Comedy As Power: Gender and Trauma through the Lens of Humor

When a woman makes people laugh, she is doing more than entertaining the room. She is taking up space, steering attention, and quietly testing the rules of what society says is “acceptable” for women to do, say, and even feel. Mary traces her own path from being the smart, introverted kid to using self-deprecating humor as a kind of social armor, then asks what happens when we stop shrinking and start using humor on purpose.

Guest Lynn Harris, founder and CEO of Gold Comedy, award-winning journalist, and culture-shifting producer whose humor-forward advocacy has helped move conversations on gender equity and social justice. Lynn shares a teen flashbulb moment that exposed a brutal truth: boys could be sloppy and get applause, while girls would get eye rolls. From there, we dig into why women are still asked to “prove women are funny,” why comedy clubs treat “one woman on the lineup” as diversity, and how bias makes the entire industry worse for audiences and performers.

We also get practical and personal about the craft. Lynn makes the case that funny can be taught, that there are many styles of humor, and that improv is a powerful way to build confidence and flexibility. Then we go to the deeper edge: joking about grief, trauma, and tough topics. We talk about “too soon,” how to aim the joke at power or culture instead of victims, and how humor can create enough distance for healing without minimizing pain.

If you care about women in comedy, resilience, trauma recovery, and the real power of laughter, listen, share with a friend, and leave a review.

You can find Gold Comedy HERE

https://goldcomedy.com

You can find Lynn HERE

https://www.lynnharris.net/

Transcript

Humor Creates Distance From Pain

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When you are able to look at something traumatic or not funny through a humorous lens, it means almost by definition that you're able to kind of hold it at arm's length. And you're able to kind of mull it over and find the side of it that's funny.

Why Violets Are Not Meant To Shrink

Mary 0:22

For centuries, the phrase shrinking violet was used to diminish women, to suggest we were meant to be small and meek. But in nature, violets are anything but weak. They're resilient, beautiful, and essential to the ecosystem. Hi, I'm Mary Rothwell, licensed therapist, and each week I sit down with women who remind us that being compared to a violet isn't an insult. It's a testament to strength, endurance, and the power of taking up space and living by your true nature. If you're ready to stop shrinking and start thriving, you're in the right place.

Becoming Funny To Stay Safe

Mary 0:57

Hey Violets, welcome to the show. In school, I was often one of the smartest kids in the room. I was an introverted reader, so I had an advantage right off the bat. However, in the late 70s and early 80s, a girl who was, quote, an introverted reader learned through social shaming not to view it as an advantage. I remember high school as being much more about boys than grades, although earning A's was easy for me. But as I hit sophomore year, I recognized that the smartest girls weren't succeeding in terms of social measurements. The cool, pretty girls were. Well, no way would I meet the standard for cool, and anyone who hinted that maybe I was attractive was mentally discounted by me. What became my currency to acceptance and a distraction from my intelligence? Humor. I became the class clown. I deflected attention in the form of accolades and courted it through nonchalant irreverence. I know now, after 30 plus years as an educator, that most of my teachers saw through that. But interestingly, none of them addressed it. No one talked to me about embracing my inner nerd. B.T. Dubs, I was the lead saxophone player in the marching band, too. Um, yeah, that wasn't leveraged with the popular crowd either. Well, here's what I realized. I gained power in the milieu of 1980s teen culture by being funny. But that funny was always self-deprecating. I kept my sarcasm deeply buried, only allowing it to access air through muttering to myself about chauvinists, unfair rules, and general assholery. Why did I stem my sarcasm? Well, I know many women listening who are from my generation can answer this. Making anything other than ourselves a target of humor or sarcasm usually makes us the target. Stay small, don't poke fun at any of the typical power players or structures, smile and giggle cutely. Certainly don't throw your head back and gaff. So many rules. Talk about living inside guide rails. So when my guest today reached out to me about being on the show, I knew immediately it was a yes. Not only did my own recent experience with improv increase my interest, but as I started to ponder the role of humor in my own life, I also started to recognize the impact of social scripts on the world of comedy in general. And I cannot wait to talk with her about all of that today. Lynn Harris is a culture-shifting producer, award-winning journalist, and author-co-author of six books. Her comedy and campaigns for social justice and gender equity have changed laws and conversations from Capitol Hill to NASCAR. She is founder and CEO of Gold Comedy, and she served as the first VP of communications at Global Human Rights Group Breakthrough, where her blend of humor and advocacy powered some of the team's most effective US campaigns. Well, she has also worked as a Tanya Harding look-alike, which, as she says, is a long story. Welcome to No Shrinking Violets Lynn.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Thank you. What a showstopper intro. I can't wait to dig into your story.

Mary 4:06

Oh, thank you. I think this is gonna be

The Night Girls Could Not Be Sloppy

Mary 4:09

fun. Okay, so obviously, this show is about taking up space and looking at what social scripts have informed and how we're supposed to show up. Like what is safe for women? So I always have my guests start by sharing some of the times from their life, which I typically call flashbulb moments. But for you, I'm curious about sort of like crossroads, like where you either got slapped by those social scripts or you knew you had to make an intentional choice to kind of step out of them.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

I have a perfect one for that. And also I love that you call them flashbulb stories because only some of us know what a flashbulb actually is. Um takes place in, I'm gonna say like 1983, um, children of the same decade, in um on a ski trip, a Jewish youth group ski trip in uh New Hampshire, uh event of the year. And it's an overnight trip. So we're you know, we're staying up and horsing around um at the synagogue and the basement, whatever, and a bunch of dudes, I was like 15 or 16, um, a bunch of dudes, one of whom may or may not have been Adam Sandler, it was. Um that's because he was in the group at the time. I didn't really know him, but he was there anyway. Um, like borrowed a bunch of girls' flannel nightgowns and like got some grapefruits or something out of nowhere, and just you know, got on this stage and performed this sort of sloppy drag sketch that brought the house down. And it was probably hilarious. I, you know, sure. And I remember thinking, my first thought, and you know, I ran with the, you know, my friends were funny, we were goofballs, and I my first thought was, okay, what are the girls gonna do? And my second thought was nothing. And the reason why I thought that, even though my sense of feminism and uh you know structural misogyny and social scripts was, you know, was was not yet fully formed, my gut instinct while depressing was correct. And that is that there was no way at that time in 1983 that a bunch of girls could have just you know run on stage and done something equally sloppy and gotten anything but eye rolls. Um, it's not that it it, you know, it we would have had to like have it spend a week in the writer's room, you know, have a producer and a showrunner, and you know, like really not because we lacked the skill or talent, but because the audience wasn't ready. They did not think women were funny. We would have to, like, I don't know if they formed that thought fully in their heads, but like there was just not a space in which girls could be sloppy funny like that, just you know, ridiculous, reckless goofballs and get the same response.

Mary 7:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

So I I remember thinking, you know, just like, oh well, and and knowing that that was bad, bad and wrong. I don't regret that decision on my own part, but just knowing that that sucked. So there you go. That sucked. Yeah.

Mary 7:28

Yeah. Okay, so I have a hundred questions, but the one that I want to ask right now, because what of what you just talked about, do you think that's different now?

SPEAKER_01 7:39

I think the same pattern is true. That overall, in general, not just in comedy, like we know this. Women have to work harder for the same results and for the same accolades and for the same um uh rewards, right? I do think that we, however, um, you know, that that's the bad news. The good news is, yeah, we probably, like in this day and age, we probably could, and it would be fine. Like we probably could have, you know, if it was me now, we probably could go up there and do something sloppy and and get a good and get a good much better response. I think um a lot of retrograde and specifically anti-women things are happening right now, like literally in the news every day. Um, but slowly, kind of clunkily, the the youth, the youth are evolving.

Mary 8:30

Yeah. Because I remember being like, I don't know, even 12, 8 to 12, even 14, and my friends and I were goofy and funny, and then that becomes well, unattractive. Um, you know, and I think at the worst, threatening. And I'm I think there are people that even when I say that, they're like, what do you mean threatening? But I think you understand what I mean by that.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Yeah, I understand exactly what it means. Men are threatened, they don't want us to laugh at them. The sound of our laughter is terrifying, lest it be directed at them. And you know what? They're right, it often is. They're right to be scared, fellas.

Mary 9:15

Yeah, yeah, and you know, it's funny because with humor, it it takes a lot of intelligence to be funny, especially I think, as a stand-up comedian.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Because I mean, yeah, stand-up, but even honestly, even the goofiest slapstick takes um takes a lot of intelligence because you know, watching someone, you know, pitifully trip and fall down the stairs, not funny. Watching a comic who's skilled at slapstick and somehow can make that funny, that's funny. And that's much more sophisticated. You know, it becomes a character piece, it becomes a different kind of commentary. It's not just laughing at someone's clumsiness or mis misfortune. So, like even the the even the comedy that seems sort of the silliest and simplest on its face isn't funny unless it has some grounding in smartness. It doesn't have to be brainy, just has to have some grounding in in smartness and purpose.

Mary 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

But I agree with you about stand-up also for sure. It's like that, it's a high level of writing. People don't realize. People think that, um not everyone, but but I I think there is a, not the, but a prevailing idea that stand-ups are kind of born funny and they're people are even either funny or they're not. But what you see when you see a talented stand-up is tons of hard work practice and specifically writing. Very precise writing that comes off as you know, natural natural, right, or even or at least natural, right? But conversational, but it's very um thought out, as you know.

Yes You Can Teach Funny

Mary 10:49

Yeah. Well, and to take a little side route, a lot of people would say, I'm not funny, I can't be funny. Do you think you can teach funny?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Yeah. Yeah. Um you 100% can. Uh, I think it's partly the mindset. This is gonna sound all like woo-woo, but it's partly the mindset of the person who says that, right? Um now, you know, of course, are there people who are who are naturally inclined to, you know, um pick up a baseball and know what to do, sit at a piano and know what to do, walk into a kitchen and know what to do. Of course, that's I mean, all humans are like that, right? But no one actually gets good at that stuff without practice and coaching, right? And the same is true of humor. People often say I'm not funny because they have a certain idea of what funny is and what funny looks like. And if they don't match that, whether it's, you know, oh, I'm not funny because I'm not the loud one, or I'm not funny because my life isn't crazy, or you know, whatever it is. But if you just sit and watch like the first five minutes of 10 different specials on Netflix, you'll see 10 different styles of humor and 10 different styles of comedy. And maybe the one of them actually is kind of like you. Um, maybe one of them is shy and quiet and kind of strange, like Aparna Nancherla, who is hilarious, and her whole brand is about being awkward and shy, you know? So I think that's the first piece that people just think that they're not funny because they're not a certain kind. Um the second is that there are so many ways to be funny that are um or or to participate in humor, or at least to sense humor. I mean, that's the thing, it's just a sense of humor. It's not a you can have a sense of humor without having a grasp or a mastery of humor, you know? Um, and you can build from there.

Mary 12:44

Yeah. Well, and I mentioned I took an improv class, and it was not really my choice. My husband wanted to do it, so I just signed both of us up. And what an experience. I mean, I think everybody should do it because you probably aren't surprised. The comment I would get most often, I could never do that. And I'm like, well, you could, because when we started, you know, the first the first level was just being up there and just responding. And it was when you learned the the formula that it got hard because you're like, oh, there's a way I'm supposed to build this. But you know, I think that freeing, it's a freeing thing, and it's a way of thinking differently about interacting with the world, I think.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Totally. So I agree. Everyone should, I think everyone should wait tables at one point in their lives and everyone or work retail at one point in their lives, and everyone should um, or many people work, do those things the whole point of the whole part of their lives. Um, and everyone should um, you know, do a little improv, do a little stand-up, just cuz.

Mary 13:44

Yeah.

Comedy Changes Norms And Culture

Mary 13:45

So we taught or I mentioned a little about power. So comedy as power. And I know for me, when I was in school, I didn't want to be the nerd. And so I just fell into sort of being being the class clown. I would get sent to the corner in class because certainly that turned that turned the attention away from don't ask me questions because I'm gonna know the answer, and that's not always cool. So it I just naturally fell into that. But I don't know that people would think about comedy as a way to have power for women or other maybe marginalized populations. Can you talk a little about your view of that?

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yes. First of all, I just want to say that I love that you were the class clown. I was too, and I got away with it because I also got good grades. So I fully got away with it. Um, but if you ask someone to picture the class clown, or if you ask like AI to draw you a picture of the class clown, it's going to be a white dude. It's gonna be like Dennis the Menace, you know, um, always. So I love that you um I love that you uh, you know, challenge, challenge that, because many of us have. Second of all, comedy is a hundred percent power. Comedy is power, full stop. When you make people laugh, you make people listen.

Mary 15:00

True, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

And it also, and it's also not just an individual thing. It's that comedy really does, comedy's not the only thing that has this power, but comedy does have the power not just to soothe, you know, the best medicine, not just to distract, oh, hard day, I got a Netflix and chill, but to challenge and change perceptions and norms and even structures of power. It does, because whether directly or indirectly, so an example of indirectly, or even directly, really, would be uh, for example, the the reboot of the TV show One Day at a time, which I thought was fantastic. Well, both were were fantastic, but the but the the newer one, um, which aired a few years ago, which I recommend, um, takes the same, you know, same setup, uh apart, you know, family in an apartment, that's pretty much it, um, and the super, um, and the grandmother, um and made them immigrants, made them Cuban immigrants. Um and so what that showed, that was very per very intentional. And what that show did was on the one hand show you that this is just a comedy about a regular normal American family, so so it was very uh easy, like easy on the eyes, right? To just, you know, to watch and and kind of but what but what you do when what what's happening when you watch that, what sinks in sort of by osmo by cultural osmosis is in your heart and brain and mind. You are normalizing the idea that uh an immigrant family from Cuba, or at least the parents, um, is a normal American family. And that's huge. That does so much to chip away at biases and change norms and and and give those families power, give those, give people with marginalized identities some kind of power. Directly, no, but it it it's air cover for all the other changes that need to happen. Indirectly, taking the example, I have to make sure I'm not sitting on a cat. Okay. Um, um, taking the example of, let's say, stand-up, like simple one, women doing stand-up means women talking. Um, and this may sound dated, I guarantee you it's not. Um if you go to a comedy club and you listen to an and and and thank God there's a woman on the lineup, which again is not is is uh not a guarantee, even in 2026, checks watch, um and you and that woman does stand up for eight minutes, you have to listen to a woman talk for eight minutes. And that sounds simple and easy, but let's make it, let's also make it sure a woman could be a white woman like me, could be uh a person of color, could be a trans or queer person of color, you have to listen, listen to them talk for eight minutes. That's not an that's not normal if you're not accustomed to that, if that's not your circle, if that's not your your lane of the culture, whatever it is. And even if they're I mean, pretty much in they might be talking about their experiences as a as a person with a marginalized identity, or they might not, or they might be talking about like their annoying job and their weird family like the rest of us, like like everyone does, right? In that in that moment, in those eight minutes, something shifts. It's tiny and it's fun, but in that moment, something shifts. You just listen to that person that maybe you've not listened to before. And every time you do that, a little bit shifts. And just because they get to talk and you have to be quiet and laugh.

Mary 18:43

Yeah.

The One Woman On The Lineup

Mary 18:44

Well, and I know you've mentioned when you want to get in a lineup, and I might not have the right verbiage here, but it would be, oh, we already have a woman. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like there's a quota when it comes to women in comedy that it doesn't even, we don't even think about that when it comes to men.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Don't even think about it. No one says, um, hey, it's men's comic night. You know, it's men's comedy night. I mean, it all but like no one says that. No one, everyone calls us women comics, you know? No one, no one calls us just comics, which is what we are. Men are still, it is so much better than it used to be. And I'd be happy I could tell you for an for hours how much is is is better, and I could also tell you for the same amount of time how much is not better, and both are true at once. And we're, you know, we're grown-ass adults, so we can understand that like two conflicting truths can can exist at the same time. Um, but uh yeah, dude comics are just white dude comics are just still the norm. And I still find lineups, it's not unusual at all to find lineups that um have one woman and then and are therefore diverse, um, or are even aggressively marginalizing, like at best. Uh like Nick's Comedy Stop in Boston. Happy to shout it out, Nick, because you put this on your Instagram. This is not a secret, this is not gossip. Um, last summer had a show called Chicks at Nick's, which first of all, come on, what decade is this? Can we I know it rhymes, but you can do better. Um it was all women, fine, which I'm also tired of because I'm like, just you know, just do shows of just do more mixed shows and this isn't a thing anymore, you know? Anyway, but the but the the postcard or like the you know the image was the the the heads of the performers poorly photoshopped on the legs of Barbies. Oh wow right, and I you know, and I'm too old to be like upset at the sexism, the direct objectification, like with duh, obviously. But also you're bad at your job. Like if you if you think it's if you don't think for a second, and also but and by side note, the the comedians who were performing, um, you know, commented, ha ha, this is so funny. Fine, I don't care. It's not about the individual, like if they liked it, good, thank God, you know. Um but but that's not the point. The point is that like Nix, no one at Nick's was like, hmm. Will this send a message to cer some women comics that we think of them as this? Um, will this send a message to like possible paying customers who are women that this is how we think of women? No one thought that they're bad at their job. You know, it's just like that's so much of this is just like booking one woman on a lineup of dudes, bad at your job. You know, booking an all white lineup, bad at your job. You know, we can it's like you can be upset about all and you should be upset about all the obvious cultural ramifications and and biases, but like can we Say that you're bad at your job, also? No one wants that. If it not even white dudes, it's bad. And here I'll end my rant here. But like Cameron Esposito, one of my favorite comics, pointed out that that's also bad for the white dudes. And by the way, comedy is hard for everyone, including white dudes. So, like, I, you know, I so I so I, you know, I have you know sympathy and empathy for them too. I mean, I don't want to make it harder for them either, you know. Um, and if you have a lineup of all white dudes or mostly white dudes, well then they're not differentiated from each other either, right? The crowds, you know, you you leave with your husband and you're gonna say, like, uh, I like that white dude. What was his name? And and your husband's gonna go, Jason, no Kevin. Like, they're they don't, you know, even if they're good, unless they're outstanding, they're not gonna, you know, if five minutes later, you're not gonna remember who is who. Does that serve them? It does not.

Mary 22:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

So the whole thing is like, can we we are still letting, and this is in every industry, still letting biases make us do our jobs badly and make uh make our industry perform more poorly.

Mary 23:04

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think they people don't even realize. I mean, I think for as many people as might have looked at that postcard and been like cringy, like the other people would be like, huh, you know, like that's so funny, including women. So I shared with you before I hit record that when I, especially when I was younger, I didn't know why I would avoid going to see women doing stand-up. And I realized later that I was worried for them. Like when a woman steps out and you see her step out, and you know, she's gonna be saying or doing the things that we are all either explicitly or implied through our lives, told not to do or be, it's like, what's gonna happen? And I think that discomfort for that other woman discouraged me unconsciously from sometimes going to a show.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Yeah, 100%. I think that is so interesting. And like I've had these varieties of these conversations a million times, and I'm always I'm happy to do it every time. But but that particular take is so interesting to me because there's two things, there's a bunch of things going on. One of them is you sensed from the other side of the stage something that is very true, which is when you're the only woman on a lineup, uh, every dude on the lineup has six, seven minutes to prove that he's funny. You, the woman, have six, seven minutes to prove that women are funny.

unknown 24:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

That's just that's what it seems. And I remember um Judy Gold, one of my another favorite comic, you know, said that you know, she used to call, um, call up clubs and be like, okay, here are my availabilities. And they'd be like, Yeah, we had a woman on a couple of weeks ago and she didn't do well, so we're not really just hiring women anymore. You know, which also like, uh here's my lawyer, that's explicitly illegal. But but setting that aside, um, the other thing is that um I've had so many people say to me, I listen, I love Amy, what's her name? But and not being able to distinguish among all the Amis and being able to think of only one woman comic. Um, but I just don't like it when women are vulgar, they'll say to me. Like, do you think what do you think? Do you think that's okay? And I I can answer that question separately, but what they're responding to is what you're talking about also, is that people are judging women comics as women, not as comics.

Mary 25:45

Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

And that's what we have to get past. And by the way, I yeah, we need enough comics, enough women comics, and enough everyone comics in the world that nobody cares if does anyone ever tell say, you know, I just I do I've seen a lot of uh men's comedy, and I just don't like it when men are vulgar. Said no one ever. Yeah, like no one's it's just not so that's what I'm like. I don't I have my own. I never even answered the question. I'm like, I don't have an opinion. I will just tell you that no one ever asks that about a dude.

Mary 26:19

Correct. Yeah. And so it's always fascinating that we're still needing to apply these different con conflicting, you know, measurements or whatever. But so do you remember a time or times when you had to push through, I don't know if fear is too strong of a word, reluctance to go to a place with your comedy that you knew was going to be unpopular with certain people?

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Um, I'm not sure it was fear or something I had to push through, but I actually wound up making this into the comedy. But when I was um when I was in my, I guess, early 30s, I I did do stuff about being single. And I knew, and I did it anyway, um, but I knew that because I was being judged as a woman, not as a comic, which I knew, um, I knew that I would be judged for talking about dating. Because as if men don't talk about relationships in their give me a break. And I knew that I'd be judged for you know talking about being single because and then I wound up, then I as I got more sophisticated, um, you know, again, because it's seen as like a light topic and women are women love, women are boy crazy, and whatever it is, right? But then I was like, wait a minute, this isn't the joke. The joke is, and I don't mean one joke, I mean like, you know, the the the funny concept here that I wound up digging into is women are like I can talk about being single and wanting to get married, in which case I'm desperate and you know, a gold digger, whatever it is, or baby crazy, whatever the words were at the time. Or I can talk about not really caring, in which case I'm weird and prudish and a lesbian or whatever, you know. Um, so I so I started doing the jokes about that, about you can't, you know, that women absolutely, you know, can't have it either way.

Mary 28:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

So, but I remember doing that, being like, but but but I but I pushed through it because you know, it wasn't that hard to push push through it because you know it's just jokes and you just keep doing them. But um, but you the reason I did it anyway was that you have to just do what's talk about stuff that's true for you and talk about stuff that stirs up emotions for you. Otherwise, it otherwise it's just your comedy is not authentic or deep or funny or just or or like that's what's gonna make it relatable. And because if it's not funny and emotional for you, it's not gonna be funny and emotional, emotionally, like have any emotional impact for them. So it's like the hell with them. I'm gonna talk about what I want to talk about.

Joking About Trauma With Care

Mary 29:04

Yeah, and speaking of emotions, so I'm curious about something because I think about this. I'm a therapist, so I think about this topic when we go to a space where we're talking about something that could be traumatic. And so let me sort of put a little umbrella over this. My guests or my clients that I found to be most resilient use humor to get through something difficult. And I think, especially now, which is weird to me, we are so much more like the whole trigger warning thing. And again, I'm a therapist, so I understand, but we would start to give trigger warnings. And to me, that's like that's not if you can't hear a topic without needing to leave the room, then you need to do some work. And so when I think about using humor, using comedy, and addressing certain topics that are really sort of deep or traumatic, we can sometimes think, oh, someone's insensitive or that's not okay. And so, how do you navigate that? I don't know if you've ever gone there, but what are what are your thoughts on that? How do you sort of marry those two that can seem so separate or should be kept separate? And I believe they don't need to be.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

I 100% agree. They do not need to be. If if it's not your jam to sort of apply or explore the intersection of humor and something difficult, you know, you don't that we're not demanding that you force it, and we're not saying that anything's wrong with you. However, um, it is a uh I would like to fully agree with you and say that humor can be an extremely, and you're the therapist, I'm the comic, but um can be an extremely salutary lens to um with which to view something very terrible, or at least something that's not funny, let's put it that way. Maybe not when you're not ready.

Mary 30:56

Exactly. Thank you for saying that, because that's very true, yes.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

Right. Um and many people have wildly different versions of what too soon means. I mean, I you know, I remember uh don't worry, this is okay, trigger warning, my dad died. Um but this is not this is not grotesque. It's just that he literally, I'm sitting there with my husband, you know, waiting for the um the funeral hump to come, and they come. And um the what one of the guys, and I'm I'm like despondent, you know. I'm an only child, he's my only dad, you know, the the obvious things. And um it was not unexpected, so not tragic, but anyway, just to set the scene, and which by the way, I said that remind me to come back to that, why I said it was not tragic, because that's my second point that I was gonna make. I'm despondent, and um the funeral home folks come, and one of them is wearing like well, he he's wearing like a a sort of a three-piece suit situation and has sort of longish hair and very sort of old-fashioned shoes, and he was very like he sort of he almost like knelt. Oh yeah, I was sitting on a bench and he knelt in front of me and said, I'm so sorry for your loss. And I was like, Well, and and I had to wait for a minute because we were in his vicinity for a while, and then he went down the hall to do something, and I'm bawling, and I say to my husband, I think he's a vampire. Um, because he looked just like Brad Pitt in interview with a vampire, like that whole Victorian thing. And, you know, and we just and we were like laughing and crying at the same time because he was like, He's totally a vampire, you know, like it's night, you know. Um, and so like too soon, my dad had died literally less than an hour ago. You know, but for uh, my too soon and my husband's too soon is almost non-existent, you know, but that's just us for someone else that would not fly. Yeah. And um, even when my my friend Amy's dad just died, and we also know that I also know that she has no too soon, and she knows that I have no too soon. So we were joking about dad's dying within five minutes because that was our comfort. And okay, so two more things, really quick. Again, you're the therapist, I'm the comic, but what I understand about sort of where the two frameworks come together is that when you are able to look at something traumatic or not funny through a humorous lens, it means almost by definition that you're able to kind of hold it at arm's length and you're able to kind of mull it over and find the like a die from Dungeons and Dragons and find the find the side of it that's funny.

Mary 33:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

And therefore, it's not kind of in you, it's over here and you're looking at it. And so you have power, it's is it are you done with it? No. Is it still gonna hurt you? Probably. But is it but do you have some sense of power over it? That's number one. Number two, it's really important, and people know this intuitively when they're skilled at this, um, to be to think about what it is that you're making fun of. So, for example, you know, I came up, I was doing stand-up, not like I it was my stand-up era when uh on September 11th. You know, that was during my stand-up era. Um I know a lot of comics who talk about sexual assault trigger warning. In both of those cases, are the skilled comics making fun of the victims? It no, it would never occur to us. It wouldn't even, like, it's not even in the realm, it's not even near the table. What you make fun of are, you know, as The Onion did so skillfully back then, is America's not knowing how to react. That is fair game. Um or like, you know, the doofus president react, whatever it is, you know, like the people in power, the people's, the, the, the sort of collective experience. Absolutely. In the case of sexual assault, can you make fun of rape culture? Oh boy, yes, you can. Oh, he's but he's captain of the swim team. He couldn't possibly, you know, like all that stuff. Totally fair game. Um, so that's the second thing, being careful of what you're making fun of. The third thing is what I was saying about what I instinctively did when I said it might it wasn't tragic when my dad died. And that is the other thing the comic must do, and you you alluded to this a little bit, is make sure to either implicitly or even explicitly tell the audience that you're okay and it's okay to laugh. Because otherwise they're like, what, you know, and um, and like some of them literally say, just like without even trying to be funny or anything, they'll just stop and say, I'm fine, you can laugh, don't worry. Anyway, moving on, you know, just say it, and then the audience goes, um, and then can participate and um and find the you know the the places of connection and relatability and just and then continue to laugh.

Mary 35:41

Yeah, and we you use the word power again in sort of a little diff different way, and that's what I think is important that when you have unprocessed trauma, that carries the power. And when you can get to a point where, and we talk about it where you can it now becomes just a narrative, it's not imbued with the emotion, and you sort of talk about like you can hold it out there and look at it and talk about it in a different way. You now have taken the power because now you're creating the narrative around that. And I think sometimes we can think, well, it's disrespectful to your experience or someone else's experience. And really, what it is is powerful because you're saying, I've worked, I've worked on this, and it's I don't know if we're ever always done, you know, with with trauma, but I've gotten to the point where I now have the power over this story, and I'm going to use it to create humor for myself and share that with other people, which is that is that is such a place of power.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Yeah, yeah. And um and you know, you also made me think of sort of the opposite and the sort of the minefields of not the minefield, but the the the unwelcome side of this, which is, you know, all these dude, comedians who are like, well, I'm just trying to provoke, you know, uh, I'm just trying to, you know, I'm just trying to push the limits. I'm just trying to uh, you know, and I'm like, and Judy Gold, again, she's not the only one, but what she says to them and or about them in those cases is like the tougher a subject is, the funnier your joke has to be. You know, like it can't be you can't just trying to provoke, I don't know how hard you work on that joke. You know, maybe it's not that funny, bro. You know, number one. And related to that, number two, um, it's also about your intention. You know, I'm just trying to provoke. Well, you're gonna provoke then, and you might provoke people into not liking you, and that's fine, but that's a consequence, it's a natural consequence. Live with it. Um, if your intention is to illuminate, you know, maybe tiptoe into our risky topic to illuminate, to find connection, to um to challenge assumptions, yeah, you know, then go for it. It still has to be funny. Um, it's not easy, but by all means.

Mentors Who Made Women Visible

Mary 37:55

So I'm curious about who are your mentors? Who have you looked to to be like, oh, I love this person? And I'm not saying it will all have to be women, but who who have your mentors been or that you really have been inspired by?

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Judy Gold, um, who I was just talking about. And I told her, um, I didn't name gold comedy after you, but I didn't not name gold comedy after you. So um, she certainly leaps to mind. Um Judy, um I have so many. I'm just trying to think. I mean, I um just people I fangirl for a bunch of reasons, um, include Cameron Esposito, who I mentioned, um, Bob the Drag Queen is one of my favorite stand-ups working today, also a fantastic drag queen, but also just does stand-up um and is so, such a skilled writer. And he he I thought of him just in a second, not just because I love him, but he did a show. The last time I saw him, the second to last time I saw him was when he opened for Madonna bragging, but um he's the one bragging. Um but the second to last time I no, the last time I saw him was with two other comics, two other terrific comics, he did a show called The Dead Mom's Club. And the subtitle was It'll Be Funny, We Promise. He the three of them talked about their wildly different experiences of losing their moms, and it was side splitting. Um, and they did all the things that we just talked about. You know, um, and he's just uh I love him. Um, Bob the Drag Queen, Judy Gold, obviously, I mean, then let's go to some more obvious ones, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball, and Lily Tomlin also. In contrast to, you know, that moment on the ski trip when I knew that women wouldn't be received the same way. I was raised with those women on the TV all the time and all the shows, like all those great sit colleagues at Jefferson's and all those great shows with super strong, hilarious women. No one ever talked to me, at least to me, about them as women comics. Now, I'm sure they face, I know they faced spectacular uh sexism in the industry. But in my experience of them, you know, my parents were like, let's watch the women comics show, you know, tonight. We just watched Laughing and the Muppet Show and I Love Lucy and Carol Burnett and all of those other variety shows and uh MASH, you know, with all these hilarious women, and that they were just funny. They were just funny people. I want to go back to those days, or I want to bring those days forward.

Mary 40:29

Yeah, and one of the things about Lucille Ball was her physical comedy was so not what a woman was is supposed to do with her body, which is hilarious. She she pulled it off so beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Yep, so true. Yeah so true. Yeah, oh my god, the slapstick on that show is unbelievable. The stomping the grapes, the chocolate conveyor belts. Yeah, it doesn't, it just doesn't get better than that.

Mary 40:50

Yeah. Well, before we end, Lynn, you have you do so much other work. Can you just mention a little bit about what has been important to you? I mean, in addition to the comedy through your career.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

I think the engine of everything, and we've we've touched on this a little bit, the engine of everything is really the power of comedy. Uh again, not just to delight and entertain, which is good enough, you know, but to really to the the the honestly, the the combo of, you know, comedy and the powerful combo of comedy and pop culture and social change. And how, you know, what a big I'm I'm you know, I'm dating myself here, but what a big deal it was when Ellen came out on her sitcom, you know, and all these characters on shows who little by little have chipped away at old norms and and formed new ones and changed our idea of who gets to talk, you know, and changed our idea of who makes us laugh. And um that to me, whether I've done it, you know, as used use humor, you know, as a journalist to convey complexities in challenging issues, or illuminate those complexities and challenging issues, or whether I, you know, co-created a um with my genius creative partner, Chris Kobb, um, a superhero named Breakup Girl who helped all people with romantic emergencies, and we're working on a on a reboot right now. We realized this wasn't why we went into it, but we realized that our intention had been the whole the whole time to change, help change the way or transform and move forward the way people talk about relationships, to get past the you know, reductive, you know, men are from Mars, women are from Venus. You know, so all those, that's what's driven me this whole time. And I I it's not my wasn't my idea. You know, people have forged, you know, had had sort of developed this field, you know, before I did, and the strategies and the tactics and the the academic parts of it and the the um the real heft of field is sort of a tame word for it, a really uh uh a a whole body of work that's really powerful. But I'm that's what's being part of it has really been what's drive what's driven me. It's as I like to say, it's what um you know keeps me up at night because watching TV and gets me out of bed.

Mary 43:03

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just love all the things that you do because it really sums up what I want this show to be is just women who find a way to take up their space and in doing that really help other women find ways to take up their space and have conversations and acknowledge things. And I always get an insight. And I think I would challenge anyone listening when you feel discomfort, like I felt the discomfort, sit with it and like go to a comedy show which might push an envelope for you, because I think that is the way we expand, not our not only our world, but then we take that into the next interaction and we can expand something for somebody else. So thank you so much for being here and talking with me.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

My pleasure. Thank you for having

What Resonated And Final Words

SPEAKER_01 43:49

me.

Mary 43:49

And I want to thank everyone for listening. I would love to hear what resonated with you from this episode. You can click the link in the show notes to text me, and I may even read your comments on a future episode. And until next time, go out into the world and be the amazing, resilient, vibrant violet that you are.