No, for real, this is an interesting article, and it’s not all about her, although from the moment I started reading it is was sort of like “Okay, when are they going to start talking about Sarah Silverman?”, and I’m really happy for her, although I sort of agree with the tone of this piece regarding her overall act, and how her “You can’t get offended by me because I’ve sterilized my comments by passing them through this adorable little character I do” gets a little tiresome. Still, the point about women having to cater their comedy to men is well taken.
I do think it’s worthwhile to note that stand-up (a genre to which I am completely foreign, except as a consumer) is a completely different animal from improv (which is built around some things that don’t exist in stand-up, like character interactions, relationships, and group mind). In improv, your point-of-view isn’t so vulnerably laid bare to the audience; you aren’t standing there and having to deal with the fact that everyone is staring up at you, and only you, and they’re categorizing you as a women, or an African American, or whatever.
Incidentally, teaching high school is a lot closer to stand-up than improv, so maybe I do know a little something about the former.
(thanks to marissa for the link!)
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