Last night on primetime television, a woman dressed in a rainbow unitard spoke about how, during pregnancy, a woman’s nipples transform from delicate little rosebuds into “meaty coat hooks”.
She spoke about how post-vaginal-birth sneezing can turn a tampon into a projectile.
How g-strings can “take the back stuff and put it to the front stuff” and give you bacterial vaginosis.
Watch: Em Rusciano in Rage and Rainbows. Post continues after video.
Let’s face it, ‘bacterial vaginosis’ is not a phrase you typically hear on the telly beyond, perhaps, an episode of Embarrassing Bodies. But on Em Rusciano‘s comedy special, Rage And Rainbows, which aired on Monday night on Channel 10, the Australian comedian championed the universality in those supposedly ‘embarrassing’ parts of womanhood.
Part standup, part musical, part feminist lecture, the one-hour show centred around that quiet, tiring anger (or even just frustration) many women feel toward the world around them. Sometimes, without even knowing why.
She touched on catcalling, on the beauty industry, on pregnancy thrush, on the mental load carried by women in most households.
“My particular brand of comedy comes from a deep desire to shed light on tough topics, to explore the things we don’t normally talk about, and dissect them in such a way that my audience — who are predominately women — feel less alone and less like life may swallow them whole,” Em told Mamamia.
“I’ve done shows on divorce and miscarriage and so, when it came to talking about rage, it actually felt like a light topic, all things considered.”
She even threw in a musical number featuring 12 giant, dancing vaginas, just to make it all more palatable… which only a couple of people on Facebook got cranky about. Now, that’s called progress, doll.
Rage and Rainbows is part of an obvious shift happening in comedy. Well, if we're honest, in boardrooms.
TV networks, streaming services and booking agencies seem suddenly less reluctant to give the stage (literally and figuratively) to female comedians speaking the unspoken truths about themselves, their gender and the culture that so heavy-handedly shapes the two.
Iliza Shlesinger. Hannah Gadsby. Tiffany Haddish. Ali Wong. In the last few years, each has recorded a hugely popular Netflix special that has helped take their work global and, for some, springboard them into lucrative movie/TV careers.
It's not like these women became funny overnight. They've been doing the work in clubs, at festivals and crappy corporate events for years. Only now, finally, there's prime airtime (and money) on offer to those who cut through.
In Australia, though, the scene seems to still be lagging a little. On free-to-air telly at least, female stand-up comedy is still usually just a short set in a festival gala or a 'special' aired in a not-so-special midnight timeslot on one of those tacked-on digital channels that few people actually watch/seem to know exist.
But let's hope Rusciano's show signals that we're catching up.
"I think I follow a long line of outstanding female comics, who have had a disproportionate amount of opportunities compared to their male counterparts," she said.
"The fact of the matter is: women want to be represented. They want to see their issues, worries, and passions reflected in the media that they consume."
Bacterial vaginosis, and all.
Rage and Rainbows is available to stream on Ten Play.
Image: Channel 10.
Top Comments
Umm.. is this a consistent strength of these reviewers.. not actually writing the truth?
I won't lie, the crowd in the show seemed to be enjoying themselves BUT that doesn't make it good.
It's on tv now and like watching a pile-up actually happen, this is terrible but I can't turn away. I can't turn it off because I want to see how this train crash ends.
I'll extend this hand. Perhaps it's only funny for women? Which is fine, but it's bland and exceptionally.. flat.
I feel like there MUST be a joke that I'll laugh at BUT as yet, nothing.
Also.. concerning the dancing vagina's... imagine if they were dancing Penis's.. would this still be acceptable television?
And I know the whole.. Woe is me.. i'm male.. and women/any one else can get away with anything argument is tired and overused BUT.. I definitely think it's relevant here. Unless it's been done and i'm simply unaware of it. Who knows.
Nope, as a female I don't find her funny or empowering. Sure, let's talk about those thing and in a humourous way, but do we have to be coarse? Anti male? Peppering the delivery with swearing?
All these so called "mummy bloggers/influencer" types (Em, Constance Hall, Celeste Barber, that Emmy Lou person who is apparently a thing) - as a woman, a mother, a feminist - i find nothing inspiring, empowering, impressive or funny about them. I'm a bit embarassed for them actually. But they are making money and influencing people apparently so i guess i'm on my own there.
Nah, I'm a woman and although I haven't seen the show myself, this review just makes it sound painfully unfunny and something I'll definitely be avoiding in future. Gross-out humour on general just isn't clever or original, no matter who's doing it.
Too many of them also don't seem to understand that what makes people laugh on paper, in the form of an article or a witty tweet, usually does not translate well into stand-up. For example, I used to find the "Foul Bachelorette Frog" memes that went around a few years back hilarious. But do I want to watch an hour of that kind of gutter humour being repeated by someone on stage in a sparkly leotard, while she tries to spin it as some kind of deep "feminist empowerment" message? No.
Nope Im a woman and dont find Em or her particular type of comedy at all funny.
What she's doing is making these issues the punchline of jokes that rely on people to think "ewwww gross" when she discusses those topics. If the audience doesn't think "ewww gross" when they're confronted with talk about female genitalia or hygiene there actually isn't any material to laugh at. This approach is not transformative; it actually propagates the "ewww gross" stigmatisation of female issues by harnessing it for a laugh. That's completely different to the approach used by Hannah Gadsby.
Yep. I saw her show and she just wasn't funny at all. It was just her screaming her head off and dragging some poor male onto his feet so she could humiliate him for shits and giggles. Boring.