Modified On January 15, 2009
Here’s a piece of a letter to the editor of the Lehigh Valley (PA) Express-Times that ran in today’s edition, from comedian Alex House:
After witnessing the performance by the five top comedians, I hope those who attended got a little dose of reality when they realized that the winner of this last season, Iliza Shlesinger, was not in fact the funniest or strongest comedian of the show.
It gets better.
The Female Half got an email from a fellow comic who saw the LCS road show in another venue. He said that, he hoped she wouldn’t take this the wrong way, but he didn’t think Shlesinger was funny.
It’s that preface– “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way…”– that is a pre-emptive strike, a warning that the recipient shouldn’t be offended by what’s to follow. He’s making it clear that he’s not going to judge all female comedians by the performance of one. And in so doing, he’s allowing for the possibility that The Female Half will think he might be capable of doing so.
Of course, the Female Half takes no such umbrage.
But it’s safe to say that had one of our readers written to the Male Half to say that he found the performance of Jeff Dye or Jim Tavare to be subpar, he wouldn’t have dreamed of prefacing his remarks with, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way…”
White male comics do not face the same prejudices as female comics or minority comics (of either gender). Female (and minority) comics are conditioned to expect such prejudices. People who address female and minority comics with critiques are conditioned to preface their comments with various disclaimers. We’re all conditioned, it seems.
When we saw Shlesinger win, we feared that she would not be ready. We had no doubt that, with time and hard work, she’d represent the show (and comedians in general and, if you insist, female comedians specifically) ably. However, it is very difficult to headline a show following four or five other comedians who have far more performing experience under their belts. It seems our worst fears have been realized.
Turns out that the show has done a disservice to Shlesinger, to all comics and perhaps to female comics. Should any of us be surprised?
On August 8, 2008, we wrote:
But getting back to McHale’s Standup Soup presentation– he quite vividly demonstrated the show’s inexplicable lack of a sense of humor. And when he showed the montage of Shlesinger clad variously in her underwear and a bikini, he threw another shovel of dirt on the show’s credibility.
Indeed, after seeing that montage, Shlesinger herself should be embarassed. Regardless of whether or not she won, she will, for the foreseeable future, mount the stage with the knowledge that a significant number of her votes were motivated not by a genuine fondness for her humor but by a momentary and primal lust for her body parts.
You do what you gotta to win. But, for those folks who are prone to extrapolate and try to determine the larger socio-cultural implications of Shlesinger’s victory (Bellamy himself was quick to bellow about her being the show’s first female winner), it’s a sorry moment.
Sure, she showed a certain minimal level of “toughness” in fending off the challenges (if you want to call it that), but we will always wonder (as will the general public) what the outcome would have been had she not colluded with the show’s producers to engineer the cheesecake clips in the house segment of the show.