From Punchlines to Power- Remaking Comedy

What if comedy isn’t just punchlines — but leverage?

Lynn Harris, founder & CEO of GOLD Comedy didn’t wait for a seat at the table. She redesigned the room.

In this explosively insightful conversation, Lynn pulls back the curtain on gatekeeping, the myth of “confidence,” and why comedy is one of the most powerful delivery systems for culture, access, and who society learns to listen to — in ways policy papers and protests alone cannot reach.

 We trace the long arc of women in comedy, dig into the economics of creative work, and ask why “women’s comedy” is still treated like a category instead of just… comedy.

The real issue was never women finding their voice. It’s whether the world is ready to hear it.  Sharp. Funny. Deeply revealing. This one hits.

If you’ve ever wondered who holds the mic — and why it matters — this conversation is for you.

Today's episode is brought to you by the Joan of Arc Scroll Medal, a beautiful brass alloy medal, designed by award-winning artist, Pat Benincasa. This uniquely shaped medal is ideal for holiday or as a special occasion gift!    Visit www.patbenincasa-art.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stakes For Women In Comedy
• 0:36 Meet Lynn Harris And Gold Comedy
• 2:52 A Century Of Women Reshaping Humor
• 6:59 Gatekeeping On Stage And Off
• 11:00 Comedy As A Cultural Delivery System
• 15:41 Access, Platforms, And New Power Brokers
• 21:21 Why Gold Is A Business, Not A Nonprofit
• 25:19 What Comedy Does That Policy Can’t
• 30:57 The Myth Of Imposter Syndrome
• 34:19 What’s Changed In Feminism And Culture
• 39:09 The Next Normal: No More “Comediennes”
• 44:42 Closing Thanks And Sign-Off

Transcript

Pat:

Fill To Capacity, where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.

Pat:

Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome to Fill To Capacity. I'm so glad you're here. Episode #129, "From Punchlines to Power- Remaking Comedy." My guest is Lynn Harris. She is the founder and CEO of Gold Comedy, a comedy school professional network for women and non-binary people maybe who are done waiting for permission. Gold is advised by comedian Rachel Dratch and its mentors and collaborators include Voices from The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, and a Black Lady Sketch Show and Broad City. Oh and more people who know exactly how hard it is to break into comedy and why the system needs changing. But Lynn didn't just build a comedy platform. She spent her career changing who gets heard. She's an award-winning journalist who's reporting on violence against women, helped drive national awareness and led to new federal protections. She also served as vice president of communications at Breakthrough, a global human rights organization using culture and media to drive gender justice. And she's raised real money for progressive causes by putting comedy to work. Gold Comedy grew out of seeing how power operates, who controls access, and how laughter can shift the room. This conversation isn't just about comedy, it's about culture, access, influence and what happens when women don't just enter the space but redesign it. Well, welcome Lynn Harris. I am so thrilled you're here.

Lynn:

Well, thank you. What a, that was a what? A tremendous intro. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.

Pat:

Well, before we start, I'd like to do something a little different. I want to offer a bit of context and overview about women in comedy because it's gonna shape everything we're about to talk about. Okay. So, early 19 hundreds to 1930s, breaking in through Vaudeville and radio, women like Fannie Brice built massive popularity, but often through caricature. Humor was allowed as long as it stayed safe or self-deprecating. 1950s, 1960s in TV and still tightly controlled. Lucille Ball blew open physical and sitcom for women on tv. She ran her own studio. Still, she was treated as the exception, not the rule. Then come the sixties and seventies variety TV and creative control, Carol Burnett proved women could lead comedy at scale. The Carol Burnett Show put a woman at the center as host, performer, collaborator and gave her creative authority in a format dominated by men. She wasn't just funny, she normalized women being funny without apology.

Pat:

Okay, in come the seventies, standup gets personal comedians like Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller talked openly about anger, ambition, aging, and power. And they paid for it with, uh, lost bookings, public backlash, and professional sidelining. But audiences couldn't look away from them. Okay? 1980s, 1990s, women still labeled a risk despite stars like Whoopi Goldberg and Roseanne Barr clubs and TV shows. Openly limited how many women could appear. And I think the mantra that they were given was, well, we already have one that was sort of the standard. So income to two thousands writing rooms and cable TV cracked the door. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, proved women could lead shows, run rooms, and shape tone. Yet, you know what? Late night hosting is still male dominated. So in the 1990s to 2000 tens, visibility with consequences, comedians like Margaret Cho blew open what comedy could talk about race, sexuality, trauma, addiction, politics, often years ahead of mainstream comfort.

Pat:

She gained visibility, but paid for it with industry backlash, body policing, and being labeled too much in 2000 tens. Now, visibility rises, power lags. So you have comedians like Ali Wong, Hannah Gadsby, Issa Rae, and they expanded what comedy could talk about and who it was for. Still men control most platforms, budgets and gatekeeping roles. Again, this folks is just an overview and I'm sure I left important people out, but I wanted to do that so you have an understanding of what we're going to talk about. And that brings me straight back to you, Lynn, because your work sits right at the intersection of that history and what comes next.

Lynn:

What a great overview that was. That was fantastic. Thank you for doing that.

Pat:

Well, my pleasure. I was holding my breath. 'cause here you are, the expert. And I'm going on and on. I'm thinking, oh I hope I didn't miss any. Okay, so you spent years inside systems that shaped culture, media, advocacy, and entertainment. After everything we just laid out about women in comedy, what specifically wasn't working for women in those spaces that made you realize the answer wasn't another article or show, but a whole new structure?

Lynn:

Oh, I love that question. This is great. Oh, this is so juicy. I'm so excited. Okay, so microcosm more about me. Um, but microcosm me doing standup in the nineties, my experience really does, isn't isn't everyone's experience. It's not the whole of the experience, but just some details will underscore what you said. And and then we can go from there to the bigger picture. So for example, you know, I rolled my eyes all the way into the back of my head and around again when you mentioned the, you know, oh, we already have a woman. That was very common when doing, when we were doing standup. And, and during those years, Hey, Booker, at club, here are my avails. You got time on, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Oh, sorry, we already have a woman on the lineup. And yeah, and there's that. Then when you are the only woman on the lineup, they very typically introduced you or introduced us, you know, and they would, they would never say, and now we got a dude coming to the stage, but they would say, and now we got a lady coming to the stage.

Lynn:

And that meant that all the dudes, you know, had 5, 6, 7, 8 minutes to prove that they were funny. And the woman had 5, 6, 7, 8 minutes to prove that women were funny. So these are examples of, of how even though comedy is supposed to be like the underdog, you know, we're the, we're the underdog, outlier art. It was and still is. We'll get to that very gate kept. And the norm is was, you know, a straight white guy named Norm.

Lynn:

And so who might have been very funny, you know, that's not that, that's not the point. But to the degree that women or anyone outside that norm are, and in the case of women are, let's say called comedians or that they have special nights for us called ladies nights or whatever it is, which I understand the good intentions behind that, that's okay. But to the degree that we are, and I don't love to use this as a verb, but to the, to the degree that we are still othered, we are still considered, it's still that comics are men and we are the other ones. Men are comics and women are the ladies auxiliary. Now why do we care? Why do we care? It's just comedy. We care. And you touched on this too, we care because comedy is a job. We care because women are people and so are all the other others.

Lynn:

And we care because comedy is a cultural force. So it matters who makes it. And we can talk about that too. And today, to bring us to today, and by the way, when I talk about, I use standup as an example 'cause that's where I have the most like boots on the ground experience. But when I say comedy, I'm really talking about all the different types of comedy, improv, sketch, standup writer's rooms, late night storytelling, even like writing funny brand copy, which is very much in demand. Four to five customers want their brands to be funny for reasons that we can talk about that are a little interesting actually. So someone's gotta write that stuff. Humor writing the Onion, McSweeney's, the New Yorker, that's all comedy. And comedy is a certainly a distraction, a delight. And we need those things. It also is a delivery system. It can be a delivery system for change or changing thoughts, changing hearts, changing minds, changing actions. Even just a tiny bit. We can talk about that. But that's why it matters. Who makes it beyond the economic issues, beyond the obvious on their face, equity and equality issues. It matters. It matters because comedy tells you who you're supposed to be listening to.

Pat:

Okay. I wanna stop you right there because I've read enough about when you talk that you've said comedy and you're saying it now, comedy changes how people listen to women. When did you see that happening in real time for the first time?

Lynn:

Well, okay, I'll tell you when I first saw it not happening was when I started to have like a tiny little like Christmas bulb of a light bulb in my head. Was on a ski trip, a Jewish youth group ski trip in 1983, I guess when I was in high school. And a bunch of the dudes, it was an overnight trip with a bunch of other youth groups. And a bunch of the dudes somehow got a hold of a bunch of like girls' nightgowns and literally grapefruits and did like a sloppy scrappy like drag sketch, which brought the house down. And I'm sure it was very funny, like whatever it was a bunch of high school dudes, whatever, brought the house down. And I remember thinking like, my friends and I were like, like the loud and funny ones, right? And I remember thinking, okay, what are the girls gonna do?

Lynn:

And just as fast I thought, you know what? We're not gonna do anything. We're not gonna do anything. And I, it wasn't because I thought we shouldn't, it wasn't because I thought women weren't funny. It was because I knew even then that girls would have to work eight times as hard to be perceived as equally funny. We'd have to have like a writer's room, we'd have to have like a costume department. We couldn't be sloppy like that. We couldn't just like mess around and get that. They'd be like, what are the girls doing? And that's not our fault. That had to do with the way that people and did and do think of what it takes to be funny and who gets to be funny.

Pat:

And it's interesting that you say that because when you look back, over TV history, Milton Burle dressing up as a woman or Harvey Corman, it was instantaneously understood as funny.

Lynn:

Yeah. And it instantly, because I mean, we can look, we can, like, there's a whole whole bunch of reasons we can unpack about, you know, drag specifically. And by the way, I have a massive fan of drag, but like drag drag. And so we can unpack the drag part specifically, but it was just like the sort of instantaneous assumption that whatever a dude is doing is funny. It could just be like, I'm putting on a funny hat and I'm funny. Whereas women, we have such a higher bar, as with all industries. And I remember, let's see, so you asked me when do I remember? Oh, I know. So in general, I think honestly the experience of even if you are the only woman on the lineup, the experience of, and this is, I don't know, maybe it's one reason I love standup of being on stage and having the mic and talking for five minutes, eight minutes without anybody interrupting you.

Pat:

Can you imagine? Okay. You're going there, aren't you?

Lynn:

And, it wasn't specifically that when I was in my twenties. You know, let's pull back a little bit. Think about just, you go to a random comedy show, God willing, there's someone on that show who is not exactly like you, right? There's someone whose experiences maybe you don't know intimately. Maybe there's someone who is, I don't know, maybe there's someone Muslim, maybe there's a black trans performer, like, I don't know, maybe it's just a woman and you're a dude. I don't know. But the social contract in that moment is that you, the audience member, have the experience of sitting and listening to that person for 10 minutes. That's huge. It doesn't even matter if that person is talking about their experience of being marginalized. It doesn't matter if they're, you know, it might just be talking about their weird family and their annoying kids, or I don't know.

Lynn:

But the fact that you did the work and it wasn't really hard work 'cause it was comedy of having to listen to a person that you are not told generally every day in society that you're supposed to listen to. That's pretty big actually. And it's also kind of painless. So that's how comedy can be. And, and I'm just using standup as one little example in that moment. But that's how comedy, even without being actively, message driven or political- quote unquote, can just by existing help shift the shift norms and assumptions about who has power.

Pat:

I've often thought of comedy, sort of the cultural ecumenical outreach. It cuts across as you're saying, every strata depending on who's on stage, who has the mic, and talking about their life experience. It's so ecumenical in that, in that way. And I almost dare to say egalitarian, because if you've got the mic, you can talk and it, it's very powerful. And that brings me to gold comedy now. It's not just classes, it's a pipeline. What does access actually mean in comedy and who still controls the gates in 2026?

Lynn:

That's a great question. And I will say a lot has, I mean, wow has a lot changed for the better. Wow. Has a lot not changed. Both are true at the same time. There is a level of access that exists today that certainly did not exist in the nineties when I started because of the number of platforms, because of the number of outlets, because of the sheer number. And I'm talking about all kinds of comedy. Now, to be clear, it still takes about 10 years to be an overnight success. But you have so many more places that you can put your stuff out there. You can build characters on TikTok, build your voice on Instagram or Threads, whatever it is. And again, that doesn't equal instant success. But you can do that when you don't live in a comedy city. You can do that when you don't know anyone in Hollywood.

Lynn:

You know, you can, you can create a body of work that is visible and generate a following in an audience. Again, not easy, it's work. But that literally didn't exist in the nineties. And that also democratizes, access, it's fantastic, it's amazing. And there's even, like, even more specifically, there are outlets like Fast Channels, which are, free ad supported streaming television like Tubi that honestly, and this is not a comment on quality, but the way they're structured, there's a lower barrier to entry. So, and they don't have the same kind of like old fashioned studio pitching process. Gold had a web series on Fox Soul, which is a Fast Channel affiliated with the, the good part of Fox. And same with we have content on Twisted Mirror, which is also a Fast Channel. And they wanted more like quote unquote diverse content.

Lynn:

So easy peasy, you know? So that kind of thing has, is really huge. Are we making a ton of money from it? No, but it's distribution and it, it is set up so that we make money from it. It's an interesting experiment. It's an example of how in some cases the gates are less kept, the bridges are easier to cross the, and the the access is more democratized. You still do have the, the old-ish fashioned, um, system of getting specials by getting in. You get have to get into just for laughs at Montreal or whatever, there's still the similar kind of ladders or processes that one needs to go through to, you know, pitch a show to Netflix or again get your special on HBO for sure. But what you'll notice is that more and more the decision makers are evolving.

Lynn:

The decision makers are getting, it's us, it's Gen X, it's the women who claw their way into those positions of power. And they're also responding to taste. I don't have to stand in front of me, but people are demanding more inclusive and diverse entertainment. Not necessarily for like, quote unquote political reasons. It's 'cause it's, it's better. I'm not saying that in a super reductive way. I'm saying that because we all know that from every single other industry, the products you make are better when more diverse people are in the room bringing more, you know, better a whole bunch of different ideas and perspectives to create the product. We know this, you don't have to be like political to or like woke, you know, to understand why that would be be the thing. And yeah, people are craving seeing people like themselves on tv.

Lynn:

People are craving seeing people not like themselves on tv. Last thing I'll say about that is Cameron Esposito, one of my favorite comics, said this even just very simply about white dudes in standup. She was like, more diverse lineups on any given night are actually also for standup are also even just better for the white dudes. Because if you have like a bunch of white dudes and like me, then if someone liked one of the white dudes, they'll be like, oh yeah, I like that white dude. What was his, uh, which one? I don't Mm, the one the one with a J Mm. But if they're, if you're like one or two, one of two white dudes and a whole bunch of other comics, then you stand out. Don't you wanna stand out?

Pat:

Absolutely. Now I'm curious, and this might seem like a little nitpicky question, but why was it important to build Gold Comedy as a business and not as a nonprofit? And what does that choice challenge culturally?

Lynn:

Oh yes. Okay. 'cause comedy is a business, the choice that it challenges or the assumption that it challenges is that women run nonprofits. And that anything that benefits women has gotta be charitable and good. And that women, there's an assumption that men do well and women do good. I was not interested in any of that. Our mission is to help women succeed in the comedy business. The minute anyone says like, oh, so, and I'm sorry if you've said this and meant, well not you, I'm, you know, sorry, whoever have said this and meant well 'cause I know what you mean and I know you mean well. But when people say things like, oh, that's so great that you're giving women a voice, you know, and I'm like, we have a voice, it's just that people need to listen to it. You know?

Lynn:

I mean, or I don't even like the word empowerment, honestly, because we have power, like in our, in us, you just need to stop taking it. So all those reasons I used to work in nonprofits like no shade, it's just not the right fit for Gold's Mission. We're not giving, we're not helping. We know we, we are helping, we should be making money doing what we do because that's also underscores our point. We're in a business, we're trying to make the business better for everyone. It's all business. And we're trying to make that business better. And we're all trying to win in that business. And we live in capitalism. So here we are.

Pat:

There's a parallel thing with artists. Oh, you get to go to the studio and love what you do. Yes. Why are you charging for that? Why should we pay so much money for the painting? There are certain professions that get handled with that kind of expectation. And teaching, uh, art school for years, I'd always tell students, you know, honor yourself, honor your work. Yes, people should pay for it. You've worked hard to develop it. That's your voice. You are the guardians and caretakers of your talent and of your gifts. Remember that. But your point is well taken.

Lynn:

Thank you. There is a small but growing kind of subcategory of investors and supporters of business who are very interested in cultural products, who see the economic power of cultural products and are willing to invest in them. And of course, you know, the obvious example is Broadway. You know, people who invest in Broadway of course, but really more than that who see like the franchise opportunities, like, who question the very nature, the very assumption that art is good and should somehow just exist free in the ether and everything else is, is real business. So there's, there's a lot of interesting work going on that's come out of the School of Organization and Management at Yale and some other people who are like really doing some aggressive thinking about this and trying to change the culture around how we think about investing in all senses of the word in art as a cultural product and why it's so important.

Lynn:

And to really just like trash all of those assumptions you just said. I mean, that happened to me all the time when I was a journalist. And is that, I think especially 'cause I'm a woman, people would say things like, so are you still writing? And my husband would always be like, she better be. We're two income family. And I remember one time I had written a humor column for George Magazine of Blessed Memory and they wound up just cutting the humor column entirely before my article ran. And they were like, this is the early, early days of the internet. They were like, don't worry, we won't pay you, but we'll put it on our website. And I was like, but you won't. It's the same. I think it all comes to the same thing, but you had so much fun writing it or whatever. But it's exposure, exposure will not buy me lunch. I mean we all make choices of course, as anybody in any business makes choices about when we work for free and how to do that strategically and when it's a smart investment that doesn't kill our soul. There's always room for that of course. But it's the external assumptions that make me wanna stick a fork in my eye.

Pat:

I understand. Okay. So I wanna go in a direction that you've kind of laid the groundwork for now. You've worked inside human rights organizations and also in mass audience culture, comedy, tv and digital storytelling. So what can comedy do that policy papers and protest can't?

Lynn:

I think the most powerful mix is when they work separately, but hand in hand. But what comedy does is normalize. It can help without going to, without getting lectured, without being told you're wrong, without having to, and I'm sorry, but you know, without having to read an academic journal, and I think we all should read complicated things, but just without having to read something complicated without being scolded, it's a delivery system, a sugarcoating, a showing of what you have in common versus what is wrong with you pointing at you. What we have in common. So for example, I keep thinking, uh, there's, there are more recent examples, but I keep thinking about the, the reboot of, One Day At A Time, great sitcom from when I was a kid that they rebooted recently. It was brilliant. It was so funny. It was just a really funny straight up, good old fashioned sitcom. The family was an immigrant family

Pat:

One Day At A Time aired from 1975 to 1984, the reboot of One Day At A Time aired in 2017 and ran till 2020. And it revolved around a Cuban American family. Okay, back to Lynn.

Lynn:

And most of the time they were just an immigrant family doing family things like why didn't you do your homework? And okay, breakfast for dinner kids, you know, like just family stuff. But like 10% of the time there was like immigrant happening, you know, like, I mean, bad things happening. And so if you're watching the show, the show develops a trust with you that you're like, oh, we're all the same, we're all just one big American family. Oh, you know, you see these challenges happen to a family that you've already built a relationship with and you're like, oh, that's not good. Oh, like now I have, I have a family showing me the challenges as opposed to a politician that I don't trust yet or ever yapping at me about what I should think, what I should believe. And honestly, it sounds corny, but it sort of circumvents our brain and speaks to our hearts.

Lynn:

And so the degree to which comedy, comedies, jokes can bring us, it can't bring us all together. Like nothing can, like that's not a thing. I don't think it could change someone's mind. I don't think it could make someone do a 180 What can, nothing really can, that's not really a thing. But when everyone laughs at the same joke, that is an experience of being on the same page. That is an experience of getting something. And that is something that can transcend variations on people's politics. And so like, old example, but it's a big one. It made a difference when Ellen came out on her show. This is not an original idea at all, but people say that that really made a difference in terms of acceptance of gay rights in America because people were like, oh, it's just our friend. She seems fine. People didn't necessarily make that explicit in their heads, but the level of normalization that was achieved when that happened on her sitcom really was a big part of the kind of, let's call it cultural air cover for the policies that were also cooking and evolving at the same time. Yeah, they don't, it's not cause and effect, it's just they're all cooking along and they, and they support each other, honestly.

Pat:

Well, I have this theory about our imaginary friends. So if I watch a favorite show or I read a book and I'm in that book and that those characters now they're my imaginary friends. I am with them. Oh yes, I'm watching TV and something happens to one of my imaginary friends. I get upset. Now someone, I mean, you can think of it as that there's something in certain shows that one identifies with. So that broad sweep of what's available to watch. And now we have all this streaming and every imaginable configuration of entertainment people can plug into certain situational comedies or whatever they wanna watch. But there's a way we bring inside and I call them imaginary friends, as if they were walking down the street and you go, oh, so and so, you know, the character they play Well, no, that's the actor, but they're so real to us.

Pat:

Ellen, when you use that example and if you look at different shows that at certain points were sort of a cultural lighthouse, shining a light on something going back in time when mash, I mean Mash had a huge following. If someone said, I wanna have a discussion why war is horrendous and the cost of it, you know, everybody go, yeah, yeah, fine, let's hear it- Mash just so many funny ways that weren't funny. The poignancy that they worked into that comedy was so powerful. There are shows like that across the history of television and now cable, that those shows are almost like a marker, a cultural marker announcing something is shifting.

Lynn:

How about Abbot Elementary? And that's not even cable, that's network super mainstream. And I don't know of any better way to expose the failings of public school systems than with the successful comedy. You know, that that shows not tells. And it's only like, it's like a hum. You know, it's mostly, it's mostly the characters and it's like mostly our friends who we miss until the next episode, you know, but, but like the triggers for their problems and the, the triggers for the character, it's, it's a character, it's character driven, right? But the triggers for the things that the characters do that we love are often social issues about funding, about, you know, all those things that expose the failings of, of the public school system. How else would we have been exposed to that in that way at that level?

Pat:

Well, as a teacher for 30 years, I have to tell you, that show nails it. And it really does, going back to your point earlier, the more variety of types of people we have opens the door for more identification. There's a, a show right now on HBO called The Pitt.

Lynn:

Those are my friends too.

Pat:

Okay. I'm not gonna go on and on about I do love them. So Noah Wiley wrote it and it's about an ER room in Pittsburgh and medical people weigh in that if you really wanna know what's going on in an ER that show is absolutely authentic. And the things that happen in an ER, there are times I'm sitting gape mouthed wondering how do these people make it through a shift? And again, it dramatizes the need for healthcare or just humane aspects of caring for one another. That show- it's no secret why it catapulted to one of the most watched shows on cable, in streaming. So coming back full circle, the broader, the sweep of people and their lives and their identities, ethnicities, uh, gender doesn't matter, but it's reaching out and touching our lives. We're seeing something that touches all of us.

Lynn:

Yeah. And that's the weird paradox that the more specific a character is, the more specific a scenario is, the more specific a joke is, the more specific, a story is the more relatable it is. Because this is very true because if someone says like, uh, any, uh, anyone else divorced out there, you know, sure. Like, that's, that's relatable, but you're not like, oh my God, they're talking to me. Whereas if someone lays out, I was thinking of a, you know, a comic during crowd work, but if someone tells a story that may take place in a different country or a different socioeconomic stratum, maybe even someone has siblings and you don't, or vice versa. But the more specific and vivid, the more specifically and vividly that that story is painted, the more it draws you in.

Lynn:

And the more you're drawn in, the more you're exposed to what's really visceral and primal about that story. I've, like every of those storylines on the Pitt, they're, a lot of them are have nothing to do with my own life, for better and for worse. Each of them is about caregiving, it's about family, um, being a fear of being abandoned. It's about imbalance of power, like just more, um, each of them is actually more about something sort of primal and human. And so the more vivid they are, the more you're like, oh, I feel this so hard. Even if that thing has never happened to you because it's tapping into something primal.

Pat:

It is. And when you were talking and describing that, the more specific, the, the nature of the story, I couldn't help but think about Ted lasso. So when Ted is talking about when they took the neighbor's dog and he launches into that story, the room turns into a hush. Yeah. Because it's specific, but there's something so primal to the core of us. As if he's talking from soul to soul. That show had many moments of that and carried many of us through COVID because of the way those stories just touched our lives so deeply.

Lynn:

I mean, how many of us are American soccer coaches who get recruited to go coach a team in England? Like it has nothing to do with us, but it was about how teams work. It was about how families work, it was about how people, you know, people searching for recognition and it painted such a vivid picture that we were like, I'm right there with you Ted lasso. And then you get in touch with the, the primal stuff.

Pat:

I wanna switch gears. I think everybody's had the experience of going to the dryer and you pull things out and the socks are always inside out. I wanna ask you a question where the sock is inside out.

Lynn:

Okay.

Pat:

Now you mentor a lot of emerging voices. What's the most common thing women comics underestimate about themselves? I wanna go from the inside out. Now

Lynn:

I'm gonna turn that sock back around the other way. And I'm gonna say, what do people underestimate about women comics?

Pat:

Ooh.

Lynn:

Because I don't think there is not a world in which it's like our confidence or whatever. I'm not saying you're saying this, there's not a world in which our, it's our confidence that's holding us back. It's not getting booked, it's not being taken seriously. It's Nick's Comedy Stop in Boston. Love you, Nick's you've been around forever. But the fact that you just advertised chicks at next night with the faces of the women comics badly photoshopped onto naked Barbie torsos and legs shows me they are not actually interested in having women in your club or on your stages. So people can disagree with maybe I don't know their intentions, I really don't. And but I'm just saying that like confidence isn't the problem. It's that. And even like to draw to expand a little bit. That's why I don't even believe in this thing we call "imposter syndrome."

Lynn:

Typically. I'm sure there are exceptions, but when people are feeling that way, it's typically 'cause they're in a space that wasn't designed for them. So like they're having a normal reaction to a mildly to actively hostile environment. It's not like, oh, it's gotta be more confident. I do think that there are studies about this that, you know, when, when they're applying for jobs, women are like, okay, I need to have 150% of the qualifications. And men are like, I need to have like 10% of the qualifications. But that's also not, I don't know if that's inherent to women. I think that's actually probably true. People who hire are willing to take a chance on a dude, whereas a woman has to, has to over prove herself. So by the same token, I do think sometimes the exact same thing is that women get an idea from the world that they have to be like already good at comedy before they do comedy, which makes no sense, they have to be the loud one or they have to feel confident, 100% confident all the time in all settings, which literally no human does. Or not even a mediocre white dude feels confident in every setting. So I think that there are sort of fake things that hold us back and things about our culture that might hold us back. It's not about women in our bones, it's just not.

Pat:

I agree. Now you have a thing about imposter syndrome. Here's my beef, "trailblazer." This woman was a trailblazer. Let me translate that for you. She had every roadblock thrown at her. She was thrown out of this situation. She had to go privately and do X, Y, and Z. So when I see so-and-so was a trailblazer. I can feel my blood boil because that's not the story. The story was the culture, the society, the mores, everything, the profession, the hierarchy, the pecking order, the gatekeepers, everything conspired to block this woman from doing what she was doing. Yeah. I'm not big on that vernacular. She was a trailblazer. Yeah,

Lynn:

I totally agree. Agree. Yes. Nothing to add. Fully agree. Co-sign, retweet.

Pat:

When you look at feminism over the past 20, 30 years and you've lived through multiple waves of feminism as I have, what feels genuinely different and what still hasn't moved nearly enough.

Pat:

We have 10 hours?

Lynn:

I know. Well, I'm psyched. We've got the right to vote for now. So there's that <laugh>, I in part would look to my kids who, yes, our New York City kids, they're one of, well one of them is 19, one of them 17. Sure. They're New York City kids. But the culture in New York City is not as automatically, you know, awesomely crunchy and hip and woke as everyone would think. Right. So I they're, it's not as rarefied as you'd think. Yes, they did start taking themselves to the dentist at age seven because they could, but that's different anyway. And among my kids and their friends broadly, there's a heartening assumption of things that we did not assume. In other words, just to pick an example, you know, I was grew up in the seventies and eighties, we didn't think that rape was good, but we thought that it was women's job to prevent it.

Lynn:

That's not the way kids think. Now, again, I've drawn broad brush, obviously there is an assumption that, something does need to shift about the permissiveness and impunity on the side of the dude culture. That it's not just like, here's a rape whistle, ladies, good luck out there. And it's not just that the grownups have decided that the kids have the kids really get that the girls are, it's not just about the girls, everyone. It's kind of, I'm just pulling that out as one example. I mean, look at the pop stars also like the pop stars. Many plenty of great dude pop stars, obviously plenty of huge pop stars, Bad Bunny, Kevin Lamar obviously, but like the domination of Beyonce, Taylor Swift, you know, whoever you like or don't like, I don't care. We can't ignore the economics, Chapell Roan, we can't ignore the economics of that domination.

Lynn:

And no one thinks of it as girl. Like, I mean, maybe Taylor, but other than that, like, no one's like, that's girl music. I'm talking about my kids, you know, and their, their culture. So there's something there I'm so often pleased when it's hard to explain to the children how different things were Epstein it is so hard. And my kids are sophisticated, right? They're conversations that they have with their friends and and beyond are sophisticated. When I try to explain to them how we didn't have the language for the kind of things that Epstein was doing and why people apparently didn't think it was a giant deal, their heads explode. You know, like we didn't have the right, I'm not excusing anybody, but like we back then, of course, and now, but like the amount to which people did not care about women and girls is so hard to explain to them. And that is good.

Pat:

Yeah, it is.

Lynn:

So I think this is gonna sound like the low bar, but there is a little bit more of an acceptance of the humanity of women and non cis dudes. I would say a lot actually of the fundamental remind the issues, the fundamental, the foundational belief that again, low bar, women and non dudes are human.

Pat:

I would agree with you. Yeah. And that's a start

Lynn:

Whoo! Yeah.

Pat:

Wow. Coming around full circle. When you look ahead five or 10 years, what do you hope looks normal in comedy that still maybe feels radical today?

Lynn:

No one will be using the word comediene. Yeah, just like, and I mean, I'm joking, but I'm serious. It's kind of the way that like still happens, but like less so people say waitress and stewardess and as, as someone I, I wish I remembered who said this, but they were like, do you call your doctor a doctor? Do you call your lawyer a lawyer at, you know, it's like the same, like what are we talking about here in comedy? Cer certainly in other professions too. It really, it cements that diminutive status of women that like, there's comics and there's lady comics, you know, so we're gonna get rid of that. I really hope for the day. Will it when it'll be a whole lot less interesting that when are telling jokes like, can we stop freaking out? I mean, one of my favorite comics says, what's it like to be a woman in comedy? About 99% people asking that question at 1% telling jokes.

Pat:

Ouch.

Lynn:

So like, just leave us alone. You know, just let us do some, you know, uh, we're do, we're doing women's comedy. Some of us are great, some of us suck. You know, some of us are filthy, some of us are clean. Some of us are just like, can we, can it not mean anything? Please, that would be great.

Pat:

Whoa, Lynn, at the top of the hour.

Lynn:

This is great.

Pat:

Thank you for coming on and, uh, blowing our minds with so much to think about. Thank you so much for coming on today.

Lynn:

Thank you for having me.

Pat:

And thank you listeners for joining us today. Until next time, take care of yourselves. Thank you. Bye.