I said two words — vagina and sex,” says Anshita Koul, “and everybody in my home town, including my family, was shocked.”

Koul was talking about her participation in Queens of Comedy, an India-based reality show for female comedians. “At least I have an equation with my family,” she adds. “There is always dialogue, even when it gets really awkward.”

On social media, though, it was made clear to her that she had crossed an invisible line by joking about her sexual frustrations in a long-distance relationship. Her largely Kashmiri audience on Instagram and YouTube was surprised and shocked to see her speak about her private life.

“There is no sex education in school,” she explains. “So talking about it is a big deal.”

Especially when women are doing the talking.

Female comedians being underrepresented and heavily content-policed is, of course, hardly limited to India. But there are some distinct circumstances in the country, including a censorship board that often influences what women can do onscreen–and who can make the jokes.

Movies in India need to be certified by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which contributes to reduced female representation, particularly when a woman’s sexuality is not created for the male gaze. Most recently, we saw this with the banning of Lipstick Under My Burkha, a black comedy on sexuality and oppression, which was released to worldwide acclaim but was heavily delayed and censored in the country in which it was made.

In light of these regulations, the internet has become an important vehicle for female comedians to be heard, even when their humor falls outside the bounds of conventional acceptability. Because there are no official censorship guidelines for video-streaming websites, online platforms are finally bringing about a way to tell women’s stories that are not conceptualized and approved by men.

This lack of censorship is happening at a time when more people are accessing online video content than ever before. In the past two years, high-speed internet connections on smartphones have become affordable for a large section of the Indian population. In 2017, India had more than 300 millionsmartphone connections and over 80 million users for video-streaming applications. The market was valued at $280 million in December 2017.

This proliferation of smartphone usage has been a boon to women in particular, providing them the autonomy and privacy they often need to access boundary-pushing comedy online. And that comedy, in turn, is expanding at an exhilarating rate.

In December 2016, Amazon launched Prime Video in India and signed up 14 stand-up comedians to create original content for their platform. When a talk show host asked a panel of comedians about the complete absence of women in the line-up, the men suggested that it was simply a result of women not having one hour of content.

It was a while before the lone woman on the panel, Aditi Mittal, got an opportunity to speak. Mittal was later offered a stand-up special by Netflix, which she titled The Things They Wouldn’t Let Me Say. Her routine included sets on buying bras, street harassment, and breast cancer awareness.

Black Female Comedy Writers Talk The Whitewashing Of American TV
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Mittal is among a growing cohort of Indian women connecting to an increasingly-online savvy audience. For her part, Queens of Comedy’s Koul has focused on changing the narrative of her hometown of Kashmir, which is largely only in the news as a contentious flash point between two nuclear neighbors — India and Pakistan. In her comedy, Koul talks about the region’s street food, Kashmiri slang, and most parents’ deep desire to turn their children into engineers. One of her more popular videos is a satire on the excessive attention given to a son-in-law when he visits his wife’s home.

Another groundbreaking comedian is Prajakta Koli, who runs a successful YouTube channel called “Mostlysane” with over 1.3 million subscribers. Koli creates content about dating, grooming, drinking, and college examinations.

Most of the material is simply a funny view of everyday life, but Koli comes out strongly in support of some causes. Last year, in June, she released a music video called “Shameless” that begins with the protagonist in the prison of body shaming. The song has been viewed over 3.5 million times.

A popular video by “Girlyapa,” meanwhile, offers a lighthearted take on periods in a country where menstruation is associated with a number of taboos. Conversations about periods are almost non-existent in most homes, and women are expected to hide their “condition” from the men in the family.

On International Women’s Day last year, Girlyapa also released a video about a girl telling her conservative mother that she isn’t a virgin. In the past year it has been viewed over 6 million times. Girlyapa’s video would have been deeply contentious if it had aired on television, or if the conversation had appeared as part of a mainstream movie.

Tellingly, major production houses are now starting to cash in on the action, too. The Y-films subsidiary of Yash Raj Films — one of the largest and most profitable Bollywood movie companies in India, which has made immensely popular movies propelled by female propriety and “family values” — recently released a comedy called “Ladies Room” online. The video features two female protagonists battling plumbing, pregnancy, policemen, landladies, bosses, and career changes in a series of six restrooms.

How Badass Women Are Reinventing Comedy For The Digital Age
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And it’s not just unknown performers who are changing women’s comedy: Well-known celebrities are finally getting involved as well.

In July 2017, a short film written by Radhika Anand and Akanksha Seda and uploaded on YouTube featured three women who regularly appear in Bollywood movies. Titled Khaaney Mein Kya Hai (What’s for lunch?), the video uses the allegory of cooking to describe sex and desires. It has been viewed more than 6.7 million times in the past year.

Most significantly of all, this openness online has seemingly inspired more provocative content in mainstream Bollywood. In February of this year, Pad Man, inspired by a social activist who introduced low-cost sanitary pads to his Indian village, was released theatrically on Valentine’s Day, starring Bollywood A-lister Akshay Kumar. One of the promotional events was a campaign on social media where celebrities posed with a pad — an attempt to help people shed their awkwardness about menstruation.

These are all important steps forward, though as Koul is careful to point out, “Our conditioning is so deeply ingrained. It is not going to change overnight. But talking about it and being open to change are good beginnings.”

Meanwhile, female comedians push on. On Queens of Comedy, Koul and her fellow performers joke about about body hair, creepy attention on the street, religious stereotypes, unfair laws, body envy, sex-ed for suicide bombers, and more. Many of the episodes have quickly racked up half a million views on YouTube, including those with dark and controversial content.

Producers, Koul says, have informed her that the program may be censored on TV. But that won’t stop it from reaching a wider audience, for one simple reason: Online, the content will appear entirely unedited.

Lena Waithe. Leslie Jones. Tiffany Haddish. Robin Thede.

Over the last few years, the list of recognizable Black women comedy writers has started growing — finally — thanks in large part to crucial conversations fostered by social campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite, #EmmysSoBlack, and #SheReady.

But — no surprise here — there’s still an incredibly long way to go.

While Lena Waithe was the belle of the ball at this year’s Primetime Emmy Awards by becoming the first Black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing (for the brilliant Master of None episode “Thanksgiving”), we must not forget the troubling fact that she was also the first Black woman ever nominated for the award.

And while Robin Thede is now hosting her own late night show (The Rundown with Robin Thede, which premiered October 12), we similarly must not forget that she is the only Black woman doing so, and one of only a handful of Black women who’s ever been given this opportunity.

Given our country’s current socio-political landscape, the need for and potential impact of Black women comedy writers is greater than ever — which means we must continue to further the dialogue, to fight for change.

To keep the conversation going, I interviewed four Black women comedy writers to discuss their unique brands of funny, diversity in the writer’s room, the Emmys, and what it’s like to work in television as a Black woman. Our illustrious panel includes:

Actor-Comedian-Writer Ashley Nicole Black

Emmy winner (Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special) for her writing on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.

Writer Amber Ruffin

Writer for Late Night With Seth Meyers and Comedy Central’s Detroiters.

Actor-Writer Diona Reasonover

Writer for I Love Dick and Adam Ruins Everything

Comedian Janelle James

NYC comic who tours with Chris Rock’s Total Blackout Tour 2017.

Some of their answers might surprise you.

Has the dearth of Black women writers in Hollywood impacted your comedy writing career? If so, how?

Diona: Uh, well just to be super clear about it — there’s a dearth of people who have been employed, but not a dearth of writers. I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t felt like a diversity hire, but I think that’s an unfair way to view myself and also to view the show, because if you look at people as if they’re doing this because they don’t really don’t want to hear what you have to say, then that will come through in the performance that you give.

Amber: Sure. Years ago, Black people were more — we were what white people thought we were, and now everything seems so groundbreaking, and it’s just because it’s Black people as Black people see Black people. Every time you see it it’s shocking and uplifting and it feels great.

Ashley: I feel very lucky to have been ready for this job at the time that Hollywood was ready for me. I have a lovely handful of amazing Black women writers I look up to and am lucky enough to call friends that I can go to for advice and support. If I’d gotten into the business even a year or two earlier, I wouldn’t have had that.

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I’d be lying if I said that I haven’t felt like a diversity hire, but I think that’s an unfair way to view myself.
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How is your comedy unique? Which part of the Black experience do you write about and why?

Janelle: I’m doing Black girl comedy to white people, which can sound fucked up. I’m unique in that I don’t change or magnify my blackness to perform for white people, while some people — I don’t wanna say they’re doing a caricature, because that’s what they think white people expect.

I’m not really trying to appeal to the ever present white, male, 18–35 demographic that every network says they’re marketing to, although they are my fans. That’s also bullshit: ‘Oh, you’re Black, you’re a woman, you’re older; you won’t really appeal to them.’ It feels like only other Black people will take a chance on other Black people.

Ashley: I write about the issues that emotionally impact me. So often that is things that impact women and people of color. But really anything that makes me angry, or sad, I can turn into comedy.

Diona: What makes my comedy unique is that it really isn’t. I love multi-cam. That’s what I know how to do because that is what I grew up watching. I don’t know that any of us are as unique as we think we are. If you look at TV, it’s like people in their twenties and thirties trying to figure life out. There isn’t as much diversity in the human experience as we would think.

Amber: I’m unique in that I’m the type of person who is having a great time, all of the time. I don’t think that there are a lot of positive views of the Black experience. It [being Black] feels great. After the election, everyone was sad, and yes, I was sad, and I also felt freakin’ great. With every terrible thing, everyone can see what we’ve been talking about all along. Now we’re all on the same page.

How would adding more Black women writers into TV writer’s rooms affect those rooms, as well as the shows that make it onto TV?

Ashley: Audiences are made up of every type of person, so it only makes sense for writer’s rooms to also be made up of a diverse group of people who can properly represent a wide variety of experiences. People are very hungry to see themselves reflected onscreen. I remember when Grey’s Anatomy came out. I cried watching the pilot. It was the first time I’d seen characters on television that were like me. I was in college. Some people have waited even longer than that.

Janelle: It would hopefully pull in more diverse viewership and maybe we’d have less cringeworthy moments like when minorities are talking, and a Black person is watching and saying, ‘A Black person did not write this.’

The face of the show has to be different if you want more minorities to be in the room. Seth Meyers has the most Black women writers in late night. When they write something, he has those writers come out and say it. He doesn’t try to say it. It’s not his voice. Why don’t they [these women] have their own shows?

Diona: I hope that I will never see a thing that drives me absolutely insane: Black women going to sleep with nothing on their heads. It gets baffling for me — you had nobody, you didn’t have a costume designer, a friend, no one to tell you how we go to sleep? Something as simple as that. You don’t know how we go to sleep, and we’re supposed to trust you with our emotional arc?

How did you react when you learned that Lena Waithe won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series?

Ashley Nicole Black: I started a standing ovation! I figured when you say, “first Black woman…” regardless of what the rest of that sentence is, I’m standing and clapping. It wasn’t until I was nominated last year that I realized how few people of color have been nominated for and won writing Emmys. And it’s not for lack of talent! It’s for lack of producers having the desire to hire more diverse writing rooms. For the record, Full Frontal has the most diverse late-night writer’s room and we were nominated for an Emmy in our first year, and won in our second! Diversity: It’s a winning strategy!

Janelle James: Yeah, I’m a narcissist. It didn’t impact me in any way….It’s still white people deciding if you’re funny. My ultimate goal is stand-up, to become a Chappelle, a Wanda Sykes.

Diona Reasonover: So I had turned on the Emmys. I was so excited. I had watched the episode. It is such a good episode. I definitely relate to it. I’m also queer. I’m waiting on the category. My TV starts messing up. It froze right there: right when Gina Rodriguez and Shemar Moore came on screen. So I did not find out ’til the next day, and when I did, I was not shocked. She deserved it.

Amber Ruffin: I voted for her! I thought it was beautiful. I didn’t realize that she was the first. I mean, fuck. It’s still happening, Chanté, it’s still — people are still firsts. It is shocking. I don’t believe that there are all of these firsts because we haven’t been good enough. I think that there are all these firsts because people never saw themselves. I think people of color don’t dream big, and white people do. I certainly never thought I’d be where I am…. And I think that that is very silly. I think a lot of Black people feel that way, and I think that every time we see a Lena Waithe, you’re like, ‘Oh, woah, wait a second,’ and then the perception of your whole world changes.

Why do you think that Black people don’t dream as big as white people?

Amber: Just society, the way we’re portrayed in media, society’s expectations of us. It is also safer not to put yourself out there ’cause if a Black person puts themselves out there and fails, people are like, ‘How dare you even think that you could do this?’ But if a white person fails, it’s ‘Better luck next time, kiddo!’

Why do you think that Lena’s nomination was the first time a Black woman was nominated in the comedy writing category?

Janelle: First, it took a minority [Aziz Ansari] to hire her. The whole thing with hiring women of color, people of color — when you’re trying to apply for these jobs, if the head of the show is a white man, if the face of the show is a white man, we have to know how to write in white man speak, and some of us can’t do that.

She [Lena] was able to tell her own story, and that made it authentic, but if we don’t have the opportunity to tell our stories, then we won’t win awards.

Ashley: Television has always been a boys club, and comedy perhaps more so. You can’t get nominated if you don’t get a writing job in the first place. There have been so many studies that show that the more the makeup of the creative team looks like the makeup of the country, the more successful shows and movies are. But we’re still waiting for Hollywood to decide to take advantage of the creativity and moneymaking power of artists of color. We know the audience wants it!

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Television has always been a boys club, and comedy perhaps more so.
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Diona: I have, honest to God, no reason. There’s no reason for it. There was so much talent, and there wasn’t enough recognition of it. For whatever reason, the people who are in charge just overlooked people for years. I’ll tell you why it’s not: It’s not because there wasn’t enough talent, or because the stories weren’t there, or because people weren’t ready. Definitely people were overlooked, overlooked people who deserved it. That’s all I got….Maybe a little misogyny?

How can our readers support Black women in comedy?

Amber: Consuming what we put out there. It’s also sharing what we put out there. Every Black comedian I know about, I know because someone posted it on Facebook, ’cause it’s not like everybody is out there promoting us. We are aware that if I don’t post this, nobody’s going to know. If I don’t promote it, nobody’s gonna know. A lot of us know each other, and a lot of us are rooting for each other. That’s why when Ashley won, it was a win for us. Black female comedy writers are still so new that we all benefit from everything.

Diona: Watch our stuff. When you hear about a new Black female writer, watch her stuff. If you want to support Black women in comedy — as controversial as it sounds — don’t just watch Black women in comedy. Watch Southeast Asian women in comedy, watch queer people in comedy, watch disabled people in comedy. The more you support diversity, like, across the board, the more diversity there will be.

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It’s not because there wasn’t enough talent, or because the stories weren’t there, or because people weren’t ready.
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Ashley: Watch our shit! Someone did a study and the majority of people follow mostly white men on Twitter. Make it a point to follow more women and people of color and then like and RT their shit when you enjoy it. If there’s a Black woman serving you jokes and truths on the reg on Twitter, amplify her voice! Go see her live when she does shows. Studios still aren’t convinced that there is a market for our comedy so, if you’re in that market, be loud about it.

Janelle: Stop being cheap. Stop expecting free entertainment; I know that’s a thing now. Support Black writers the same way you support Transformers and The Avengers. When you see a minority putting out work, know that they probably spent their own money to do it. If you want to see more, you gotta fucking support us. People will be like, ‘Give us more!’ but when it’s time to pay $4.99…

Who got next? (Whom should we keep our eyes out for, and why?)

Diona: Yamara Taylor. She writes on Black-ish. She’s wonderful. She’s talented. She’s funny.

Janelle: Issa Rae. It’s their [Insecure’s] first year, so you don’t expect a nomination. Maybe Michaela Coel of Chewing Gum. There are shows like Seth Meyers; If Seth wins, they all win.

Ashley: Great question. Robin Thede’s new show The Rundown will be out soon on BET. And I can’t wait to watch it. Frankly I’m shocked that Amber Ruffin doesn’t have her own late night show yet. I don’t know what networks are waiting for. She’s killing the game!

Amber: I want next. I’ll take next!

What’s next for you?

Amber: I’m writing for Detroiters on Comedy Central.

Janelle: I have an album, Black and Mild, that dropped September 29. I’m also writing for The Rundown with Robin Thede on BET.

Diona: I have a knee surgery coming up.

You can catch me guest starring in a new show, Future Man, on Hulu and writing for I Love You, America, also on Hulu.

Ashley: Right now I’m just trying to find the perfect place in my apartment to put my Emmy!

(Credit: Adam Davis)

In honor of the premiere of United Shades of America, we’re re-posting this interview with W. Kamau Bell from The Establishment’s own debut in October. You can catch Kamau “as he explores the far corners of our country and its various groups and subcultures” on CNN tonight at 10 p.m. EST.

Known for his biting social commentary and criminally short-lived TV show Totally Biased, W. Kamau Bell is a comedian based in the Bay Area. Soon to host United Shades of America on CNN, he also co-hosts the “Denzel Washington is the Greatest Actor of All Time Period” podcast with fellow comic Kevin Avery.

I sat down with Kamau to talk about his life back on the West Coast and in the stand-up scene, and his hopes for the future of comedy.

Kamau Bell On Twitter

Kamau: I’m not on Twitter much. I’m like, “I don’t have the time to tweet this” — which is a crazy thing to say because it’s 140 characters. But it’s like, I don’t have the time to think of all the possible ramifications of this tweet. You can spend a half hour sitting there trying to figure it out. Then you tweet it, and nobody retweets it, and you’re saying, “Why did I spend all this time?”

And then you tweet, “Oh, I don’t know, maybe vanilla ice cream is tasty?” and it’s “AAHH WHAT ARE YOU SAYING ABOUT VANILLA?”

On Being A Black Comedian In A White, Male Environment

Kamau: Because I live outside of LA and NY, I’m not in that comedy backroom conversation — I’ve been in it, when I came up. But now the only time I feel like I’m in that “oh this is comics being . . . comics” environment is when I’m going to comedy festivals.

For example, I just did the Bentzen Ball in DC, it’s a great festival — those people know what they’re doing. The first night I was there I was not performing and I just went to a show — Tig [Notaro] was hosting, Janeane Garofalo was there, Bill Burr was there, lots of great comedians. So I just started hanging around the thing and I had this weird sense of loneliness.

Sometimes I’m like, “It’s weird that we all have ‘comedian’ on our W2 forms,” because I do feel different from other comedians. In a way I imagine Ani DiFranco and Iggy Azalea; they both say “musician” on their forms but nobody really lumps them together the way we lump comedians together. You don’t go to a show and say, “First I’m gonna see Ani DiFranco and then Iggy Azalea.” I mean, that would be quite a show. And that doesn’t mean either one of them [is better] — you can like who you like. But with comedy, there’s that sense that we can all be together.

The next night I was on the Blaria show, hosted by Phoebe Robinson and Jessica Williams — they were on stage for five minutes and I was like, “THIS IS THE BEST SHOW I’VE EVER SEEN.” It was speaking to me in a way that comedy doesn’t speak to me that often. It doesn’t mean that what happened the night before was bad, it just means that I was sort of missing that sense of connection, that “we’re all in this and we’re coming at this from the same angle,” in a way that white male comedians feel quite often. They think that’s just comedy. Then when they go “Blah blah blah blah racist, offensive, sexist statement” and somebody goes, “ahem” they go “Well that’s what comedy is!” and I’m like, “No, that’s what your comedy is. I’m not trying to take away your comedy, but let’s just know that your comedy is in a box. It’s not all comedy. It just happens to be a big box, because America. Hashtag white people.”

On The Inherent Adolescence Of Comedy

Kamau: Part of the reason why you become a comedian is because you are living in a bit of arrested development. My daughter right now is four, and if you just take any of her books and swap out all of the real words with “pee pee” and “poo poo,” she’ll be on the floor. I recognize that, and I do it for her, even though my wife’s like, “ugh god,” because it makes me laugh to see her laugh like that. That’s in me, to have that sophomoric humor — that’s what got me into comedy, saying the things that are not supposed to be said.

This is a long way of saying, I’m always gonna laugh at pee and poo jokes. It doesn’t mean I’m gonna tell them. But I might one day tell one good one.

On Bad Comedy In The Age Of Social Media

Kamau: I don’t think we should get rid of bad comedy. I don’t want to ever be put in a position where I’m afraid of making a bad joke, and that can happen sometimes in the 21st century. You don’t want to reveal something about yourself personally that might actually be problematic. Trust that I’m trying to reveal something about myself. And that doesn’t excuse it. You can be offended by what you are offended by. I don’t want to take that away from anyone. Just don’t take away my right to be a bad comedian.

On The Need For Forgiveness For Problematic Comedians

Kamau: I look at my act from like five years ago and 10 years ago and there are things that are on record that I’ve said and done that I wish I could scrub but I can’t. Having said that, part of that was growth. I wasn’t a 42-year-old dude with two kids.

I think that a lot of what happens in stand-up comedy is that the biggest part of the population is dudes in their late twenties without kids or family obligations. So you can step on stage and say all the crazy shit you want because at the end of the day you’re just going to the diner and the bar, and then home to your Xbox. Nobody’s going to look you in the face and say, “You realize now that you said that we can’t pay the mortgage?”

That responsibility doesn’t make you a lesser comedian. The more context you build around comedy, the better it is. Louis CK admitted he got funnier when he had kids. When people see him before that, he was more absurdist.

Ijeoma: I think it’s interesting, because a lot of comedians get backlash for things they’ve said in the past, like if you look at when Trevor Noah was announced for the Daily Show . . .

Kamau: Yeah! And he’s like the best version of a dude who’s in his late twenties. He was a famous dude, but he was also 25, traveling around the world, on his phone, trying to get some.

Ijeoma: Sliding into people’s DMs.

Kamau: <laughs> Yeah, I’m sure, I’m sure there are some people who can tell some stories. But he wasn’t building himself toward the Daily Show. He was building a career and it ended up being the Daily Show. When that happened with Trevor Noah, I was like, “You know, let’s not all pretend that in 2009 we knew that everyone was going to go through all our tweets.” That doesn’t mean you can’t be offended. If you are offended, please be offended and say something about it. But there’s also a context there.

Ijeoma: It seemed like there was a war. There were people who were like, “Trevor Noah is transphobic. Trevor Noah hates women.” Then there were others saying to them, “You are what’s wrong with comedy. You are destroying comedy. Why do you hate freedom?”

Kamau: <laughs> There’s a space in there! There’s a space where we can talk about these things without putting up middle fingers.

Ijeoma: I would love to see more celebrities say like, “Yeah, I said that thing. And it was really fucked up. And I’ve learned, and I don’t say that anymore.” We all have to be able to take responsibility and move forward.

Kamau: Especially if we’re going to keep living on social media. If we’re going to keep doing that, we’re going to have to develop some sort of tiered forgiveness system. Or else we’re going to lose everybody. If you go through everybody’s tweets — especially people like us who went on Twitter when it was like a demilitarized zone! There’s no rules! And suddenly I have a social media profile and these things that tell me what my social media rating is.

With Trevor Noah, I was like, this is just a young person who’s trying to figure this out. And he’ll either figure it out or he won’t. If he reveals himself to continually be transphobic or continually be misogynistic on the show, well, he won’t have a job very long. I do think however, Comedy Central probably should have gone through his tweets before they hired him. But I don’t think that anybody understood at that point that Jon Stewart was the liberal pope, and everybody wanted to have a say in who the successor to the pope was.

If we’re going live in front of each other like this, nobody’s life is clean enough to survive a thorough comb-through. At what point do you have to throw the artist away, or at what point do you have to feel ashamed for liking the artist? Or do you just keep your mouth shut when that person’s name comes up?

Ijeoma: So how do you reconcile that? How do you reconcile that, say, a black woman in the room deserves to feel as safe as a white dude in the room. How do we balance that?

Kamau: I’d say she needs to feel safer. The outsider should feel more welcome than the insider.

Ijeoma: How do we balance that in a role where you’re pushing boundaries?

Kamau: I think these are questions my kids are going to have a better answer for. I feel like we’re in the middle of a sea-change. Maybe we all pull the plug on social media. It’s clear that it’s not actually working the way that it feels like it’s working. Maybe we go, “You know, we’re not mature enough for this yet.”

You can keep up with Kamau on his website and on Twitter.

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