'2 Dope Queens,' it was just a way for us to showcase female comedians, showcase comedians of color, showcase LGBT comedians, and shake up the landscape and be like, 'Hey, there is more than just what is out there.'
I've found, across the board, that comedians have been very respectful and kind to me. And that seems to stem from the fact that they are just respectful and kind people in general. Comedians get a bad rap for being dark and anti-social I think.
A lot of times people will have after-parties or try and host an event for comedians, and they misunderstand us. They think it should be wild and crazy, or loud music, and comedians are typically pretty mellow people that just want to talk to each other. I think it would be highly unusual to find comedians who want to be at a loud, crowded party.
I definitely relate so much to a lot of women in comedy, but I don't love segregating the genders. I'm just as influenced by male comedians as I am female comedians.
I'm a big fan of comedians not having to apologize for anything. Nowadays it seems comedians are always apologizing for being funny.
It's also that comedians don't have the kind of narcissism that actors have. They're writers who perform their own material. It's more interesting. And they're sexy because they risk more. Stand-up comedians risk more than anyone.
I try to stay with it and I try to stay in contact with comedians and just keep comedians in my life 'cause comedians are their own species. If you get away from them, especially as a comedian, I think it's dangerous.
People are going to label you anyway, but the one that bugs me the most is when they say, 'One of the funniest female comedians.' There's s no 'funniest male comedians.' You're either a funny comedian, or you're not!
You can't expect everyone to laugh or applaud you for doing edgy things. Sometimes you'll miss. But I think comedians are artists and there's a value in failure. It kind of works both ways between comedians and audiences. The audience has to understand that comedians are going to sometimes tell a joke that doesn't work out with dark subjects, and the comedian has to understand that sometimes they 'll fail and it's not the audience's fault for not getting it or loving it.
A lot of times, people will have after-parties or try and host an event for comedians, and they misunderstand us. They think it should be wild and crazy, or loud music, and comedians are typically pretty mellow people that just want to talk to each other.
After the comedy boom of the '80s, there was a certain formula that comedians had to do and could do in order to be successful touring comedians, and those were mainly observational comedians who had a very strict structure of what made an act, and I think it was very performance oriented.
When I became a standup comic, my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor, and you know, I think that comedians, like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that's not original.
Every time I've done comedy in, like, traditional comedy clubs, there's always these comedians that do really well with audiences but that the other comedians hate because they're just, you know, doing kind of cheap stuff like dancing around or doing, like, very kind of base sex humor a lot, and stuff like that.
I'm a comedian because I want people to like me. That's really why all comedians are comedians.
You have comedians who just do jokes, and they're called comics, not comedians. You have comedians that do bits - a person that has a lot of jokes that have a beginning, a middle and an end, but it's not a real story. And you have someone that does great stories, the one that blends those things together - that person is doing comedy.
I think politicians and comedians have a lot in common. One is a group of approval-seeking narcissists who will say and do anything to be liked... and comedians are always talking about politics.