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Cameron Esposito: Tell your rape jokes. Expect to be challenged on them. -
Seems like every 6 months or so - maybe once a year - there is a debate about rape jokes. Here’s how it goes:
A dude tells jokes about rape or deals with hecklers in way that includes rape. A woman hears these jokes or is the heckler. She publicly states that she is upset or didn’t like the joke…
FINALLY!!! Someone says it exactly right. Nobody’s rights were being questioned and yup, yup, yup, this is exactly what I’ve been hoping someone would say (and hoping I could say but I’m not succint) especially in light of recent articles where people once again lost their mind - for being asked to maybe say what Cameron just said so PERFECTLY. Now - let all the dude comics pass this on to their fans. Let’s not just have chicks talking about this alone again on the internet.
What’s up London?
See you today in the Times and in September at the Soho Theatre!
Love,
Jen
Reading this excellent book about the making (and almost not happening) of the Mary Tyler Moore show.
The show revolutionized sitcoms as well as fashion for women and in the early 1970’s 47 million people tuned in on Saturday nights to watch a show about a single woman (one who wasn’t whining about it) who had a blossoming career.
These days executives would call that woman, “unlikeable.”
slomotionwalter asked: Do you have any advice for someone in Boston who is thinking of doing a comedy open mic for the first time? Like, should I have a prepared routine or just a general idea? I don't know what people usually do. Part of me wants to bring a large group of friends for support, and another wants to go completely alone so no one sees me bomb.
You just have to get up and do what YOU want to say. If you want to be a comic, you will bomb. Over and over - even at year 17. So do what YOU want. And just go alone. There is no advice. Advice means “how do I not bomb?” You don’t. You just try. Usually people kill their first time doing stand-up. I have answered this question a lot. I suggest just doing what YOU FEEL YOU MUST SAY or else you’ll regret it and if you want to write it out - great. If you want to improvise on stage, great. You’ll find your writing style. This is a life-long endeavor that changes as you change. There are no answers that one comedian can give another. And if one does - don’t listen to them. Also listen to any and every podcast about comedy made by comedians. You will hear what you need to hear for inspiration.
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Just as freely as people say “Merry Christmas” to everyone in the month of December - people wish everyone a “Happy Mother’s Day”. I’m not a mother in the traditional sense but in what the ORIGINAL “Mother’s Day Proclamation” was - I am a mother, woman, pacifist, feminist.
Julia Ward Howe’s “Appeal to womanhood throughout the world” (later known as “Mother’s Day Proclamation” was written in 1870 as a reaction to the American Civil War and the Franco Prussian War. She believed it’s WOMEN who have a responsibility to shape culture.
Sadly it began and ended quickly - in 1872 she tried again to get another Mother’s Day type peace movement going on June 2nd of every year - it didn’t catch on.
Another woman declared what is now the modern Mother’s Day celebration but it’s unrelated to a call for peace.
From Wikipedia here is the original Mother’s Day Proclamation”
Arise, then, women of this day!Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.” Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Jen Kirkman Email Blast Has Blasted! http://t.co/neVl0Tet3Y
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