I often think about the fact that The Husband loves stand up comedy and I do not. I admire his love of it. He loves it even when he’s not the one doing it. He loves watching specials, buying albums. One of his favorite things to do is to have a night where it’s just him driving around to clubs, dropping in and watching sets. In some ways I’m envious. I should love it, too. I like to write jokes. I like funny people. For years I did stand up and loved performing.
But It’s hard to love a thing that doesn’t even like you back.
When I started in comedy, I didn’t see myself there. Too long I was told I didn’t have a place there. Even with the many talented women making a name for themselves – Elayne Boosler, Rita Rudner, Wendy Liebman, Diane Ford – women were still relegated to one spot, put on “special” ladies’ night or Valentine’s Day shows, dismissed as “cute” but never called funny. I associate comedy with too many negative experiences in my life and I’m not talking about bombing on stage. That I can deal with. It was everything that happened when you weren’t up there that I hate.
“But Tess,” you might say, “There’s so many women doing comedy today.” There are! And that’s great! And then a male comic gets outed as a sexual predator and an army of incel trolls descend on women who speak out as the men (repeatedly) face zero consequences and continue to have lucrative careers and you realize they still fucking hate you here. Plenty of talented and hilarious women love it despite this, and that’s awesome. I’m glad that all the bullshit didn’t kill that for them. And even if it soured me, I’m OK. I found other things I love and that make me happy.
So why is it on my mind this week? It’s because lately I’ve been experimenting with the idea of not going places where I feel badly about myself.
I explained this to a friend the other day and she agreed it seemed like a radical – if obvious - notion.
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