Am I the only person disturbed about Melena Ryzik’s chat with Lisa Leingang (senior vice president at Comedy Central) in last Sunday’s New York Times??? “Certainly we’re not trying to not put women on the air. I feel like, female comics — and I don’t have anybody in mind when I say this — a lot of female comics feel the need to, instead of being themselves, play the female card in their act, and then they are thought of as a female comedy version of a regular performer. When you cast yourself into that role, it goes into the stereotype category, and then it becomes like, we’ve seen that before. So it becomes a vicious circle.” Please tell me I’m wrong because when I read this, I see: Male comics can riff about being guys because that’s “regular,” but if female comics riff about being women, that’s niche… Say what?!? You can’t “be yourself” if you bring your gender into your act?!? Somebody save me: My mind is in meltdown L
