The Comedy Couch: JEN KIRKMAN

Guy Macpherson: You do occasionally still hear people say either women aren't funny, or you're funny — for a woman.

Jen Kirkman: Yeah, it's funny. Every once in a while a network will call me up and they'll be like, "Come to this audition. We can't find any funny women." I'm like, "I know a million!" This is what I think: A lot of the guys I first started with are successful, for whatever that means, either they're really wealthy or they're famous or simply just not working in day jobs but they support themselves. And that happened a lot sooner for them than it did for me. And I know a lot of other women who have this — when you're first starting out,you suck. I think for men, it's "oh, he sucks buthe'll get better. I'll give him a chance." And when you're a woman and you're first starting out and yousuck, it's because you're a girl. I knew guys starting out who sucked — we all did — who would get a clubspot, or a manager would still be interested in them. That's kind of a subtle... Because when people ask methey don't see funny women, and I feel like I know so many, I'm like, "Why do I see it and they don't?" I come up with all these theories. That might be one of them. We don't get the stage time.

GM: I have a theory. Hear me out. Because of the way our culture is, we need to be representative. So TV producers can't put all white male comics on a show. They need a woman, they need various ethnicities. So they might take somebody who isn't necessarily ready yet in order to fill the bill. So they might get elevated and put on a national show, and people would watch and see a diamond in the rough, or somebody who's just not ready to be on national TV, and go, "If she's the best woman you can find, women must not be funny."

JK: I think that's true, too. And that happened to me, actually. Six years ago I got on that show Premium Blend on Comedy Central. I had maybe been doing standup about three years. I was okay but really shaky, had never done TV. And they make you perform in front of it seemed like a thousand, but was probably more like 500 people. I bombed. It was terrible. I found out later that they had a woman quota to fill. And it was like, "Ugh, why did you do that?!" It just makes everyone look bad. I'm shocked that there wasn't another woman more talented at the time. It's interesting. But you know, the people that I know personally, that I hang out with, and that's a lot of comics, no one ever excludes me with, "You're a girl" or any of that crap. The most they'll say is... Like, these Channel 101 people that I got involved with, they're amazing and they're not sexist at all, but they're just like, "We're nerds, we're guys, we get together and write and when we write stuff, we realize, 'Oh shoot, we need a woman! We don't have one that we normally hang out with so we have to go and audition them.'"

The Comedy Couch: JEN KIRKMAN / September 12, 2006