You Can't Touch My Hair

by Phoebe Robinson

  In no particular order, here are just a handful of warnings/gripes I’ve heard about lady comedians from men during my nine years of doing stand-up comedy:

  “Women shouldn’t talk about periods because it’s gross.”

  “Women talk about relationships too much.”

  “There can’t be more than one woman on the lineup because then the audience will think this is some weird all-girl show and this is just a regular show.”

  “We had a woman perform at this club last year and she didn’t do too well, so we’re cooling it on booking women for a while.”

  “Women need to be pretty when they perform.”

  “Why do some women wear makeup on stage? Comedy is not about looks.”

  “Pretty women can’t be funny.”

  “Oh, that girl is funny. I wonder if she’s a lesbian because lesbians are really the only funny women.”

  “Women would get more spots on shows, but they don’t ask for them.”

  “I really hate when women ask for more spots on shows; it’s so pushy.”

  “No one wants to see a pregnant woman do stand-up because they’re worried she’s going to go into labor.”

  “Women comedians get further in their careers if they’re single or present themselves as single because then it gives male comics and industry people hope that they can fuck them.”

  “Women get into comedy to find a boyfriend and not to be funny.”

  “This girl’s a prude because she doesn’t bang any of the comics.”

  “She has sex with all the comics.”

  And so on and so on. Now, I’m not looking for empathy here. None of these statements are things that I can’t handle, but I think it’s fair to say that in this day and age, the fact that these sorts of sexist comments are still routinely uttered is ludicrous. For women comedians to still be functioning in a workplace that reminds them that the essence of who they are is not entirely welcome is mind-boggling. And furthermore, that the idea of owning who you are—dub Xs—and not shying away from it in your material is seen as a defiant, almost revolutionary act seems, well, a tad silly. Shouldn’t it no longer be “shocking” to hear a woman talk about her body other than in a “self-deprecating, please like me” way? Unfortunately, Olivia, the answer is still no. Getting into the nitty-gritty of the XX chromosome AF life is still seen as alienating even though folks like Margaret Cho and Wanda Sykes have shown that female audiences crave having their life experiences reflected back at them for years. So much of comedy is about us all realizing, Hey, maybe I’m not such a weirdo after all/Oh my God! You do that thing, too?/Holy crap, you just said everything I ever wanted to say, but didn’t have the tools to do so. The joy of seeing yourself in another is pertinent not just to stand-up comedy but to being alive.

  Seeing women like Margaret Cho and Wanda Sykes and Janeane Garofalo share their experiences empowered me to forge ahead, full throttle, and celebrate every part of me that I’m supposed to deny in order to make it in this business. In every facet of my career and my life, I embrace my womanhood and talk about it constantly. And so do my lady friends, because we are on a mission to normalize our experiences. We do things like women, and we’re proud of it. And I want you to be proud of it, Livvie.

  It’s important that you remember that, because throughout your life, people are going to imply that who you are is a worst-case scenario, or not interesting or worthy of discussion. It might be when you’re playing catch with some boys at school and you don’t throw the ball as far as they can. They’ll laugh and say, “You throw like a girl.” Or maybe you’re in a foot race and they’ll go, “You run like a girl.” You might cry in public because your feelings were hurt or because you fell down or because life is really, really freakin’ hard and you’ll be told, “Ugh, you’re such a girl.” “What a crybaby.” Perhaps you want to talk about uniquely female situations and boys will get grossed out and try to silence you. Instead of complying, Liv, lean into your “girlness.” Throw it in people’s faces that you are fully embracing everything they think is a flaw. Eat, cuss, laugh, feel, dance, fight, dress, think, love, and tell your story like a girl, which means do everything you intend to do with no regard for how people want you or expect you to behave. And if anyone has a problem with that, you can send them to me, and I’ll handle it like a girl: write a long Tumblr blog post about this person and anonymously post it on Reddit, so it goes viral.

  Love,

  Auntie Phoebe

  Letter #3: Your Parents Might Say They Didn’t Name You after Scandal’s Olivia Pope, but They Totally Did

  Dear Olivia,

  If our aunt/niece bond is going to be as dope as the one that Rosemary had with her nephew George Clooney (No lie, that dated reference is my go-to one for this kind of familial relationship. Fuck, I’m old), then I have to be completely honest with you. For like 0.0000000000000001 second after you were born, I was mad at you. You see, your parents called me after you arrived and they told me they named you Olivia. Little did they know that name was at the top of the list of baby names I have for my future kids, if I have any. Other names include Jordan, Chloe . . . and that’s it. So, I guess this is less a list and more like three names of ladies in a jankity girl group called Thrice as Nice. Still, I really loved Olivia, and when your parental units named you that, I guess the idea of my Olivia vanished. Gone was my daughter rocking the cutest braids, sometimes with beads at the end and other times like Moesha’s. Bye-bye to my freakishly talented daughter knocking strangers’ socks off. Adios to me cheering her on from the family-seating box while she competes at the US Open tennis tournament. Yeah, as I’m writing this out, I’m realizing that all these years I’ve just been daydreaming that I was Serena Williams’s mom. The point is that my fantasy Olivia had to disappear so I could welcome the reality of the “you Olivia.” So after being bummed—I swear it was for 0.0000000000000001 second—I was insanely happy because I get to be your cool aunt who lives in New York. I get all the fun of having a baby in my life with none of the responsibility. I get to send you presents and books and educational toys. I’m the one who gets to introduce you to cool music your parents don’t know about. When they’re tired, I’m still down for letting you use my body like a jungle gym and climb it for what seems like hours. We get to FaceTime and you put on a show, telling me all the new words you can say or what new stuffed animal best friends you have. Because I’m not around you every single day, I think it’s funny when you fart. I mean, it’s even kind of funny when you shart. Gross, but pretty funny. No matter what you do, I’m charmed and impressed by you. Because you’re doing so many of these things for the first time and I get to see how you see everything. How it’s all new and shiny and weird and funny and interesting. Seeing how you view the world makes me not the semijaded New Yorker I’ve become in a lot of ways. Seeing how you view the world makes me happy. Aah! A comedian expressing a genuine emotion and not following it with a joke. Full disclosure: That was really, really hard for me to do just then.

  Since the full disclosure train is in effect, I might as well disclose something else to you. Your parents may not admit that they name you after Scandal’s Olivia Pope, but they totally did. In case you aren’t aware, Olivia, in 2012, the highly addictive nighttime soap opera Scandal premiered on ABC and pretty much everyone dropped what they were doing to watch the show. Its main character, Olivia Pope, had it all: a killer wardrobe, her own lucrative business “fixing” the scandals of the Washington, DC, elite, and tons of #StruggleSex with the president of the United States (because in TV, the best way to illustrate an illicit couple in the throes of passion is to show them tugging at each other’s clothes like kids on cow udders at a county fair). More important, her character was not someone’s maid or the sassy best friend, as black women were so often depicted in pop culture. She was groundbreaking! So, as a result of Scandal’s insane popularity, more and more b
lack people named their daughters Olivia. While I don’t think Ms. Pope is the sole reason why your parents named you Olivia, the name must have gotten stuck in their brains. However, if we’re going to be real, as exciting and cool as Pope is, she’s kind of not the best role model; she constantly lies and covers up murders, but that’s all right. There are some aspects about her that are great. She runs her own company, owns her own apartment, is extremely intelligent, and most important, she has the best lip quivers in the business.

  While Kerry Washington seems to have toned down the LQs in later seasons, they were out in full force during seasons one and two and were used to signify when she was turned on, scared, or mad. It was during these early years of Scandal that I learned that in addition to having an IQ (mine is def twenty points lower due to my reality TV consumption) and an emotional quotient, everyone also possesses an LQQ, aka a lip quiver quotient. Unfortunately, my LQQ is still at minor-league status as it only happens when I’m singing along to Luther Vandross’s woo-woo-wooing on his Greatest Hits album, but I’m working on it. And you should, too, because, in my opinion, Washington’s lip quiver has officially dethroned Claire Danes’s ugly crying in Homeland as the ultimate dramatic facial expression. So it only makes sense that you get the basics down if you’re going to survive in this world.

  Let’s start with one that has a low degree of difficulty. It’s basically the base on which all other lip quivers are built. I call it the “My Roommate and I Are Grocery Shopping for an Upcoming Hurricane and She Makes Me Remove the Two Six-Packs of San Pellegrino Limonata and the Lorna Doone Cookies from the Shopping Cart Because They Don’t Count as Provisions.” It’s a subtle movement that lets people know you’re disappointed but not emotionally broken. If you want to take it to the next level, I suggest the “I Was Chilling at Home Alone and Got Freaked Out Because I Heard a Strange Sound, but It Turns Out That Noise Was Just My Laptop Cord Sliding off My Desk” LQ. I like this one because it requires heavy breathing, so I count it as cardio on my Fitbit. Plus, this kind of lip quiver is versatile. You can use it in when a friend of yours is showing off her brand-new iPhone 7 when she knows doggone well that she owes you $37. Or when you’re trying to get into an elevator and catch someone pressing the door-close button on you. It even works when you’re insulted that a friend decides to round everyone up to leave because it’s 2 A.M. and she’s sick of doing karaoke. Basically, when in doubt, use this lip quiv.

  Now that you know some of the basics and can serve Olivia Pope face, you must serve her fashion. This is tough to do because 1. her wardrobe is designer and very expensive, and 2. because a lot of it is white, it’s super impractical in real life and after one day of walking the streets of Cleveland, your white duds will look like Daniel Day-Lewis’s coal-miner character in There Will Be Blood. Might I suggest as an alternative to Pope’s mostly white- and cream-colored wardrobe wearing whatever affordable and nonwhite clothes your mom buys you because you don’t have a damn job? And when you do start working, if I find out you’re spending your hard-earned money on a $1,000 white trench coat instead of putting it into a savings account, I will hide all your curl cream, so your hair will be frizzy for a week.

  Speaking of hair, Pope’s is incredible. When she’s at work, it’s sleek, shiny, and straight. When she’s on vacation with a hot dude, it’s effortlessly curly. Mimic that devotion to your mane. I know it’s going to be tempting to let your beauty regimen go when you’re on a trip. Don’t fall for this temptation. I have before, and I wound up looking like the “Before” in a late-night weight-loss infomercial. Now, I’m not saying spend hours trying to look bomb AF when you visit your family during college break, but it won’t kill you to do your hair in a recognizable style that’s not “haystack in a barn.” Besides, when you’re on vacation, you’ll never know who you’re going to bump into, so you want to always be, as the kids says, “Stuntin’ on these heauxes,” aka looking fly.

  About this whole looking-fly thing. Forget Pope’s awesome hair and killer wardrobe. What truly makes her spectacular is her strut. Whether she is heading to an afternoon delight session with the president or marching toward a client who double-crossed her, her walk is fierce. If you can master this walk, it almost doesn’t matter what else you got going on. Hell, you can look fly in a pair of pajamas while you’re shopping at Sam’s Club if you, like Olivia Pope, turn every walking opportunity into a Victoria’s Secret fashion runway. This sounds harder than it actually is. It’s really just a simple formula:

  The leadership power walk of Harriet Tubman leading slaves through the Underground Railroad − H. Tubs’s intensity + the chill vibes of Snoop Dogg after he just smoked a blunt. Meaning, each of your steps is purposeful, but you’re not breaking a sweat. (Side note: When you are making Black History Month presentations in school, be sure to not include Harriet Tubman and chill vibes in the same sentence.)

  So how are you feeling about all this, Livvie? Good, I hope, because with these four Pope-isms—lip quivers, wardrobe, hair, and strut—you’re well on your way to becoming the best Olivia you can be.

  Love,

  Auntie Phoebe

  Letter #4: Don’t Forget about Your White Side!

  Dear Olivia,

  I know I’ve been writing a lot about black-lady stuff, but we have to switch gears because you’re half-white! And you should celebrate that, which is something society makes very difficult for mixed people. No matter what anyone says, I want you to remember and recognize your white side. Normally, this would be when I start giving you a bunch of advice about white life, but since I’m browner than a plate of chicharrónes, I’m bringing in guest writer John Hodgman, who is a fellow comedian-actor-author (check out his work on The Daily Show, please!), is quite the dandy (seriously, this guy always dresses like a businessman customer of Sweeney Todd’s), and because he is a straight white dude, knows everything that’s awesome about being white, including how people are impressed when he can spit the first sixteen bars of “Rapper’s Delight.” Ugh. Literally everyone knows that song, so color me unimpressed. Anyway, my friend John is super smart, hilarious, and you should trust everything he’s about to tell you.

  Dear Olivia,

  My name is John Hodgman. I am a friend of your aunt Phoebe’s. I’m on television sometimes.

  A couple of years ago I had lunch with my friend Wyatt in Brooklyn, where we both live. After lunch I realized that there was an errand I had to run nearby. In this part of Brooklyn, there is a gourmet mayonnaise store, and I was commissioning a small run of special mayonnaise for an art project of mine.*

  “Let me just go into the store and see how my private mayonnaise label is coming along,” I said to Wyatt. And he said, “Sure.” Wyatt is great.

  Like a lot of new businesses in this part of Brooklyn, the gourmet mayonnaise shop was new, spare, and clean. Behind a glass window you could see into the mayonnaise lab so you could watch a man with a beard emulsify their perfected mayonnaise formula.

  On a whiteboard behind him was the chemical notation of a certain molecule. I’m guessing a mayonnaise molecule.

  At the front counter I spoke with the proprietress of the mayonnaise company, a charismatic woman with interesting tattoos and an interesting asymmetrical haircut who played in an art rock band at night. She showed me some sample labels for my custom run of mayonnaise, and I approved one. Before we left, we tried some of their new truffle-flavored mayonnaise.

  And then we walked back out into the day of Brooklyn and what I considered to be a totally normal afternoon. But Wyatt stopped for a moment and blinked a couple of times thoughtfully. “I don’t normally mention this kind of thing,” he said, “but that was probably the whitest experience I ever had.”

  Now, Wyatt is black, and I am white, and his comment really took me by surprise. It took me by surprise in the way white people are constantly being taken by surprise. How could you consider something about my life being
anything but totally ordinary and right? After all, I am a white person. Better than that, I am a straight white man, which for a long time in American culture equaled default human.

  But that is changing. We are hurtling within this century toward the moment when those of us who are traditionally considered “white” will be a minority in this country. I say “traditionally considered white” because, of course, whiteness is made up. Like “black” or “Latino” or “Asian,” or “Native American,” “white” is just a clumsy catchall for a whole bunch of distinct points of origin, ethnographic groupings, cultures, and histories.

  But historically, “white” is a catchall with one very important, toxic difference, in America especially: We’re the good ones. The normal ones. The not yous. Even if we’re poor, even if we’re servants, even if we have no education, even if we’re Jewish, we’re the ones you can’t enslave. We’re the ones you can’t beat without repercussion, who get to vote, and are protected by laws no matter what.

  OK, again I’m mostly talking about white men here. But you get the idea: For a long time we were the culture that never had to explain itself, justify itself, account for itself. Of course I’m going to spend the day in an artisanal mayonnaise store. Why should that even surprise you?

  Unfortunately, white culture is not just people with college degrees making white condiments in white rooms with whiteboards because they got seed money from probably white friends. In fact, a lot of white culture is pretty ugly. It’s done harm to a lot of people. And it’s ugly right now as I write this. At the time of this writing, Donald Trump seeks the Republican nomination supported largely by a bunch of angry white people who sense where history is going and DO NOT LIKE IT AT ALL and are therefore hoping that if they punch and shove enough brown people, it will fix it. Perhaps when you read this, Donald Trump will be president or maybe superking. But even if that happens, he shall pass. Time does not go backward.