I Only See Excuses

   Yesterday on my twitter feed I ran across this quote from Bill Burr. ”How is it 'harder' to be a female comic? Is it harder to take the mic out of the mic stand with ur weak little female wrists?”

  My first go-to, is that women are 50.8% of the population and only score about 15% of weekend sets at showcase clubs. Context is everything when it comes to the Burr quote, and people on both sides of the stage, encompassing all genders, respect the hell out of Bill Burr.

  As a woman in comedy for pert near thirty years, with time off for 9 years in order to raise my twerps, when they were teeny-tiny before throwing myself back onto the stage. I squarely had put myself in the category that comedy is hard for everyone. It’s a gamble as a profession. That is the thru-line of anyone attempting it. Comics are all willing to throw a stable future out the window, in order to make people laugh. In full disclosure, the younger me, when I had a lot shaking and enjoyed being one of the “unicorns” of comedy, a woman who could hold her own, with mostly filthy material due to a pair of cold hard steel balls, who could also muster up enough clean jokes to be all over network and cable tv, whilst keeping the crowd’s attention when the checks were dropped; at whatever backwoods club my agent got me booked at. My hard truth is this, I was given a lot of opportunity because of what I looked like, and not necessarily because I was one of the funniest ones. That’s how the business works. Fresh faces are sexy and shiny and men are preferred. Comedy is after all a complete reflection of society. The world is a harsh place, why should my profession be any different? In other words, there is no damn crying in comedy.

  A month ago, I threw a “girl comic’s” brunch. Much fun was had as we gulped down food and swapped stories both hilarious and frustrating. At the end of the brunch a few stragglers stayed behind and we had a serious talk about the lack of stage time, and we decided to start an Instagram account where we could all post show flyers on, just to see how many women are advertised and or hired on shows. The results weren’t scientific, but do give an overall impression of what goes on in our industry. I calculate that in showcase cities like Los Angeles and New York we get about 25% of the sets on the show. The only reason the number is that high, are due to women producing “women only” shows on off-nights at the showcase clubs. If we were only going to count the coveted weekend sets the number drops down to around 15%. Quite a few of those sets are as the emcee.

  The response on my social media feed, as other women threw out numerous thoughts on what makes comedy harder for them vary. The fact that a male comics success isn’t rumored to be based on who’ve they’ve slept with. Stories of promoters showing up in their hotel room (with his extra key since he booked the room) trying to make a deal for sex instead of the agreed upon money for the performance. How white male comics don't get told, "We already got a white guy on the show/on the staff.” If a guy thinks you're funny, the other guy comics say, "He just wants to fuck you.” One of us recently got name checked & called fat, smelly & annoying in a TV special. My own personal one is when my ex, a comedy manager said during my divorce, "Your comedy is harming the kids emotionally.” He stated this to lawyers and therapists who were being paid from the fee he earned repping male comics, who make their living using the tool of spite and irony on the difficulty of raising their own families. That one kind of burned my ass the hardest, to be honest.

  Just so you know, there are women who have been the prolific worker bees of comedy for the past twenty or so years, who bristle at bringing up the male/female divide in comedy. They hate even mentioning it. They still believe like I used to believe, it doesn’t matter, just keep hustling, just keep slinging jokes. Keep your head down, work your ass off. They’re not necessarily wrong. AND Holy shit, I miss feeling that way!

  There have also been responses from men on my social media feed who are not only sympathetic to the cause of women in comedy, but in fact championed them in the “Wayback Machine” Like Tom Haines who booked the Comedy Zone in Charlotte, North Carolina. He stated, “I got almost a 100% positive response, when I booked comedy in the early to mid 90's I never asked if a comedian was male or female, black or white. I just asked if they were funny or not. I booked the funny and passed on the "or nots." Some others think that women in the business are not funny. Well, someone needs to tell that to the hundreds of thousands of fans that fell out of their chairs while laughing at the VERY funny ladies pictured.” 

  Of course other responses from men include, “I just see excuses. I see people taking advantage of easy excuses to explain away a lack of tenacity and work ethic.” Or, “Stop blaming discrimination and 'woe is always us', attitude. Get better, get funnier in other words STOP WHINING.” My personal favorite was the sarcastic, “When will the oppression of first world women, end.” My answer, “When it finally ends, Dumbass…”

  My biggest question is this. Why is having a conversation about it, equate to “Woe is us?” No one is angry, no one is crying, I can certainly speak for a majority of women comics, that Bill Burr is what we aspire to be. Btw - numerous female comics already are. Please don’t mistake our needing to talk about our frustration as outspoken women as infantilizing ourselves. We are strong, independent, and are gambling our future just like the men. We are masters of having brushed away offensive words and factions only to emerge strong as hell, probably stronger then those who stand in our way.

  All that being said, my favorite response was from the very funny Karen Rontowski, who wrote, “It's not harder being a female comic, its hard to get treated fairly as a female comic.”