“It’s funny because it’s not cool sex.”
– Louis CK
Along with such comedy geniuses as Robert Smigel and Dino Stamatopoulos, Louis CK is a master of sketch comedy. Thats why it will be very interesting when his sitcom, Lucky Louie, premieres on HBO. Not only is CK applying his comedic skills to the sitcom but it will be the first time he is stretching himself as an actor.
Read our exclusive interview with Louis CK on SuicideGirls.com.
“That sound of them telling me to take off my shoes creates a blind rage.”
– Lewis Black
Lewis Black is best known for his politically charged rants called Back in Black that are featured on The Daily Show. But hes been a working standup comedian for 20 years. Hes just released his new comedy album, The Carnegie Hall Performance.
Read our exclusive interview with Lewis Black on SuicideGirls.com.
“It limits women…from aspiring to be great things.”
– Jennifer Siebel Newsom
As Americans, we like to think of ourselves as advanced and sophisticated as a society. Yet, when it comes to issues of gender equality the numbers don’t lie –– there’s no escaping the fact that we’re pretty damn backwards.
Women make up 51% of the US population, yet hold just 16.6% of the seats in Congress and 17% of those in the Senate. Indeed, we rank 90th in the world in terms of the proportion of women in national parliaments, below Afghanistan, Cuba, China, Ethiopia, Iraq, and the Sudan!
Furthermore, in America, just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Similarly only 3% of positions of clout in the telecommunications, entertainment, publishing, and advertising industries are held by the fairer sex (pun intended). And this may be part of the problem, since those that are ultimately responsible for the aspirational messages we receive on a daily basis are predominantly male.
That’s not to say that the innate sexism that’s partly responsible for this power imbalance is necessarily malevolent or even intentional; the root of much of it is simply a lack of consciousness on all our parts. And to an extent, the state of play appears to be self-perpetuating, since a mere 16% of those responsible for Hollywood’s mass market dream machine (writers, directors, producers, cinematographers, and editors) are women, which in turn perhaps explains a similar lack of female protagonists/role models in feature films.
A much talked about new documentary, Miss Representation, which recently debuted on the OWN Network, does a very comprehensive job of exploring the underlying reasons for this vast leadership gender gap. The film features many prominent leading ladies including Nancy Pelosi, Condoleezza Rice, Dianne Feinstein, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Geena Davis, Rachel Maddow, Lisa Ling, and Katie Couric, whose powerful voices add strength to the message –– which is that a woman’s value is more than just the sum of her youth and beauty (as the mainstream media might have you believe).
SuicideGirls spoke with the driving force behind Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who wrote, directed, and produced the exceptional cinematic gender essay. As a Stanford graduate, environmental and gender activist, actress, and mother –– who also happens to be the wife of the former Mayor of San Francisco, and current Lieutenant Governor of California, Gavin Newsom –- she’s had a front row seat watching what happens to women in power and how the media treats them, so perhaps has a greater understanding of the issues they face than most.
Read our exclusive interview with Jennifer Siebel Newsom on SuicideGirls.com.
“I should have been Bar Mitzvahed but instead I got mugged on Lexington Avenue…” –
– Jonathan Katz
Jonathan Katz is the brilliantly funny deadpan comedian that the animated show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist was built around. Dr. Katz was Comedy Central’s first big hit and was on for five years. It’s taken another six years for the first season to come out on DVD. But its here and it has commentaries by Katz, collaborator H. Jon Benjamin and many of the comedians who sat on the couch.
Read our exclusive interview with Jonathan Katz on SuicideGirls.com.
“I still have kids stop me on the street and they do the snake thing from Big Business.”
– Lily Tomlin
Lily Tomlin is a true comedy goddess. She’s been entertaining people with her wonderful cast of characters since Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. In fact one of my favorite movies of hers, 9 to 5, was just released in special edition DVD. But her latest movie is special because not only does she play Meryl Streep’s sister in a singing duo but it also reteams her for a fourth time with director Robert Altman. A Prairie Home Companion is a look at a fictionalized version of Garrison Keillors long running public radio program. It is reimagined as a song heavy variety show and the movie highlights its last night before it is shut down.
Read our exclusive interview with Lily Tomlin on SuicideGirls.com.
“I wanted to write a religious Left Behind series, but for secular liberals.”
– Chuck Palahniuk
During our previous conversation with Chuck Palahniuk, which occurred shortly before the publication of his Sunset Boulevard-inspired book, Tell All, he spoke about how the ultimate name to drop was God’s. For this interview, we reconvene to discuss the domain of the G-man’s nemesis –– Hell –– which serves as the setting for Palahniuk’s wickedly inspired new novel, Damned.
According to Damned’s canon, evolution is hokum and Charles Darwin is resigned to hellfire and damnation alongside Jimi Hendrix, Marilyn Monroe, and the entire Kennedy clan. Turns out you can end up there by committing all manner of trivial shit, such as dropping the f-bomb or honking your horn one too many times. Worshipping the wrong god will also land you in the hot spot, as will suffering the inconvenience of being a deposed one (thus the likes of Thor can also be found hanging out downstairs).
The topography of Palahniuk’s netherworld features a greasy Dandruff Desert, Great Plains of Discarded Razor Blades, a Swamp of Partial-birth Abortions, a Lake of Tepid Bile, and the Great Ocean of Wasted Sperm (where in Hell, “porn is creating an effect equivalent to that of global warming on earth”). Those that find themselves there have two main career options: pornography or telemarketing.
The narrative of Damned follows Madison Spencer, the somewhat chubby, eternally optimistic13-year old progeny of a self-obsessed Hollywood star and a billionaire businessman. As a reflection of her mother’s glamour, Madison is an abject failure, however, the upside of her troubled childhood is that after a lifetime (albeit a short one) of electrolysis and herbal high colonics, Hell holds little terror for her.
Having been resigned to Hell after inhaling marijuana, and eschewing an eternity being “ogled by millions of men with serious intimacy problems,” Madison finds gainful employment in telemarketing, an occupation that she finds unexpectedly fulfilling. Ensconced in one of Hell’s endless call centers, which has banks of phones that are programmed to auto-dial the earthbound specifically at dinnertime, Madison finds redemption. The question is, ultimately, will she want it?
Being in the business of asking people questions for a living, I felt a certain affinity with Madison. For the start of my conversation with Palahniuk, it therefore seemed only appropriate to borrow a little something from her telemarketing script…
Read our exclusive interview with Chuck Palahniuk on SuicideGirls.com.
By Fred Topel
“The conundrum is that part of this is also heritage and culture.”
– Joshua Marston
Joshua Martson’s debut feature film, Maria Full of Grace, managed to be a suspenseful thriller as well as a gripping drama. It introduced the world to Catalina Sandina Moreno as Maria, a desperate Colombian girl who becomes a drug mule, as many do in real life. Her journey to the U.S. is frought with danger from the law, the criminal element and her own body. After Maria, Marston spent seven years directing television episodes. His prolific career included How to Make It In America, In Treatment and Law & Order. At this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Marston returned to film with the premiere of his second feature.
The Forgiveness of Blood portrays an even more foreign world than South American drug smuggling. In Albania, two families start a blood feud after one father kills the other’s son. Per tradition, the offending family must stay at home permanently. If the other family sees them out, they vow to kill anyone for retribution. Only one daughter is given a pass to work and bring home supplies. The subject provoked an interesting discussion with Marston in a Toronto hotel room. Even a simple inquiry probably couldn’t help coming across as an accusation and Marston took an objective position, seeing both sides. Forgiveness of Blood opens next year.
Read our exclusive interview with Joshua Marston on SuicideGirls.com.
