Local Ladies Who Make Us Laugh (2012 Edition)

We suppose it’s a small sign of improvement that a recent National Post story—the latest of many articles to denigrate and disparage “women in comedy”—never once claimed that “women aren’t funny.” Instead, it said that women have “almost no choice” but to portray themselves as “unattractive, sexually unappealing and self-deprecating” in order to succeed as comics, citing as examples Debra DiGiovanni and Nikki Payne, two of the best working stand-up comics in the country.

Notwithstanding the fact that all comics use self-deprecation as a method of establishing a rapport with audiences (because someone claiming to be perfect is only funny ironically), this half-baked assertion presumed that just because DiGiovanni and Payne may not have the attributes required of fashion or swimsuit models, they don’t have admirers. Judging from the volume of comments on the article lambasting it, that’s definitely not the case.

Read full article on the Torontoist by