A panel of the country’s top female comedians such as Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, Joy Behar, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofalo and Kathy Griffin recently gathered to discuss their experiences working in the comedy business in the April issue of Marie Claire.
Here’s what a few of them had to say about the gender and racial “progress” on the comedy club circuit and the inspiration behind alternative comedy:
On Gender and Racial Discrimination in Comedy Clubs
“You only want one woman or one black per show — club owners would actually have the nerve to say that out loud,” says Garofalo. “Or they would say, ‘We had a female comic last weekend headlining and she bombed, so we’re not going to have any more women.'”
“It was their own bigotry,” adds Barr. “They’d put on, like, four white guys who did impersonations of black guys, and then they wouldn’t put on any black guys. Most of the other women quit — but I knew I wasn’t going to do that ’cause I knew I was funnier than all the men there.”
On the Inspiration and Need for Alternative Comedy
“When I first started, I called Janeane and said, ‘I can’t get a break,'” recalls Griffin…”Janeane said, ‘I think we should do something called alternative comedy.’ Fuck the Comedy Store. Fuck the Improv — rent your own theater. Go do stand-up yourself…So I printed up flyers…We would charge one dollar and the show was only an hour…And then we would get celebrity guests…And it became the talk of the town.”
Read more of the funny ladies’ discussion at Marie Claire.
