#female comic

This week, at a panel in discussion with Goldie Hawn, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner said that it’s difficult to find women who are both beautiful and funny. Obviously his intention was to say a nice thing about Goldie Hawn, who is indeed beautiful and funny and excellent at her job. So what’s the problem, right?

Here’s my issue with the remark. Comedians have one job: to entertain. Successful comedians are lauded for their ability to consistently illicit laughter from their audience, be it in a small club or on a sitcom watched by millions. Male comedians are considered “good” if they live up to this expectation of consistency. Other factors - including their appearance - rarely play into their quantified “value” to the industry. 

Female comics are constantly judged not only for their material, but for their appearance. We saw it when Amy Schumer dedicated an entire episode of her hugely successful sketch show to respond to viewers who were hell-bent on booting her off of TV for daring, by their standards, to be “unfuckable.” We saw it when Mindy Kaling was told to give up on being a leading lady and instead go for those “best friend” roles. And many of my friends see it when they, after being announced by the host as the “token girl,” go up on stage and are heckled relentlessly by an audience of horned-up assholes who demand to see her tits for her entire 15 minute set. We are comedians. It is not our job to be beautiful, and yet it is demanded from us every time we show up for work.

Let’s ignore, for a second, that beauty is wholly subjective and by that definition, all women are beautiful. Plenty of women are funny AND fit the traditional Hollywood definition of beautiful, but the inhospitable nature of the industry drives many of them away. Funny women are CONSTANTLY judged based on their appearance. Our career doesn’t insulate us from our culture of misogyny - in fact if anything people feel more okay with making comments about female comics because “they’re comedians” who “shouldn’t take themselves too seriously." 

If a beautiful, funny comic DOES make it to the top, she’ll probably find that writers are offering her up flaccid, uninspired roles that focus on her looks alone. Name a successful, beautiful female comedian and I guarantee you they are in that position because of the roles they’ve written for themselves. Great, you may think. She’s sidestepped the big bad Hollywood gatekeepers and made a career for herself. I totally agree with you, and I celebrate these powerful, talented women for all of their achievements - but remember, each and every one of those shows has passed through the hands of countless mostly male executives at studios, broadcasters, and production companies, and in order for that show to get made, ALL of them had to say yes. How many times have we missed out on something truly wonderful from a beautiful female comedian simply because some boring asshat at Boring Asshat Productions passed on it?

So Michael Eisner, just so we’re clear - there is no shortage of beautiful, funny women. The shortage, my friend, is on your end. I assure you that If You Produce It, They Will Come. If you start doing that, I can also assure you that you’ll find you can remove quantified beauty from the equation entirely and still make a killer comedy that your audiences will die to see.