"Most of our clientele knows it's a running joke"

August 28, 2023 12:53 PM

Rather than actually booking women stand-ups and comedians, a club in Quebec decided to take a different approach. The club owner made up a fictional woman and added her to the regular lineup (and then "cancelled" all of her appearances). But it's all fine. You see, this way, he is "promoting the cause" of women comedians.
posted by sardonyx (16 comments total)

Oh, for fuck's sake, another shitty AI story in addition to shitty dude story, to boot.

"Are we going to make more of an effort? No. Are we going to keep trying to help female comedians gain the same prominence as male comedians? Yes, we'll definitely help advance this cause," he said.

Wowwwwwwwwwww.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:09 PM on August 28, 2023 [8 favorites]

Quel con le mec. Here's Katherine Ryan [Canadian Comedian now based in UK] giving up "the Pink Seat" - always the same seat so as not to bamboozle the lads - on BBC's Mock The Week . . . to give other funny women a go. Pls pardon my French.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:09 PM on August 28, 2023 [9 favorites]

Last Thursday night at the Holly Bush (53 Newtown Lane B64 5EA) I hosted WOCEN Women of Comedy Empowerment Night. We had five women and five men and one woman comedian who drove 100 miles round trip just to watch it. Watch out, it's going to happen again. All comedians who wanted to be paid were paid.
posted by parmanparman at 1:20 PM on August 28, 2023 [9 favorites]

See now, the problem with working in comedy is that when you say "it was a joke" as a way to cover up your failings, all you've done is to add "incompetent at comedy" to your other failings.
posted by angrynerd at 1:27 PM on August 28, 2023 [60 favorites]

Seigneur, quel connard
posted by chavenet at 1:29 PM on August 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Connard is not a very Québecois insult, criss de cave would be the proper equivalent to what you wrote. The sentiment still holds.
posted by furtive at 1:39 PM on August 28, 2023 [13 favorites]

I can't believe a province that doesn't think blackface is a problem would be so hostile to female comedians. Huh.
posted by Kitteh at 2:30 PM on August 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

I watch women tell jokes because they're funnier -- the surprise of a punchline is greater for me -- than men. So many men doing stand-up sets are dull enough you might lip-sync as the joke progresses.

I'm sorry their audience was robbed of this delight.
posted by k3ninho at 2:33 PM on August 28, 2023

I watch women tell jokes because they're funnier -- the surprise of a punchline is greater for me -- than men.

I tried to get ChatGPT to write a comedy routine as though authored by Sonia Bélanger about this ridiculous situation. The results were very "hello fellow kids!" Cliched dad jokes. Insincere calls to action.

Then I asked ChatGPT to simulate Éric Gaudreault. This worked. "Let's not forget the constant calls for me to hire more female comics. Well, guess what? I didn't just hire one – I invented one. I went above and beyond the expectations." Smug sexist "jokes" are so devoid of creativity that five minutes with a chatbot can provide a passable simulation.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:42 PM on August 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Eh, they don't make the tromatricia anymore, so... Back when I lived near the Troquet, I don't think they had a comedy night.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 4:47 PM on August 28, 2023

I watch women tell jokes because they're funnier -- the surprise of a punchline is greater for me -- than men. So many men doing stand-up sets are dull enough you might lip-sync as the joke progresses.

I've been searching youtube for female or non western or ideally both comidians for the past few weeks for just that reason and it is so frustrating that the search will return a few but then every single recommendation afterwards is for some white guy with the occasional token minority ... guy. What the fuck dark recess of the algorithm would make you think a guy viewing a clip after searching for female minority standup wants their next viewing experience to be Joe Rogan?
posted by Mitheral at 6:22 PM on August 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

My YouTube feed has had some comedy show up in it because of my obsession with sharing Carrot in a Box with everyone I know (I miss Sean Lock so much), and much of it has been women. Taylor Tomlinson has been showing up a lot in shorts and I really enjoyed an interview she did with Conan.

Others I have been enjoying:
Fern Brady - standup is awesome and she is GREAT on taskmaster
Sarah Millican - she keeps getting funnier and funnier
Jordan Jensen
Laura Peek
Tig Notaro - she is so goddamned amazing and I thought she popped up on my YouTube feed because of a new special but its not out yet

Anyways I like that I’m actually hearing about new women comedians even though algorithm based feeds are a fucking trash fire in general.
posted by Skrubly at 10:58 PM on August 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

I think I have the exact same experience as you, Skrubly! I've watched Carrot in a Box entirely too many times, and I've got a steady stream of funny women in my recommendations, many of the same that you do.
posted by Harald74 at 12:01 AM on August 29, 2023

QI actually turned the whole question of women in comedy into a thing on one of their episodes. And I've also noticed that since Sandi Toksvig took over as host, the number of women featured on the show has gone way up.

My own Youtube algorithm feed is heavily British-comedy focused since I'm into QI - and I'm also into The Last Leg, so I'm seeing some comedians with some disabilities as well; a whole lot of Adam Hills, and I'm starting to see more Rosie Jones as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:41 AM on August 29, 2023

Blair Socci
Christina Catherine Martinez
Natalie Palamedes
Robin Tran
Sid Battle
Shalewa Sharpe
Michelle Buteau
Demi Lardner
Becky Lucas
Dana Donnelly

There's 10 hilarious female comics I can think of who are working right now and haven't been mentioned yet. That's just off the top of my head, without googling, and I am terrible at remembering names. I could do ten more. Frankly, I would struggle to do the same thing with current male comics. This club is out to lunch.

(Actually Dana Donnelly seems to have dropped out for a bit, but she's still hilarious and hopefully whatever is going on isn't permanent)
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:59 AM on August 29, 2023

What's kind of odd about this is that Le Troquet has actually often had women who actually exist on their bills. Not every bill, but if you look back through their event listings from previous years, there's often a couple of women in 6 act lineup. So if they were occasionally called out for having no women on a given bill, it seems like the better defense would have been, 'Here's my other many lineups in which I did have women.'

I think the idea of Pas de Fille Sur Le Pacing is probably best understood in a similar way to the Bechdel-Wallace Test -- not necessarily as a call out of a specific lineup or venue so much as a call out of the sheer volume of lineups that don't meet even the relatively low bar of having a single woman.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:00 AM on August 29, 2023