The joke's on us

By: Shana D. Lebowitz and Lital Shair

Posted: 3/4/08

"Teach your feminist daughters to fish," Lauren Antler said, "and they'll fight the patriarchy for a lifetime."

With impeccable comedic timing ,Antler delivered one punch line after another as she narrated her memories of growing up as the daughter of a modern-day feminist. The comedienne's chic, attractive appearance in a fashionably professional outfit and face-framing haircut was juxtaposed with photographs that captured a painfully awkward adolescence defined by giant glasses, bulky sweaters and being unavoidably one head taller than all of her friends.

Antler, daughter of Prof. Joyce Antler (WGS), was one of three comedians to perform at "I Thought It Was Funny: Gender… Race… Humor…," the annual Tillie K. Lubin Women's and Gender Studies symposium, held in a crowded Rapaporte Treasure Hall on Feb. 13.

Among the pieces of motherly advice that would have eased her tumultuous transition into womanhood, Antler told a highly entertained audience she wished she had known that "knee-high socks worn to bed do not count as lingerie."

The symposium consisted of a comedy performance and two panel events, "Perspectives on Humor" and "Comedians at Work," in which academics and comedians, some of them Brandeis alumni, offered new insights into the fine line between comic and offensive material.

Prof. James Mandrell (WGS), chair of the Women's and Gender Studies Department, said the controversy that occurred last year in the wake of an allegedly offensive advertisement in the humor magazine Gravity inspired this year's symposium.

Mandrell said prior to the symposium that he hoped the event would open up discussion on humor and its uses and implications.

"I think humor is a very tricky thing, and I think it opens up areas for misunderstanding and conflict," he said.

In dialogue interspersed with jokes and puns that panel members seemed unable to resist, Antler and comedians Oded Gross '93 and Micia Mosely '95 discussed their personal experience with offensive comic material, as well as the utility of comedy in opening dialogue about topics such as race and gender.

All three comedians said they draw much of their inspiration from humor related to their own ethnicities and religions.

Antler's latest stand-up comedy routine, based on her own life experiences, is titled "What to Wear When You're Fighting the Patriarchy: Lessons from the Daughter of a Jewish Feminist."

"I started doing comedy pretty much at the kitchen table," Antler said.

Once she started performing at standup clubs in New York City, where she has worked for more than 10 years, Antler says she began to search for humor in her own experiences.

"I realized I had the best material ever," she said. "My mother." Antler later referred to the active, empowered feminist as a "comedy goldmine."

Antler explained that comedy like hers has the power to expose realities in particular ethnic and religious communities.

"Comedy can bring to light important truths and make people feel uncomfortable about their situation," she said.

Yet Antler acknowledges that, while comedy can be insightful and enlightening, it is not intended to hurt people.

"There's a difference between offending somebody and making them uncomfortable," she said.

Mosely discussed her personal experience with the distinction between joking about ethnic stereotypes and being downright self-deprecating.

The New York City-based comedienne spoke to the audience with a dynamic energy and a natural grin that spread across her whole face.

While a student at Brandeis, Mosely says she was the "first and only person of color" in the improvisation troupe False Advertising.

At first, Mosely remembers, "I would make obvious jokes about my difference from my troupe-mates."

Yet Mosely ultimately recognized that, despite her ability to entertain audiences with what she calls "black jokes," making fun of herself and her ethnicity made her uncomfortable.

"Over time, I realized that wasn't really funny to me," Mosely said. "Wanting people to laugh at any cost-my own pride."

Now, Mosely said in an interview after the panel, she evaluates the motivation behind her comedy, and won't tell a demeaning joke if she feels she's "just trying to get a cheap laugh."

Although she still draws on her ethnicity for humorous subjects, Mosely said, "I avoid making fun of myself in a way that's self denigrating."

When discussing her comedic techniques at the symposium, Mosely was comfortable enough to joke about her own identity.

"I double majored in history and being gay," Mosely said during the panel, of her academic career at Brandeis.

Rather than simply playing into racial stereotypes, Mosely has developed a unique sense of humor based on her personal history and experiences.

Mosely says she "[sticks] close to home, to who I am. I carry my experience of being a black woman in America."

The comedienne said that humor can be useful in breaking racial barriers.

Her "larger work," she asserted, is to make it possible for people to appreciate the stereotypical humor of another ethnic community, so that people who aren't black can "laugh at a black joke."

Furthermore, even potentially offensive comic material helps broach dialogue about important social issues.

In regard to the allegedly offensive advertisement in Gravity last year, Mosely noted that a joke can be taken in different ways depending on who tells it.

For Mosely, comedienne Whoopi Goldberg exemplifies the comic's ability to educate and inform. Mosely said she looks up to Goldberg because she's able to "bring intelligence to her comedy."

Before moving to the stand-up stages of New York, Mosely combined her talents for comedy and teaching as a high school history teacher in California.

"At my core I'm an educator and a funny person," she said during the interview.

Mosely says she used her sense of humor to motivate students to achieve; she would make fun of students to make them question the reason for their problematic behaviors.

Her sense of humor was so successful in the classroom that Mosely says she still gets e-mails from former students.

Mosely's fellow member of False Advertising in the '90s, Oded Gross was thoroughly uninhibited in his comedy routine, in which he sang and played the piano to several satiric songs he wrote, and in his MySpace video "Just Found a Red Sock in the Laundry," shown during the panel.

Gross, who currently lives in Los Angeles, kept the audience trapped between gasps of shock and bouts of laughter as he delivered with blunt lack of inhibition his melodic reflections on sexually explicit material.

In an interview after the panel, Gross said that today, he is unafraid to use comedy to address sensitive social issues and says he rarely offends audiences. While at Brandeis, however, Gross says he was criticized for an allegedly offensive performance.

"I did stand-up my freshman year, a routine I'd never do now," he recalled. "It went over quite well. My sophomore year, I did the same routine, but I was more cocky." Gross said all he can remember about the incident is that the routine had something to do with "orange juice and sex."

Having learned from this experience, Gross warned, "You have to watch not only what you say but how you say it."

Gross has so far recorded two online videos that satirize the sensitive social issues of race and sexual orientation, "Just Found a Red Sock in the Laundry" and "It's All Because."

In the first, a Jew (Gross) and a black man sing a clever, creative song expressing that they don't fit in with the Ku Klux Klan; the second features a song in which Gross laments that all the problems in his life have been caused by gay people getting married.

"The video response has been very positive," Gross said.

In fact, Gross said "It's All Because" has been most appreciated within the gay community.

"The comments I've received have varied from the gay community thinking and saying this is a wonderful video to the homophobic community saying bad things," Gross said.

Gross appreciates comedy for its ability to satirize social prejudice. "Homophobia is the new, most recent racism," he asserted, likening the concept to discrimination against Jews or black people.

All three comedians remarked on comedy's powerful capacity to promote discussion, especially about sensitive and socially inappropriate issues.

"I use comedy to communicate stuff that I wouldn't be able to say in my day-to-day life," Gross told the panel's eager audience. "And when people laugh, it's like they're saying, 'I hear you.'"

Mosely and Antler explained that potentially offensive comic material, especially when the jokes pertain to race and social class, can prompt people to consider important issues they might otherwise be uncomfortable discussing.

"We are not practiced enough in having difficult conversations about power and difference," Mosely commented during the panel, implying that comedy fills the gap created by this absence of serious discussion.

Even when people get offended by jokes, explained Antler, this can be a positive step, because it stimulates uncomfortable but significant conversations.

Mandrell said he hoped the symposium would result in just that sort of necessary discussion and reflection by students. The symposium "was the beginning of a good discussion that I hope we can carry on in some way here at Brandeis," he said.

Current members of Brandeis comedy groups who attended the symposium said they especially enjoyed the opportunity to see Brandeis alumni perform and felt they could relate to several Brandeis-related stories and jokes.

"I love the fact that they were Brandeisian … it's like us way back then," said Jordan Warsoff '11, a member of the sketch comedy troupe Boris' Kitchen.

"They played off a universal sense of humor. The fact that [Mosely] referenced stuff we could relate to … made it funnier," said Amy Thompson '11, a member of the improvisational comedy troupe Bad Grammer.

Ultimately, Mosely was optimistic about comedy's potential as a concept that people from all backgrounds can appreciate.

Says Mosely, "Humor can unify us."