Michelle Wolf Is Not Funny Never Liked Her Segments on the Daily Show
In hindsight, the controversy over Michelle Wolf's White House Correspondents' Dinner monologue seems almost quaint. The jokes that some found most offensive included the comic expressing the desire that Kellyanne Conway might find herself trapped beneath a tree—not hurt, "just stuck," she pointed out—and praising then press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for "burn[ing] facts" and "us[ing] that ash to create a perfect smokey eye," which Wolf's critics took as jeer about Sanders' appearance. In the year and a half or so since that performance, we've endured the indignities of an administration helmed by someone who was once again accused of sexual assault, and who's lately made a habit of bullying a teenager with autism. And the eyeshadow joke seems even less worthy of outrage in the wake of the Mueller report's revelation that Sanders admitted lying to journalists.
The furor may have permanently reshaped the Correspondents' Dinner, which this year followed decades of entertainer speakers with historian Ron Chernow. Still, both it and President Trump are afforded little mention in Wolf's new Netflix comedy special, Joke Show. But that doesn't mean the former Daily Show writer and The Break host sticks to subjects safer than national politics. She kicks off the special with a discussion of the fact that otters rape baby seals, and over the course of her set, it pinwheels from the profane to the profound. Skidmarks get a shout-out, but she also speaks frankly and funnily about her decision to have an abortion.
In one bit about the women's rights movement of the 1960s, Wolf says that "white women were like, 'We want jobs!' And then black women were like, we have those! In your house, we're working for you right now. Your son calls me 'mom' often!" It's funny and biting analysis of the challenges of intersectional feminism. In another moment, she describes imagining what it would be like to be the victim of a man who kidnaps women and keeps them chained in his basement—she'd make it through the ordeal, she jokes, by winning his trust enough to be promoted to the coveted status of "upstairs lady." It's a grimly accurate description of the sort of mental games women can play out to cope with the threat of violent crime. We talked to Wolf about upstairs ladies, comedy, and that infamous White House Correspondents' Dinner.
This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
I loved the "upstairs lady" bit. Are you a true crime fan?
I actually don't watch too much true crime, but I love a crime drama.
Have you watched any good ones recently?
I'm a big British crime drama fan. I love Broadchurch and Happy Valley.
The bit in Joke Show about 1960s white feminists wanting jobs and black women already having them was also great—I hadn't seen that discussed in a funny way before. What inspired that?
I listen to a lot of discussions about feminism. As we often do, we leave black women out of the discussion. And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, "Right, these women have been at the forefront of it the whole time." It always feels like we're catching up to them, we're always one step behind. I kind of wanted to make fun of white women for being like, "We're doing it, we're doing great, we're really stepping ahead," when I'm like, "No, we're really is a step behind."
After the correspondents' dinner, did you ever think of leaning into an anti-Trump comic brand?
No. That sounds so boring. If you look at the correspondents' dinner, I made fun of everybody. I did not say anyone was good—I made fun of Democrats, made fun of Republicans, I made fun of Trump, I made fun of the news. Everyone deserves to be made fun of. Jumping on the anti-Trump thing is boring to me. There's no good comedy in that.
How does it feel to know that the dinner may never be the same?
The dinner itself, I think it got to a place where it was disgusting. It was gross. When I was there, Jeff Zucker [the president of] CNN saw Kellyanne Conway from across the room. And he was like, "Kellyanne!" and she came over and gave him a big hug. And I was like, "Oh, gross." CNN pretends like they hate Kellyanne. Kellyanne pretends she hates CNN. But in real life, they love each other because they're both making so much money and as soon as I saw that, I was like,"They deserve every single thing I'm about to say because it's disgusting." They are profiting so much off of this turmoil, and in person, amongst one another, they love it.
Did you see that moment in the impeachment hearings with the law professor who caused a controversy with her Baron Trump quip?
No, I didn't.
This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
She was talking about presidential powers, and said the president can name his son Barron, but he can't make him a baron. And it reminded me of your smokey eye joke because people were like, "How dare you make fun of this child," when it wasn't making fun of the child. It felt like similar situation where there was level of bad faith required to interpret it as something that crossed the line. What is like to try to be funny in that kind of atmosphere?
Honestly, I don't pay attention to so much of it. People love getting mad, they love scolding other people. And it's one of the reasons I just do it on stage. I don't do it on Instagram or Twitter. If you want to come see me, come see me. I'll tell you jokes there.
You should never take what a comedian says seriously. In the back of your head, it should always be, "Oh, she's kidding." I find that people think they're jokes until you talk about the one subject that affects them personally. Then all of a sudden they're like, "Hey, how dare you say that." And it's like, "Wait wait wait. The whole rest of the time you thought it was funny, until the one thing that affects you personally."
I see it all the time. There's a bit where I talked about small dicks. One guy was like, "That really affected me." And I was like, "Well, did the rest of it affect you? Did you take the rest of what I said, seriously? Do you really think I want to be kidnapped and become an upstairs lady? Did you really think that was a serious thing, too? No. You thought it was all jokes until the one thing that affected you personally."
That proves you wrong, right? You said in the special that men wouldn't come at you over that material because they would be afraid of implying they have a small dick.
Well, he claimed it was his friend.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
Source: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a30268893/michelle-wolf-joke-show-netflix-interview/
0 Response to "Michelle Wolf Is Not Funny Never Liked Her Segments on the Daily Show"
Post a Comment