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Tag : comedy
January 26, 2021 by Sarah M. Seltzer
A Comedian’s Memoir that Delivers the Laughs
I recently decided to take a break from my fourth rewatch of Rachel Bloom’s CW musical dramedy Crazy Ex Girlfriend to read her new memoir, I Want to be Where the Normal People Are. Boy am I glad I did. Mark Twain famously said, “Comedy is tragedy plus time.” For Bloom, comedy is tragedy plus time-travel plus an original musical that crams the narrative arc of
your life into ten pages.
The book includes interactive sections like “Pull Down Your Pants and Let’s Compare Traumas” as well as Harry Potter fan fiction and excerpts of erotic poetry from her childhood journal. A personal favorite of mine was her middle school op-ed entitled “Inside Jokes Can Leave Many Outside,” which details the potentially detrimental effects of “this unavoidable part of our teen culture.”
In addition to being hilarious, Bloom is frank and insightful when reflecting on her adolescence, toxic relationships, and mental health. She describes her OCD in a way that was both fiercely resonant and fiercely funny. Though Bloom talks about feeling less alone when Crazy Ex Girlfriend fans sing along to her more vulnerable lyrics from the show, I was the one who felt less alone when reading this book. I recognized myself in the angst of her journal excerpts, and the deliciously earnest op-ed recalls many a self-righteous internal monologue of my own.
Bloom’s honesty is key to her comedy. She pulls no punches and spares the reader no details, from her adolescent masturbation habits to pictures of the imprints the shapewear she wore to different award shows left on her skin. In addition to being laugh-out-loud funny, these reflections add a radical feminist twist to the comic memoir genre. There’s also something inexplicably Jewish about the way Bloom shares her bathroom habits and her disdain for Spanx.
Of course, Bloom needed no help writing this book. Her comedic writing skills are on display throughout her series and musical sketches. But Bloom’s book does have ghost writers of sorts— the earlier versions of herself. Through journal excerpts, old poems, and op-eds, she shows readers the different young Rachels who taught each other to build the comedy mastermind that we currently know and love.
Abigail Fisher is a sophomore at Wesleyan University and a Lilith intern.
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January 6, 2021 by Rachel Fadem
Every Safe Space Has a Door: An Interview with Comedian Judy Gold
Comedian and author Judy Gold has a joke about her son that sometimes makes people mad.
My son Henry years ago was like, ‘I’m getting a tattoo.’
And I’m like, ‘no, you’re not.’
He said, ‘yes, I am.’
I said, ‘no, you’re not.’
And then, and I said, ‘all right, what are you going to get?’
And he said, ‘I think I want to get something that says I’m from New York. I’m thinking of getting our zip code tattooed on my arm.’
And I said, ‘Henry, you’re a Jew. You’re not getting numbers tattooed on your arm.’
“People really laugh because it’s funny,” Gold tells Lilith. “And then some people will be like, ‘I was uncomfortable with that.’”
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July 27, 2020 by admin
Comedy? You Bet!
LAURA BEATRIX NEWMARK is the Director of LABA at the 14th Street Y. Her work at the intersection of the arts, media, activism, community building and Jewish programming spans two decades.
At the 14th street Y’s LABA program, where artists study Jewish texts together and nurture their own work, we were supposed to do five nights of performances this spring—and we couldn’t. But we did put together a show—“Jewnight Show Pandemic Passover.” It was terrifying to do all this virtually.
It turns out we were ahead of the curve, as everything went virtual. Yet human beings need to be around people. It’s a nice interlude to provide theater virtually, but it’s hard not to connect in person.
In the meantime, to cope, I’ve been consuming comedy. We need it. From the beginning, the funny videos people post, the angst, the parodies are the only thing giving me comfort. The viral video of an Israeli mom complaining about having to homeschool (“Now, our children will find out how dumb we are. It’s not right!”) is a perfect example: comedy that gives us a release.
I had actually picked humor as the theme for LABA this year—we had a long discussion about how in Jewish humor there’s this balance between observant and profane, between intimacy and shared trauma; it’s all rooted in struggle. I think we are going to see interesting humor emerge. And just making people laugh is important.
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July 27, 2020 by admin
“Not That Jewish” •
At a Los Angeles kitchen table in 2007 three women hatched a plan to welcome and encourage contemporary stories by Jewish women and to adapt them theatrically, giving them life in front of a live audience. Harking back to the age-old idea of women hosting culture of the day in their homes, sparing the expense of a theater, sets, costumes, and props, Jewish Women’s Theatre focuses on presenting powerful stories in unexpected and convenient venues. Presentations include stories, poems, comedic monologues, songs, and art. Now, in its 12th season, JWT seeks stories celebrating a diverse Jewish population, regardless of gender, generation, degree of Jewish observance, ethnicity, cultural background, or sexual orientation, drawing on audiences of all ages, both women and men, mostly Jewish, but not all. Some notable shows are: “Saffron & Rosewater”—about the Persian Jewish immigrant; “Stories from The Fringe”—trailblazing stories of women rabbis; “Eden According to Eve”—bible stories from a female perspective set in contemporary times; “Chutzpah & Salsa—the Latino Jewish experience, and more. You can enjoy several brief clips of comedy writer Monica Piper’s commissioned one-woman show, “Not That Jewish” here: jewishwomenstheatre.org/notthatjewish.
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January 15, 2020 by admin
Laughter As Medicine for Resistance
I had my first real MS flare following the 2016 election, 10 years after my diagnosis. Once I had recovered, I realized that I would need a way to cope with a changed landscape: the news, the politics, the tension.
And for me, they only way to manage the scary reality of a Trump presidency was through comedy. The importance of living in a country that could jeer at the President without being offed or poisoned—mixed with the sheer release of laughing—provided a certain catharsis needed to process a way forward. I also appreciated the importance of comedians tearing apart the Trump Administration’s lies, policies and hypocrisy and making a huge mockery of the people in power.
I knew this particular President was watching—and it would irk him.
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