Remember when comedy meant males doing jokes about females, likewise, mothers-in-law? Well, the tables have turned. The idea that chicks aren't funny, I hate to tell you, it's still very much a thing. There are some people that can't get their heads around what they don't know. I said I wanted to be a comedian. She said, "Oh, maybe it's better if you just die." I think they thought of women as a different species. Very few ladies are capable of being a comedian, and so everybody sits right up. "Oh, here's somebody that thinks she can do it." This is a great argument that women are doing much better work than men. You're welcome. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Able 2018 What's the hardest part... about being a female comedian? What is it? What's the hardest part? Like, what would you guess? Um... - Well, it's the rape. - LAUGHTER Um... I have a deep camaraderie with tough, hardcore, funny-ass female comedians, because it's been a long road for all of us. What would make a woman turn from some decent thing, like house-wifing or cashiering in a five and dime store, or dental hygiene, and turn her to comedy as a career? It's definitely easier for us now, cos we pushed our way in. But back then, there was one of them, two of them. SHE LAUGHS People try to analyse it. Are women not funny? It's like, "No, they're oppressed, you dumb idiot!" I really stopped a great career there. Oh, and I'd do it again. I'd much rather be your wife than amount to anything. LAUGHTER Of course there have always been funny women. It's just a matter of whether the society that they were in was willing to let them be funny. We have with us this evening an international star, Ms Fanny Price. APPLAUSE It wasn't until the late 1800s and the early 20th century that women started becoming really famous as comedic performers. A lot of them were comediennes ` a woman who gets up on stage, is funny, but she sings and she dances. Hey, wait a minute! The music stopped. Well, I didn't hear it! Oh, she didn't hear it! She's more of a entertainer than just the straight comic. That was kind of what was allowed. It was not really accepted for a woman to stand on stage and tell jokes and give their opinion to a bunch of men, until Jean Carroll. Most fellas, they have a tough day at the race track, they get nasty. But not my Jack. He's so sweet. Nothing bothers him. He drinks. - And of course... - LAUGHTER Well, he doesn't drink like he likes it. He drinks to steady his nerves. The other night they got so steady, he couldn't move at all. Jean Carroll was in a comedy team with a guy named Buddy Howe, who she ended up marrying. And then, Buddy Howe went off to war. So, Jean Carroll rewrote their act so that she could do it by herself, and became a solo stand up. This guy ate like he was going to the chair. I mean, as for manners, you know, - I've seen people eat with their hands before, but not soup. - LAUGHTER She got rave reviews. She was playing the same venues as all the biggest comedians of the late 1940s, and getting bigger laughs than the guys. APPLAUSE Welcome to You Bet Your Life. Say the secret word and divide an extra hundred dollars. It's a common word, something you always have with you. Phyllis Diller, I'll start with you. Now, Phyllis, what do you do to break up the monotony of housekeeping and taking care of five small gorillas? Well, I'm really not a housewife any more. I'm an entertainer. Phyllis Diller started comedy at 37 years old with five kids. She was cutting edge because she was doing something that no other woman had done before. I love to go to the doctor! Ooh! Where else would a man look at me and say, "Take off your clothes"? LAUGHTER In those days, so much of comedy was just straight up sexist. "My wife is a battle-axe." Phyllis Diller switched it around. Now, it was about her horrible husband. Fang ` that's my husband ` he went to the dentist the other day. The dentist told him he's got the worst set of tooth he ever saw in his life. For a woman to go on stage and complain about that, it was emancipation, in a way. You're sure you're a marriage counsellor? Of course. Don't I have a sympathetic face? Well, your face has my sympathy. The self-deprecating woman was very popular in the comedy world. Back from the beauty shop, where she's just had her head tarred and feathered, here is Ms Phyllis Diller! APPLAUSE I think when it came to women doing comedy, certainly stand up, you had to dress in a way that was crazy. You had to work within the confines of what guys would accept you doing. What in the world? LAUGHTER Is that all right? I tucked that in in the dressing room and it fell out, OK? You're basically saying, "I'm coming up on stage," "don't look at me as a woman, look at me as like a funny person." Just looking at the two outfits here, Moms' and Woody's... Oh, I would like to wear Moms'. And I'd like to wear yours. LAUGHTER Moms Mabley, who was a great comedian of the '30s and '40s, '50s, didn't become known by white audiences until the '60s, when there were more black faces on TV. I've been accused of liking young men... ..and I'm guilty. LAUGHTER She was very sexual, and she was also very blunt and raunchy. Moms Mabley, as an old woman, was not considered a threat, so she could get away with it. When did you get married then, Moms? I was young, son. LAUGHTER And I married a man, 98. He didn't live but five days. LAUGHTER It took three undertakers a week to get the smile off his face. LAUGHTER She was more than just, you know, another woman in comedy. She was much more of a pioneer. It's very hard for a woman who has been brought up to be... sweet and clingy to stand up in front of 2,500 people and say, "OK, now listen to me." It's a tremendous... You know, a really tremendous sense of power when you're standing up and commanding them to listen to you. I wouldn't be single again for anything in the world cos... I-I was the last girl in Larchmont, New York to go, and I-I was desperate. I was desperate! My parents had a big sign saying "Last girl before the thruway". I mean, that's how desperate I was! Joan was the real deal. She's like a bad ass. She grew up in the gritty New York City scene, and she was breaking ground by just talking about her life honestly. This is an era where women just didn't do that. A girl, you're 30 years old, you're not married, you're an old maid. A man, he's 90 years old, he's not married, he's a catch. It's a whole different thing! She would push the boundaries constantly. The edict was, if it's making people laugh, then it's OK. I think you can tell what kind of a lover a man is going to be with the way he tinkles. If a man, in a room that is fully lit, cannot hit a hole this big around... LAUGHTER I'm going to ponder on that one. LAUGHTER For some people who say that some of the things that you do or say are vulgar, does that...? Life is vulgar. Life is outrageous. I find what's made my comedy work as much as it's worked is I say things that everybody else has thought and not really verbalised. When you die, whatever you got out of him, you have buried on you. If the next bitch wants it, make her dig for it. Oh, sure! Joan Rivers was, at no point in her career, not funny, because she changed with the times. I mean, she was an evolving, writing-every-day, real-life comedian. Don't you think men really like intelligence more, when it comes right down to it? Oh! Please, are we going to go back to that? Are you kidding? Well, sure, a brain, you know... No man has ever put his hand up a woman's dress looking for a library card. I'm sorry! LAUGHTER I don't think this is such a hot show. I think I'll get another station. As our first offering this evening, we... Stop that now, go back and sit down! When I was growing up, I was an I Love Lucy freak. I could lip-sync it. I love that I can turn on something that is over 60 years old now, and go, "You can't beat these jokes, you can't beat these characters". # I took the... ALL JOIN IN This is a woman in a time where comedy was completely dominated by men. Not only does this show become the comedy show; they then create the modern model for all the sitcoms to follow. She is an absolute titan of comedy. To have a woman be not only a comedian, but a solid businessperson, she broke ground for generations of us. You don't see too many beautiful women be clowns like that, and she was indeed a beautiful woman. You know, she was a movie star at MGM and nobody ever knew she could be funny. Mugging and doing pratfalls and doing things that maybe nice little girls weren't supposed to do at one time. I have never thought of it as a hindrance, as something that we shouldn't do. We just go ahead and do them, we don't think how we look. Is it easy for to be sexy and funny at the same time? Oh, yes, very easy. LAUGHTER It may be easy for you, Carol... Carol Burnett is the single most talented woman, or performer, ever. She could do everything. She started on The Garry Moore Show, and became a big star. Oh, my God! People forget just how much she was a part of the culture at one point in time. I did not think that I would want to ever, could ever, host a variety show. Welcome to our first show that we're doing. I'm really excited and very happy that you're all with us tonight. Looks like we've got a nice, full group. Could you bump up the lights so I can see the...? SHE SHRIEKS Gorgeous! They had an image of a fella in a tuxedo coming out and doing a monologue, and how will a woman...? Will they take a woman doing this? And we said, "Well, I hope they'll take me, at least for 13 weeks". And it worked ` it worked for 11 years. I never thought it would go that long. I knew I wanted to do musical comedy, I wanted guest stars. Excuse me! I wanted to do sketches, I wanted a rep company, the way Sid Caesar had one. Curtain! There were 10 variety shows on at the same time that Carol Burnett was on, and there were approximately ten comedy writers on each show, and I was the only woman out of all of them. The funny things about female writers in television was that in the beginning I would not say they were very welcomed, although there were certainly exceptions. I interviewed for the Carson Show and I called my agent and I said, "I think it went really well." And he said, "I'm sorry, honey, but they just called and they said "they would not feel comfortable with a woman in the room." Being a comedy writer is not the most macho profession so I think there was a certain defensiveness and overcompensation. I liked that inside track of getting to hear how men talk if women weren't around. It was almost like you weren't around. It was filthy. The language was disgusting. I loved it! You'll have such a time, such fun. Oh... I have to warn you, though. There's a street down there in Rome where it isn't safe for a woman. Where? Where? Where? AUDIENCE LAUGHS When you get to Your Show of Shows, you know, that's a very famous writers room and you had two women who worked at separate times. The first was Lucille Callen and the second was Selma Diamond. It was always right to have the woman's viewpoint and who better than women to say, 'Women will laugh at that.' So, when I put together the characters for that Van Dyke show I said, "We need the woman's viewpoint." When I talked to my agent, he immediately said, 'Rose Marie.' It's a beautiful piece of writing, it really is. But you know Alan. If he doesn't get a laugh every ten seconds, he calls the cops and has the audience arrested. Rose Marie on the Dick Van Dyke Show was great for women who might aspire to be in the writers' room because that was the first glimpse we got maybe that was possible. It's not like there were plenty of career women on TV. Women were mainly housewives in the sitcoms or they were secretaries and teachers. They weren't writers. Do you mean to say that you'd give up your job for us? Yeah. Compared to you, I'm a rat. Compared to a rat, you're a rat. My mother didn't want me to be funny, because how was I going to get married and be funny at the same time? But here was Rose Marie ` she was blonde and pretty and funny, and I kind of liked that idea. No, don't bother to send it, Mom. I don't think I'm going to Mexico after all. TELEPHONE RINGS Hang on there, Mom. Newsroom. Hello, Mary. The Mary Tyler Moore Show changed everything. They brought a lot of women into the business. Here we go. Ready? They wanted to make a truthful story about a single woman in her 30s and I think Jim Brooks and Allan Burns realised that if we want to have the right details, we need to ask women what the stories are here. You look different. I like it. Yeah. I like it back here too. AUDIENCE LAUGHS I've got a feeling he's going to kick my tyres. Women are so important in the bigger world of comedy because our experience is different and there's that much more to mine for humour. I don't know what you two are laughing at but I'll take a chance it's dirty. Betty White on Mary Tyler Moore is one of my favourite characters of all time. I mean, what a viper. Wherever did you find a party hat made of skin? 'Sue Ann Nivens was sort of fun to play,' because something that Betty might be shy about doing, she would do in a heartbeat. Tell me one good thing about me, anything at all. You're attractive, very attractive. Sexy? Provocative? A tawny, sensual beast? Yes, a beast. I think it was important to all of us to try to reflect what was happening with women during that time. Things were changing so quickly and we were right in the middle of it. It was an explosive time with situation comedy, and I think many more women started working at that point. Did you find it fun to be the only girl writer around? Some men are secure enough to accept it. A lot of them gave me a lot of trouble and they're running candy stores in Brooklyn. That's true. Insecure people don't get any place. You've got to face it - women are here to stay. Welcome to Long Dust. Can I help you? Yes, I... I read your ad. I'd like to know about the $65 funeral. I see. Was that for yourself? AUDIENCE LAUGHS Mike Nichols and Elaine May met in Chicago at the birth of improv. They didn't write jokes; they wrote situations that were just hysterically funny but that you could relate to. Would you be interested in some extras for the loved ones? What kind of extras? Well... - how about a coffin? - AUDIENCE LAUGHS My life changed the day my parents took me to see Nichols and May on Broadway. Before that, all I saw were comedians talking about how bad their wives were or how bad their mother-in-laws were. Take my wife, please. Then all of a sudden, the sky opened up and there were Nichols and May and I thought to myself, 'Now, that's funny.' Tell me, how do you put your sketches together now? Do you outline them or are they fairly well written out? We don't ever write anything down. We don't ever outline them. It's a terrifying process. What kind of an excuse is that? What do you mean? All the other scientists have mothers, I'm sure. And I'm sure they all find time after breakfast or before their count-off to pick up a phone and call their mother. Elaine May was always the writer of the two. I don't think she's given enough credit for being one of these foundational people of improv. She was smart, she was witty, she was sexy, she was everything female comedians up to that point weren't allowed to be. Well, thank you very much, Jack. That's OK. And that's when I realised it's possible. You have to write to the point where you get respect. Nobody's going to hand it to you as a female. Come on, Lily. Lily Tomlin. What are you going to do? I'm going to do a lady tonight who is an employee of one of America's most beloved institutions. Venetia? Venetia, this is Ernestine. I want you to send out a service check on all the circuits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Well, because, honey, it's almost impossible to get through to that man. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. In the '60s, Laugh-In was one of the hottest programmes on TV. All these famous characters we associate with Lily Tomlin became famous then and turned her into a huge star. And that's the truth. (RASPBERRIES) She was hip. She was not doing material about being a frustrated wife. She was doing character material and it was really new and different and brilliant. Momma said you went to college. Yes, I did. I'm not going to college when I grow up. No? Because I seen pictures where they shoot you in college. Her characters were no longer just innocuous, wacky and weird. They started to become characters with a subtle political point of view. Recently, I did my most eloquent sculpture to date. I used four gallons of vanilla ice cream and I moulded the First Family. And then I invited some of friends over and we sat around and watched them melt. She was a very dominant voice at the time. You can find Rolling Stone covers where it was Richard Prior, Lily Tomlin, and they are most dangerous comedians doing the most dangerous stuff. They both immersed themselves in characters. The very first Lily Tomlin special on NBC in 1974, they both won Emmy Awards. So did its producer, a guy named Lorne Michaels. And based on the strength of that special, the Lily special, he got the pilot for Saturday Night Live. Dear Roseanna. Roseanna Danna. I don't know where you get it, how you get it or who actually milks the dogs, and I don't care. Hi! Saturday Night Live, definitely early on, amazing that right out of the gate, it was Laraine Newman and Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner. Now, Candy, Candy... They could definitely hang with the guys ` they were just as important and they were hilarious. Hey, stud muffins. Wanna make bouncy, bouncy? AUDIENCE LAUGHS They had three female performers and three female writers, which, if you look at the comedy landscape at that time, is unheard of. What made Saturday Night Live different from those other shows was our show was the first one to really have a voice for a younger generation. Then the man... (WHISPERS) Eeeeew! Eurgh! THEY ALL GROAN That's disgusting. And then you scream and then he screams and then it's over. Bleurgh! The early days of SNL were a tale of two worlds, because you had these great female writers like Anne Beats and Marilyn Miller and Rosie Shuster, but then you had... John Belushi didn't want to do sketches that were written by a woman. I like sirloin steak, I like American food. Don't push me, Curtin! I mean it! John used to regularly ask for the women to be fired from the show because chicks just weren't funny. Awful, awful. Awful. Couldn't be worse. Really enough to make you want to puke your guts out. It was an uphill battle. Lorne used to come round to me and Rosie and go like, "What have you got for the girls?" We felt an obligation to cover them since the men didn't write that much for them. SHE CHUCKLES But seriously... They started to write more for Gilda because Gilda was very outgoing, you know. She was more of a proven laugh-getter. Argh! But congratulations! No! When I saw Gilda Radner, my mind was blown. There was just something about her that was really magnetic. She committed to it so hard and she wasn't afraid to not be dainty with her character work. What is that bewitching scent you're wearing? There was never a moment when you thought, 'Wait a second, these women don't deserve to be there.' What do you see? Wax build-up. The stuff they were doing was as edgy as what the guys were doing and a lot of those sketches have withstood the test of time. I love him! I love him! I love him! And wherever he goes I'll swallow, I'll swallow, I'll swallow... TV COMMENTARY: It is possible, but just barely, that one of the people waiting in line outside this New York nightclub is a future star. It is certain that each one thinks he or she is star material, talented and just waiting for the right break. In the '70s when the stand up comedy boom is starting, women definitely had a tougher time. Only very few, like Elayne Boosler, managed to crack the stand-up comedy clubs. Do you know that people have donor cards on their driver's licences? That if they have an accident they will leave parts of their body to someone? Who'd want to receive the eyes that didn't see the car in the first place? Elayne Boosler was a game changer, because before her there hadn't been a young, single, female comic who went out on stage with no apologies for who she was and just told it like it is. I guess maybe breasts are the most important part of the body when you think about it. I mean, without them, employers just wouldn't know who to give the smaller pay cheques to. I came along in '73 and started to reflect the times I lived in. Women were starting to work, the Pill was here, single women were starting to have sex. You weren't labelled any more. They think we're dumb, so they put too many directions on the products. On the home pregnancy test, it says 'for use in the privacy of your own home.' Oh, good, I was going to drive to a crowded shopping centre. That was a little threatening to some men in the audience and even for some club owners. Everyone in the business tried to talk me out of it. 'Can't be pretty and do comedy. You can't do it.' My best line in those years was, 'I'm just a human being trapped in a woman's body.' And I really believed that summed up my approach to comedy. Way back when, when I started doing comedy in 1979, there were only six female comedians working on the circuit ` only six. It was really odd. We didn't know each other because the club owners would never book us together. It was such a rarity to have a female comic to begin with. I remember when I'd go to some clubs round the country, whenever I performed, the MC would go, "You're not going to believe who we have coming up next. "You're not going to believe it. It's a female comic!" Like it was some oestrogen freak show. I have definitely heard some crazy intros over the years. Sometimes there'll be a sort of an apology like, "You guys, she's really funny. She's one of my good friends." We've got a lady coming up next who tells jokes. How about that? So, I'd get up there, and I'd be like, "I know, what's with the jokes and the vagina? Am I right, fellas?" LAUGHTER Stand up in general is a hostile environment, and I think if you're a woman, that hostile environment goes up to times 10. Professional sports just don't do a thing for me. HECKLER: What does? AUDIENCE LAUGHS Good point. My mistake. Of course, I enjoy you very, very much. When I was coming up I could always tell ` if I saw three or more young guys in a group, I could kind of set my watch to it and go, 'When I go on stage, those guys are going to give me a problem.' MAN HECKLES All right. If that man screams one more time, I'm going to whack his pee-pee. Do you understand what I'm going to do? When guys give you a hard time, you should go right for the jugular, which is basically... 'Hey, buddy, I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth.' Which I think is appropriate and funny. Mister, I don't have time to tell you all the things that are the matter with you. But let's start with that chequered bellbottom suit. You had to learn to deal with it if you wanted to make it in the clubs, and the best ones did. Hi, pigs. 'I don't know how to say this, but I want to be on you.' I dated my last boyfriend for two years, and finally I gave him an ultimatum. I said, "You either tell me your name or it's over." This is my long, luxurious blonde hair. Ain't it pretty? AUDIENCE: Yeah. I can put it in a ponytail. Want to see? AUDIENCE: Yes. No. Whoopi Goldberg always thought of herself as an actress more so than a comedian. She was very much in the spirit of Lily Tomlin, more so than the stand-ups of her era. And they said, 'Are you a Valley girl?' I said, "No, I'm a surfer, because before the mall, there was the ocean, OK." She was so much more than stand up. She was commenting on the world we're living in, in a really interesting way through these different characters. I passed this big dude walking in circles with this picket sign talking about, "Stop abortion." I said, "I have the answer to abortion." He said, "What is it?" I said, "Shoot your dick." 'I was always an actor' and one of the reasons I started doing monologues was because I couldn't get any work. People look at you and decide what you can do and what you can't do, or what they think you can do. What does it take to become successful, and how tough is it for you compared to men? I think it's hard to be a man comic. Harder? They're generally not funny or intelligent. "Roseanne, don't you think we should talk about our sexual problems?" Like I'm going to turn off Wheel Of Fortune for that. Roseanne was the big '80s comic who came out. She was the kind of woman that when you talked to people, they remember Roseanne, they remember what her persona was, she had a clear point of view. I never get out of the house, I never go no place, I never have no fun ever, ever, ever, cos I'm a housewife. I hate that word. I want to be called Domestic Goddess. It's so much more descriptive. Roseanne Barr took the classic housewife stance and turned it on its head. They come up and go, "Roseanne, you're not very feminine." Can you believe that they'd say that to me? Can you even believe that? "You're not very feminine." So I say, "Suck my dick!" She talks like a rocket. She really captured what most great stand ups do that connect with the bigger, wide audience - she was authentic. Come on. Oh please. If I came out` Women have been the butt of male jokes for two million years and we've always laughed. And now I come out and I make a few crummy little jokes about you and your penises and you can't take it. AUDIENCE ROARS WITH LAUGHTER Roseanne... Listen to this... You'll have to. My grandmother,... she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She is 97 today. We don't know where the hell she is. In the '90s club heyday, the clubs were so crowded because everybody in the world thought, 'I'm going to move to California or New York. 'I'm going to do three funny minutes 'and then get my own sitcom like Jerry Seinfeld.' That was the downside of that era. They didn't have room for me or the likes of me. Who can start off the sex category other than ` yes, you know it ` Miss Kathy Griffin? I'm going to tell a story that I told once before, only once before. It is not the time I fucked the midget. It is... AUDIENCE LAUGHS Sorry, that's another party. These are people that didn't have as much success in mainstream clubs because mainstream clubs had mainstream comedy. They didn't necessarily go for weird, so they started their own rooms with their own crowds. I'm not telling the story for any kind of shock value, anything like that. I'm just telling the story. The original stand-up from the late '70s was all set-up, punchline set-up, punchline. That's all anybody was doing. And at the alternative comedy scene, suddenly it was all this personal storytelling. There's five kids in our family, I'm the oldest, and my brother, who's the fourth child, erm, got lung cancer. Hold for laughs. And, erm... You could just be talking about what happened that day. It was like somebody coming up and reading their diary. I'm sorry, I didn't study theatre for 12 years just so I could go, "Rambo, no!" We kind of free-formed it and more of a stream-of-consciousness. That really caught on with audiences, and created this whole new wave of comedians and women comedians. This alternative comedy scene was happening alongside the rise of women at Saturday Night Live. Backflip! Mary, stop it! Backflip! Backflip! Stop it, Mary! You had Molly Shannon... Simmer down now! ..and you had Cheri Oteri, Ana Gasteyer... I think we both assumed, and I think wrongfully, that a baker of your generation might tend towards a more dry or crusty muffin. And then Tina Fey was brought on as a writer. I mean, 25 plus years of Saturday Night Live, you are the first female head writer. I heard, "Oh, that place is a boy's club, it's horrible," and when I got there, my experience was it was not that bad. I think I've been very lucky to get to places, kind of, as they change. I quit being head writer, we all sat in the room, and I go, "Clearly it's Tina Fey who should succeed me," and everyone went, "Yep!" We all knew Tina was the sharpest, kind of strongest writer coming up. Research is being conducted on the world's first contraceptive patch for women. The patch is approximately three inches in diameter and reads, "Get off me!" Once she became head writer, she was in a position to advocate for the other women on the staff. She kind of explained to men, you know, why something was funny. Introducing Kotex Classic. This is the original. I love the belt. It's so complicated. I think women really have the market cornered on irony because we're subject to so much bullshit. Maybe what bothers me the most is that people say that Hillary is a bitch. Let me say something about that... Yeah, she is! And so am I, and so is this one. Yeah, deal with it. Yeah, you know what? Bitches get stuff done. And all of a sudden, bad-ass women were the force of that show. Oh, my God! What am I, the police or something? You know what I say? Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Smoke 'em if you got 'em. Do you love nice presents? DO YOU? AUDIENCE SCREAMS If you look at Saturday Night Live, when I was a kid, the names you knew were, like, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, John Belushi - you always knew the dudes' names. And now when you talk about SNL, the names that pop up - Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones... If you want to see Leslie Jones naked, just ask! ..and Kate McKinnon... The alien showed my mind the furnace of all creation, what we would call God. What?! These fancy cats are seeing God. Meanwhile I'm starting phase two, which is me sitting on a stool while 40 grey aliens take turns gently batting my knockers around. And then it spread into movies. Suddenly the biggest comedy stars in the world are Melissa McCarthy, they're, you know, Kristen Wiig... This is some classy shit here... SHE BURPS Jesus, Megan. I'm sor... I want to apologise. I'm not even confident on which end that came out of. Bridesmaids came out, and it was like, "This is going to be the definitive answer as to why women are funny." Now, I've known women are funny for years, cos I have a vagina, but... SHE GAGS Oh, my... OK. Oh, no. ...they just hadn't made it to the big screen in the way that they did with Bridesmaids. Lil! It's happening, it's happening, it's happening...! It showed studios that you could make money with that, and it opened that genre of women behaving badly. Officer Doughnuts! Why don't you go back into your squad car and go save a kitten from a tree, cos these pussies are doin' fine! These women are so good you cannot ignore them anymore. You want to stay with the "best you've ever had" guy. No, you don't - that's a creepy guy. "Best sex that you've ever had" guy is in jail. You know what I mean? Yeah, but I've been thinking about maybe reaching out to him. 'There's a lot of creative freedom.' Yes! There's a lot of embracing of diversity in stories that haven't been told yet, so I think it's a great time to be a woman. What are those? What...? What are those? Stop, stop it. They're my Spanks ` they hold everything together. Why, what's going to come fuckin' poppin' out? Trying to describe your humour and I was thinking, "Well, irreverent isn't really strong enough." So I came up with the word "demented." Ooh, I like demented. Because... Yeah, I like demented because I've been trying not to say "retarded." Because I do feel like it's not nice. Demented. Yeah. Does that work for you? Yeah, demented, ridiculous... I was licking jelly off of my boyfriend's penis, and all of a sudden... All of a sudden I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, I'm turning into my mother," you know, and it's like... When you think of comedy as being something that pushes boundaries and that's commenting on society, on a certain level, what does a white man have to say anymore? And men? Whoo! You guys are catching hell, you probably not feeling any better, right, cos every other commercial is for broke dick. If you look at the culture, who's changing the culture right now? And I don't know if there's a male equivalent to what a lot of hilarious, thoughtful women are doing right now. Yeah, I know, shh, hush, hush. The point is that I'm doing fantastic. She's doing great. He's a six. Oh, totally a six. Yum! He's a ten. I mean, look at him. I hope he's like seven inches max. Inches? I thought we were rating them on hotness. I thought we were rating them on dick size. Why would we be rating them on dick size? Ladies, your staring is making some of the guys feel uncomfortable. BOTH: Seven. I think it's fair to say that it's never been better for women in comedy, absolutely. It has gotten a lot better and could get even more better. Mo' betta? I think feminism is the worst thing that ever happened to women. Our job used to be no job. Then all these women had to show off and be like, "We can do it! We can do anything!" Bitch, shut up! Everywhere I look, I see amazing women doing comedy, and there are more venues to do comedy than there have ever been. They're afforded all these platforms, they can make their own stuff. They don't have to answer to anybody, so their content can be just what they want it to be. # This is where our poop comes out # This is what you think is hot? # This is what you think is hot? # Is it someone's birthday, or...? We're celebrating Julia's last fuckable day. Yes, salud! I love watching these young women be unabashedly feministic. It's great that they can be loud and proud about these issues. Also, they're real issues. The best comedies and the best television now is all being created and showrun by women. I have my own show! It's about time! Oh... I have, er, mild, extra mild. I have no idea what that one is. And I hear really good things about that English banger. Actually, you know what? I think I'm kinda done with sausages. Late night is one of the last places where it still feels very much a men's club, so it's great to have Samantha Bee. Is that OK for you that he's representing the country in an old-timey racist way? If it is a negative, I would say it's like a minor negative. I'm so confused by you! Watching someone choke down a piece of their soul just to belong broke my fact-checker. You can do this. Samantha Bee has the best political show on television. I don't think anybody cuts to the core like she does, but to see her do it and shove it down their throats cos they have to take it from a girl, she's brilliant! We do stories on the show that we feel passionately about in the moment, and we just see the world differently. Anybody have any questions? Oh, yes. Is it hard breaking into the boys' club? OK. What's it like being a woman in late night? How can I watch the show as a man? What's it like to be a female woman? VOICES CLAMOUR I think we're at our greatest point for women in comedy, I would guess. But we still have a very long way to go. Urrrrgh. The fact that people have to keep talking about women in comedy indicates that it's not equal. I guess it's a normal question ` is it harder for female comics? Is it harder? It's not. Like, they think that we just get up here and just bleed all over the stage. I'm just, "Ohh, my ovaries! "How do I keep them in my body?" Uh... People will always want to talk about women in comedy. I mean, you guys are doing a documentary, and you're doing a segment on women in comedy. The fact that it's 2016 and "women in comedy" is still a topic is so embarrassing! Sorry, that just drives me fucking crazy. It's a different kind of patriarchal society in the '50s as opposed to sexism now. They didn't know any different then. But you're so pretty, you see. Oh, is that what it is? Yep. And that's the way it was. Now they know better and they want to stop it. Now when you hear men say women aren't funny, I just think, "Oh, you sad old man. "Get on your little glacier and just die." Do you think most women sell themselves short? Yes. Most women have been told to sell themselves short. See, I think women are brighter than men, I think women are more sensitive than men, and I think women are stronger than men. Plus we have that extra little layer of fat, so if we ever fall in the water, we live longer! "She's one of them girl comics! "Them... They ain't that funny! "They got an extra gland down in their hoo-hah, "and it filters the jokes through. That ain't funny! "I read it in the science books! "It's science, you look it up. They's on the... "Whole episode on Planet Earth they did about women "and their anti-joke vaginers. "In HD, too, it's horrifying." Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Able 2018