Sunday, January 17, 2010

And Thank God She's Her

I've already discussed my deep affection for Wanda Sykes. You can check it out here if you want. It's short. And okay, here too.

I don't watch a lot of TV if you disregard my newfound passion for Wife Swap which I watch while I am giving Owen his early afternoon bottle. Yeah, Wife Swap. You wanna say something about that? Go ahead. I'll meet you in the parking lot. Bring your hair brush. (I totally stole that from Lis Williamson- thanks, honey!)

Anyway, last night I was eating a late-night bowl of soup and flipping through the channels and there was my girlfriend (of the mind), Wanda Sykes on her HBO special, I'ma Be Me. I sat there and watched the whole thing and laughed so hard that I was snorting and Mr. Moon complained that he couldn't nap in his chair because I was keeping him awake.

I couldn't help it. I just could not help it.

A good comedian is far more of a thinker and a message-bringer than anyone of us probably realizes. Think back to Richard Pryor. Think back to Roseanne. Think of Robbin Williams and please think of Wanda Sykes. Comedians, good comedians, make us laugh while they're making us think. They make us spit and snort with laughter while they're talking about the toughest things people can talk about.

I realized while I was watching last night that if it's hard to be a man comedian, it has got to be a thousand times harder to be a good woman comedian. Women in our culture are supposed to be, well, lady-like. Let's face it- it's true. And any woman who has the gall (balls?) to act more like a man is allowed to act is frequently reviled. Go ask Hillary Clinton if you don't believe me. Ask Roseanne if you don't believe me. Go back and think if Phyllis Diller and Fanny Brice.

Robbin Williams and Richard Pryor could be vulgar until the cows came home and people would just shake their heads and smile. Roseanne comes out with a "motherfucker" and they want to call HRS on her ass- she's a mother! Mother's aren't supposed to talk like that.
Well guess what? Mothers do.

And here's Wanda Sykes. She's a woman. She's black and gay and married. She's the mother of twins. And in her show last night she said that of all the things she is, being gay is the most difficult. By law, at least, a black woman is allowed to do anything anyone else can do....unless she's gay and wants to marry the woman she loves.
She said you never have to sit your parents down and say, "Mom, Dad, I need to tell you something. I'm...black."
No. That rarely happens. But a child (or a grown man or woman) who is gay invariably has to go through that very ritual. And trembles as he or she does. No matter how liberal or open-minded parents are, it can come as a shock to hear that a son or daughter is gay. Hey- Cher had a hard time with the fact that Chastity is now Chaz! Cher! The biggest gay icon in the known universe! So okay, transgendered is not the same as gay but you get my drift. A gay person has to ask for acceptance from everyone from her parents to her bosses to her peers to her co-workers to her church. And why? Because gay folks not only don't have the respect they should in our society, they don't even have the civil rights. That's just the plain truth. They do not have the rights us "straight" people have.
As Wanda said in her special, when we elected a (half) black president she felt like she'd slid up on the scale of society. Then Prop 8 got voted in and she was down below where she started. But it felt good to get it all out on the table, her gayness, her wife, her life.

She talked about everything from getting a bikini wax to rearranging the furniture to try and make her two-month old daughter quit crying. She talked about organ donation and she talked about our president and his wife. She talked about her stomach which she has named Esther and who does not like to be covered up in Spanx. She talked about Viagra. Oh, did she ever talk about Viagra. And I'm sorry- that was the part I laughed at the most and which Mr. Moon probably appreciated the least.
She demonstrated how an old lady, married for fifty or sixty years does the Dick-Done-Broke happy dance when finally the dick breaks. She's so happy. She can clean out the bedside table drawer of the lubes and put in her crossword puzzles. And then, the old man comes home with a little blue pill and she just caves in on herself and faces the fact that the dick ain't never gonna break. How when men have a problem with their dicks, that problem gets FIXED, while meanwhile, women are still dying of breast cancer.

She talked about how when she was going to do the Presidential Dinner for Obama, her agent told her she could not say either "fuck" or "nigger." And she said, quite indignantly, "You think I'd say those two words to our president?" And then she had to spend an hour rewriting her speech.

Ah, she talked about it all. And because the fool is cherished throughout history, the fool can say anything to the king because after all...he's just the fool. And so it goes and so it is that we love the fools who can and will say anything, risking their dignity and their fears to speak the truth and make us laugh when they say it. And make us think while we're laughing.

And if you're a woman- you risk being called vulgar and bitchy and butchy and mean while you do all of that but I think society needs the fools as much as they need the kings. Maybe more. If Richard Pryor wasn't a saint, I don't know who could be.

And I think Wanda Sykes is as saintly as St. Richard. If you get a chance, watch the HBO special. Settle back and be prepared to spit your beverage out of your nose. But don't just laugh- listen. Because she's speaking some powerful truths about what it's like to be an American, to be black, to be a woman, to be a mother, to be gay, to be married.

She can be your girlfriend, too. I'm generous that way. I say- share the love.
Share the truth. Share the laughter. Share the message.

And in my next lifetime (are you listening oh you gods of reincarnation?) I want to have the balls and the brains to be a comedian too. Go ahead. Make me whatever kind of human being you want- just give me what it takes to stand up there and be honest and make people laugh so hard while I'm doing it that their stomachs hurt the next day. To speak the truth and fear no man. Or church or government or prissy people who can't take the truth and want everything they hear to come out sounding like vanilla ice cream when sometimes what we all need is a good spicy dose of jalapeno. Or even habanero.

I'd rather be a fool than a lady.

And I guess that's the message from the Church of the Batshit Crazy on a Sunday morning in January. But if you want to hear a really good sermon, watch that special.

Amen and praise the Wanda.

24 comments:

  1. ha..i like wanda..lots..:-))))) so funny and cool..:-) didnt knew shad twins

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  2. **clapclap**!!! wonderful! she's awesome. i loved her sass on Curb Your Enthusiasm, even funnier next to Larry's neurotic priveledged white guy afraid/mad about everything

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  3. I LOVE her!!

    Oh, and while you speak of how women are supposed to be proper and ladylike, don't forget we're also supposed to be hot. On a related note, my favorite latest quote (from thefrisky.com): "The job of Surgeon General is to make health care and policy decisions for the country—not to look hot in a pair of skinny jeans."

    So we're supposed to be quiet and demure AND be eye-appealing to a Vogue model ideal. It's all good and well if you WANT to be all those things, but thank goodness for people like Regina Benjamin and Wanda Sykes who have some other important things to do (though I think they are both very beautiful).

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  4. I love Wanda Sykes. And, of course she used to work in DC, in govt. contracting. That, THAT, I would have loved to see.

    I think you are kinda already bringing the funny and the sass and the I-Don't-Give-A-Shit-A-tude now. No need for reincarnation.

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  5. I love anyone who has the guts and the articulation to speak the truth, and make you laugh in the process!

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  6. Amen and praise the Wanda! (And visualize my hands up in the air)

    Have you ever watched her speech at that press dinner in NYC -- I'm sure you can find it on YouTube -- it was awesome.

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  7. This made me of think of the lady on Fried Green Tomatoes..."Towanda!!!!" when she slammed into the car in the parking lot :)

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  8. black gay married AND a mother of twins???

    and I thought MY life was complicated!

    she sounds great- I'm off to google her immediately- thanks for the tip off!

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  9. I don't have television, but I have seen Wanda before, maybe on one of my stints in the hotel for work. (What else is there to do when you are on the road and in a shitty hotel room for the night but watch TV? Well, OK, order room service, drink out of the mini bar and watch TV.)

    Yeah, she's great. A real Bad Ass Whoa-man who just lays it right out on the line, kinda like you, Ms Moon, and like I can be in some of my best moments at work, talkin truth to power. And I am here to report, most of those bizzyness men just don't want to hear it, especially in the US. In my experience, strong women seem to be more accepted in Europe.

    You already had me snortin my beverage just reading this. Best Sunday sermon I've heard for a long time, like ever. Keep it up!

    x0 N2

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  10. All praise the Wanda, Hallelujah!!!!!

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  11. Danielle- Yep. She's the mama of twins. Her wife had the babies, I think. But Wanda's one of the mamas for sure.

    Maggie May- I know! I even dreamed last night that Larry David and I were buddies and he and I were taking some standardized test together and I told him, "You know, I really do love Curb Your Enthusiasm" and I know that came from watching this special and realizing how genius L.D. was to cast her in it. Oh yeah.
    And I adore her in the New Adventures of Old Christine- another show which I do watch when I remember.

    Nola- Amen, sister! I think men were so virulently anti-Roseanne because she was big and fat and cursed like a man. Which, of course, is why I adored her. "You get home at night and these kids are still alive, I'VE DONE MY JOB!"
    Of course, we have to consider that not only Roseanne but Phyllis Diller and Kathy Griffin have had a LOT of plastic surgery. So what does that say? We can't accept ourselves for our own natural and hard-earned gifts. WE ourselves think we have to be pretty too.

    Angie- Well, that's how church goes over here.

    Nancy C- But oh. I am a self-admitted stage-ho.

    Rachel- Yes!

    Elizabeth- I've watched parts of it. I want to watch the whole thing, though.

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  12. I think only certain people can be fools .
    Others are just arrogant self-righteous idiots .
    All praise to her , and others of her level.
    I think I am reserved. But honest. I don't have to curse , but do sometimes. But I don't care if someone else does. I'm kind of the church of whatever. Tolerance.

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  13. Praise the Wanda indeed.

    This was very funny, and I'm glad you had a good snorty laugh, even if poor Mr. Moon got the grumblies.

    xoxo pf

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  14. As you know we don't watch tv, but have caught her on the web several times and read about her enough to make me want to have her for a neighbor which is the greatest compliment I can pay to anyone. Why is it that in this country we have lost our common sense with our sense of humor? The speech Elizabeth was referring to was hysterically funny.
    We watched the entire thing on the web at the time and the reaction from some was completely moronic. Then again, one must consider the audience.

    Yes about making more mushroom, I am with Mr.Moon. I am making some this week so they get a chance to get "ripe". You are making me hungry!

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  15. Remember a few years ago when you bought one of her books (I think we'd only just heard of her) and we ALL read it? Good God, I have never laughed so hard at a book before or since, laughing so hard sometimes I had to put the book down, and then I'd pick it back up and start up again. Maybe I should see if the library has anything of hers, laughing that hard sounds good.

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  16. Deb- Well, I live to curse. But only appropriately. It's an art.

    Ms. Fleur- You would have loved it.

    Allegra- Yes! You, too, would have laughed. I feel sure. You understand the holiness of the fool. See if you can watch this one, too.
    As to the mushrooms- Lord! They are, speaking of holy, HOLY.

    May- I remember that! And where is my book? I wonder if it's hidden in the library or if someone else still has it? Remember her piece from Esquire? Nothing but the truth. I love you, baby.

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  17. I saw her special and so agree with you! Excellent post!

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  18. I love Wanda, too. I'll certainly watch it if I can get a hold of it.

    Love you!

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  19. please send more laughter.
    and mushrooms.
    visiting here is a warm cup of hope with a host of souls i have been longing for.

    for this and so much more,
    i am grateful.

    i just followed the (beading) stars and here i am.

    simple as that!

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  20. ha!
    I watched that same show on saturday night and I laughed my ass off, as well.
    she's brilliant. and she covers everything!
    I loved the part about the crying baby.

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  21. I'd just like to put in a word for old Rusty Warren back on the party LPs, and the groundbreaking taboo breaker Joan Rivers....still my idol. but Sykes is on top of my list these days. She's really so compassionate for what is real and so intolerant of bullshit.
    xoxo Charlie

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