According to "Jezebel," funny-lady Jessi Klein, whose most impressive CV bullet point is a behind the scenes gig on Chappelle's Show, has just been hired as a staff writer on Saturday Night Live.
Lindsay Robertson, a blogger who writes for "Jezebel," comments on the late night comedy genre's bad track record with employing women as creative talent, the brains behind the operation, the generators of teleprompter scripts. But, as has been proven with the enormous success of master goofball Tina Fey, women can hold their own with men when trying to come up with really funny, sometimes ribald, sometimes immature things.
But Nell Scovell addresses this issue in an article she wrote for Vanity Fair in October. She supposes that male comedy writers feel uncomfortable around female collegues. "Male writers don’t want to be judged in the room. They want to be able to scarf an entire bag of potato chips while cracking fart jokes and making lewd comments without fear of feminine disapproval." "But," she goes on, "we’re your co-workers, not your wives. Crack a decent fart joke and, as professionals, we will laugh."
As someone who tends to make fart jokes more often than the men in my life, I totally get what she's saying. Funny is funny.
This is an issue that seems to pop-up every few years, whenever a new female writer is hired for SNL or when one of them becomes super-famous, like Tina Fey or Amy Poehler, women who are arguably household names (or at least faces), their quirky brands of cutesy-yet-brash jokes widely emulated. Indeed, SNL has a good track record with female writers (and actors), going back to the days when Gilda Radner contributed in the show's first season.
But of the three weeknight comedy shows, Conan's, Dave's, and Jay's, there is narry a woman in sight among the writing casts. I think perhaps they're missing out on a particular kind of insightful wisecrack that depends on a certain level of subtlety and awareness that (I think) ladies tend to bring to their humor. Even Conan, the king of artful spaz, is getting ham-fisted with his jokes. (I saw a particularly awkward sketch on his show the other night involving Mother Earth bitching about global warming. Cougar and PMS jokes were made. Real subtle.)
I'm looking forward to Klein's contributions, especially because she's responsible for the story she told of "The Moth" storytellers series (in which she happens to describe her experience during the '03 NYC blackout when she had to walk from midtown to Brooklyn. So did I!). Be warned, there's some lighthearted cursing.
Jessi Klein for The Moth – "Dale"
