I don't want people to think I'm racist or something. I just want to get out of jury duty. So I just filled out the form, and I wrote, I love chinks.
[LAUGHTER]
LESLIE MANN: In 2001, Silverman's comments on "The Conan O'Brien Show" angered some members of the Asian community.
- I mean, calling a Chinese person a chink is the same thing as calling a black person nigger.
- I feel that that joke is a joke that points a finger at racism, just like it's your job to point your finger at racism. And I think that it's inappropriate and it's counter-productive to demand an apology for someone who, like you, is illuminating racism, just for doing it in a different way than you do it.
- I think you're giving yourself too much credit.
DAVID STEINBERG: George Carlin had a rule. And that is, the comedian's job is to find the line and cross over it. A comedian's job is to be subversive. So a good comedian is, by nature, subversive.
- I got in trouble for saying the word chink on a talk show, a network talk show. And the president of an Asian-American watchdog group put my name in all the papers calling me a racist. And it hurt, you know? I mean, as a Jew, as a member of the Jewish community, you know, I was really concerned that we were losing control of the media.
[LAUGHTER]
JOAN RIVERS: Lenny Bruce was doing it. Nothing is new. And Lenny Bruce was saying, you're a wap, and you're a chink, and you're a frog. Everybody's something, so calm down. You call me a nigger, I'll call you a fucking kite. Next? Let's go home.
MO'NIQUE: When people say, do you ever go too far, well, how far is too far? How far is that? So Sarah Silverman-- it's like, sister, do you. Do what works for you and what makes you feel good about it. If you ain't have no problem sleeping at night, sugar, tell your jokes.
[APPLAUSE]
- Good night.
LESLIE MANN: There was nothing demure about Sarah Silverman's act. Her fearless attitude appealed widely to her generation. Still, some men found powerful women like her just too threatening.
- I'd say the problem with you female comedies, up 'til now, is they tend to be either dykes, or Jews, or butch. Roseanne Barr, Sarah Silverman, et cetera, et cetera. These are all forms of emulating male humor.
LESLIE MANN: In 2007, as women comics continued to hit the mainstream, Christopher Hitchens wrote an article in "Vanity Fair" called "Why Women Aren't Funny." The article was just another attempt to shame women out of careers in comedy.
YAEL KOHEN: It was not the first time that this has been declared. Jerry Lewis, I think, famously said it in 2002 at a comedy festival, and it also caused an uproar. But this particular piece, just for whatever reason, really angered a lot of people.
How can you say that this is garbage?
- But if you notice, no one asks, is it true that women are less funny? They only ask, why is it true? I'm only trying to find out.
- Who asked you?
LESLIE MANN: In the end, this was just an old argument from another era. Some men just couldn't stand to have a woman make them laugh.
- So you're only criticizing women when they do unwomanly things.
- But we're talking about our God-given miracle who produces a child. I have a difficult time seeing her do this on stage.
JOY BEHAR: I know Jerry Lewis. I've met him a few times. And I made him suffer for that remark. And he said, well, you're funny. Oh, thank you. Some of my best friends are funny.
SARAH SILVERMAN: You know, the way to win the battle of women are funny is be funny. Be undeniably funny.
[PHOTOGRAPHERS SHOUTING]
LESLIE MANN: The kerfuffle was short-lived. America's funny women were too busy taking over in a big way.
- Hello, everyone. America is the land of opportunity, and only in this country can a little girl from New Jersey, the armpit of this nation, eventually grow up to have her own show on E, the armpit of television.
LESLIE MANN: In 2007, a Jersey girl named Chelsea Handler began hosting her own comedy series. She was the first woman since Joan Rivers to host her own late-night talk show.
CHELSEA HANDLER: I just always thought I was gonna be, like, a well-known person. I know that sounds completely, like, narcissistic, but it's true. I just always thought, oh, I'm going to be-- like, people are gonna really know who I am.
LESLIE MANN: Chelsea Handler's career in comedy had an unconventional beginning.
CHELSEA HANDLER: Well, I went to a DUI class because I had a DUI. Everyone had to get up and talk about their experience with their DUI, and mine was particularly, like, humiliating. So and I was completely scared of public speaking. I mean, I just-- and you couldn't drink at your DUI class, because obviously, it was too close to-- a little too soon.
I mean, I had hid in that class every week trying not to get picked on, which just made it worse, because if you just want to get it over with. And it was the very, very last class. And I did it, and I-- and I ended up being-- everyone was laughing. And I remember the guy who ran the class came up and was like, this isn't a stand-up show. You know, you need to get off the stage.
LESLIE MANN: Handler was one of the first to openly embrace her sex appeal, even using it for laughs. She held her own in the very male world of late night.
- [SHRIEKING] Oh, no. Not again.
- Hi, Chelsea.
- How do people keep getting in here?
- This is my studio. You stole it, remember? You also took my back massager. I bet you use it every day.
- I do use that back massager, although I had no idea it was for my back. It seems like you know a lot of anger issues, Conan.
CHELSEA HANDLER: When I started doing stand-up, I was totally a tomboy. I always had my hair up and no makeup, you know, jeans, because I never wanted it to be about the way I looked, because people were like, oh, she's just getting-- she's just getting spots 'cause she's pretty. She's not funny. So you really dial it down. But then you get comfortable with yourself and you realize, people are paying attention to what you're saying, and then you can kind of bang it out a little bit more. It's fun to be sexy and cool. You know, what you see is what you get.
WHITNEY CUMMINGS: She wasn't trying to be someone she wasn't. She wasn't trying to be network-friendly, you know, which I think was very refreshing for a lot of female comics to see, of like, oh, just be yourself and you'll make it.
W. KAMAU BELL: I mean, I don't think Chelsea Handler gets enough credit. She has a nightly talk show on a network that when she got there, wasn't a network that people were really talking about a lot, and she has become a part of the cultural conversation and national conversation. And she's doing it, ostensibly, the way she wants to do it.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
- And as we say in Alaska--
- We say it everywhere.
- Live from New York, it's Saturday night!
LESLIE MANN: In the past 10 years, women in comedy have made tremendous strides. Even institutions like "Saturday Night Live," where it had once been a struggle for female players to get on the air, were being shaped by women.
- What lessons have you learned from Iraq? And how, specifically, would you spread democracy abroad?
- We're gonna promote freedom, usher in Democratic values and ideals, and fight terror-loving terrorists.
NANCY FRANKLIN: There's a great story in "Bossy Pants," Tina Fey's book, about a bunch of people are hanging out, and Amy Poehler was just doing a bit just for friends. It was backstage. And Jimmy Fallon said, I don't really like that. And she turned to him and said, I don't give a fuck if you like it. And it was this galvanizing moment because she doesn't care whether the audience likes what she does. She's gonna do it anyway.
[LAUGHTER]
JANE LYNCH: Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are about 10 years younger than I am. There is a huge difference in the way they view the world, as compared to the way I used to view the world. I don't know that it ever occurred to them that they didn't deserve a seat at the table, but it inspires me.
- Action. Action.
- Hold on. OK, I hear you, stupid. Oh, my god. Who hired you? Mad unprofessional. I'm trying to--
LESLIE MANN: Inspired by the success of the women who came before them, a brand-new generation of young women are now entering the field.
- Action.
- Hi, I'm Jessica Sanchez, and I'm here to tell you about the importance of the United States Census.
LESLIE MANN: And with the ubiquity of social media, these talented comics have access to entirely new audiences hungry for a fresh perspective.
GINA BRILLON: Social media creates a lot of opportunities for a lot of people. And you see these women taking steps in this business that you wouldn't have seen 10 years ago, 20 years ago. But whatever it is, guess what? There's an audience for it. Whatever your voice is, there's somebody there who wants to hear it.
[APPLAUSE]
- Thank you. Thank you very much. How do you like it? It's something I cooked that didn't turn out.
LESLIE MANN: Over the last 60 years, female comics have used humor to point out Inequality, vent about the world, and call for change, all while making us laugh.
- Every week, they ask me the same exact question. They're just like, what's the hardest part about being a female comedian? Is it harder for female comics? Is it harder? And it's not. Like, they think we just get up here and just bleed all over the stage. I'm just oh, my ovaries. How do I keep them in my body?
LESLIE MANN: They have challenged every norm, broken every rule. And today, the idea of being left out of the club is even laughable.
SARAH SILVERMAN: It's funny, because the last relic of it being hard for women in comedy is the question-- is the question, what's it like being a woman in a man's world? And you go, oh, that question is the last thing left of it because women run comedy.
JOAN RIVERS: There's no such thing as women's comedy. What are you all talking about? Funny is funny. Done. Over. Next.
JOY BEHAR: This is the last documentary I ever want to see about women in comedy. [LAUGHS] But we'll do it. We're doing it one more time with this documentary, and I hope you keep that on the air.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
