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Pop Culture Confidential
Episode 5: Groundbreakers & Side Splitters
Episode 5: Groundbreakers & Side Splitters by Pop Culture Confidential
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Hi, I'm Kristina Yarlink-Biro, thanks for listening. Inside Amy Schumer has for the past three seasons proven itself to be both hilarious and groundbreaking. I'm thrilled to talk to one of Amy Schumer's closest collaborators, writer-producer and her sister, Kim Karamelli, one of the great minds behind What In My Opinion is the best show on TV right now. But first, this is no less than a civil rights movement and it's about freedom. That's actor Jeffrey Tambor who said that recently. He won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Mora on the Amazon series Transparent. The first mainstream TV show with the transgender character at its center. The series by showrunner Jill Soloway is based on her own experiences of her father coming out as transgender late in life. Are you saying you're going to start dressing up like a lady all the time? I mean, all my life, my whole life I've been dressing up like a man, this is me. The new season of Genji Coen's Orange is the New Black is about to premiere. The series star actress and activist Laverne Cox recently became the first openly transgender person to grace the cover of Time magazine. And later this year, Eddie Redmayne, Oscar winner for his role as Stephen Hawking, stars in The Danish Girl about the transgender 20th century painter Lily Elbe. And last month, 17 million US viewers tuned in to Diane Sawyer's interview with Bruce Jenner, Olympic champion and star of the reality show The Kardashians, to hear his very personal story about his transitioning. I'm really happy to talk to Slate's culture critic and editor of Outward, Slate's LGBTQ section, The Wonderful June Thomas. Oh, Christina, thank you so much for asking me. Are we finally seeing a positive and dramatic shift in regards to transgender actors, characters and themes in the entertainment industry? I actually feel pretty optimistic about that. I'm not always an optimistic person. But there's a couple of things going on. I think one of the reasons that we're seeing, especially in dramatic shows, in scripted shows, Orange is the New Black and Transparent, there are going to be these trans characters front and center because they are very central. This is another new development. They're not just some character off to the side, they're right at the center, especially obviously in Transparent. So that is going to be something that continues and that we see more of. And Genji Cohen and Jill Soloway are both showrunners that I trust to really give us good storylines and really move that thing along. There is also, in some other shows, there are ways in which involving a trans character is truly novel. It's not just something that we've seen a few years ago, ridiculously, having gay story lines was seen as so bold and so innovative and, oh my goodness, people have gay people in their families. It was silly that it took so long to acknowledge that. But there was a certain novelty in that and we've all realized, yeah, gay people exist. We all know several. That's not really all that novel. Trans people certainly exist, but they're much fewer and many of us know only one or two or some of us may not know any at all. And so I think there is more, there are more ways that you can use these characters in ways that are positive and not exploitative, but are also innovative and surprises. And that's really wonderful when you can do that on television. How have portrayals and possibilities for transgender men and women been in the industry? Well, I think for the longest time, there was a very negative portrayal. They tended to be, especially trans women, were often murderers, there were sex crazed, they were very, very negative characters. And it's been a pretty slow, well, a very slow, I would say, evolution, but I do think that as you mentioned in the last year, maybe 18 months has been an absolute revolution and the picture is just transformed. We're still seeing some cisgender actors playing trans characters, which feels like a step on the path kind of things. Sometimes you just mention transparent. Jeffrey Tambor, who plays more, is a cisgender guy. And there was some complaints about that, but I think that Jill Soloway, who explained that her own father came out as trans, so now she has a moppa, as she calls him or her, now, she needed to have flashbacks. So she felt it wasn't just a matter of, oh, I don't know how would I find a trans actor. There are a lot of trans actors, both who present as male and female, but she felt she needed that ability to show a transformation and a transition. She has really employed a lot of transgender men and women in all sorts of positions other than, I mean, both actors and behind in front of the camera. That's absolutely correct. And Ian Harvey, who played the teaching assistant, he's not only is he a trans actor, but also he got into the show because Soloway has this, almost like a program of bringing in people to speak and to share their life experiences with the writer's room. And that's how he kind of inspired them to make that role for him, and she made a big commitment to really having a trans writer in the writer's room that she's hired for season two. So she does have an incredible commitment, very seriously, to employing people and to learning from them, which I think is really amazing and wonderful. Can you just explain, you were saying, "Sis, if there's someone who's listening who doesn't, now he's not familiar with the term?" Yeah, absolutely. And I have to say that, you know, this is an area where, you know, despite having worked in sort of sexual minority areas for decades, that I'm still really learning, but cisgender means someone who presents in the gender that they were born or that they were identified at birth. And of course, we should also note that there are many possibilities beyond male or female, you know, that there's this concept of, you know, the gender spectrum or gender non-binary, gender non-binary, things like that, that it's not just a matter of male or female, you know, that there are other possibilities. But for the most part, we haven't really seen people outside of the binary on television much. But yeah, cisgender is, or we could also say non-trans. Back to what you were saying, yeah, we have Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Try." We have Jared Lido in Dallas Buyers Club. You were saying, "And now Eddie Redmayne, who's going to be in the new movie, why do you think there's still so many non-trans actors in trans roles today?" Well, you know, sometimes it is about showing a transformation or, you know, the arc of a transition, you know, showing the person unhappy when they were, you know, living in the wrong body and, you know, achieving, you know, as an arc. That's what writers want to show, right? They want to show change and evolution. So that's, I think, one reason. But there's also, you know, television and movies are very expensive propositions. You know, the producers aren't always happy about casting, I would say, are very rarely happy about casting someone who isn't very well known in a star role, who doesn't already have a huge following, who perhaps isn't in any way controversial, because I think we should concede that there are many people who still do have a lot of issues with trans people and have some strange thoughts about them and might, you know, not be all that excited about seeing them at, you know, going to see them in a movie now, not that I want in any way to allow those people to shape choices. But that is how producers think, I think. They want not controversial, known, popular, likable people in roles. And for the moment, I think that is something that's going to change. There aren't that many trans actors who have that level of familiarity or sort of stardom. Can you pinpoint a certain show or something this past year or an actor-actress that has really made this breakthrough? I would say Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black. Not only because, you know, the role is an amazing, I don't know what you'd say, like chance that she has a twin brother. So when in the first series of Orange is the New Black, they showed Sophia Bursett that's her character's story, you know, because in Orange is the New Black, all of the characters get to have their backstory shown, and her backstory, you know, which involved her essentially stealing to pay for her transition, they were able to use her twin brother, who of course looked like her. And it was very believable, you know, and it was, there was something both about that character and about Sophia who was the character that I think, again, there's a lot of education involved in these trans roles. And I think that show and that storyline both educated people, entertained people, and then I think people were really interested in Laverne Cox, who's been an amazing advocate and has done a whole bunch of non-fiction things. She did this show, I think it was called The T-Word, that was a non-fiction kind of like almost introducing people to the trans experience that was on MTV, that I think she's been a really, really significant person and she also was, you know, on the cover of Time magazine. The secret Burs Jenner says he always tried to keep hidden, now coming to light. The Olympic legend turned reality show patriarch had the world hanging on his every word as he sat down with our very own Diane Sawyer for that highly intimate, anticipated interview. He's six foot two inches tall, welcoming, and a little apprehensive. It's going to be an emotional roller coaster, but somehow I'm going to get through it. Are you a woman? Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am a woman. People look at me differently, they see you as this macho male, but my heart and my soul and everything that I do in life, it is part of me. That female side is part of me, that's who I am. And it's been a few weeks now since the Burs Jenner Diane Sawyer interview. Have you been able to gather some reactions? I think there was sort of curiosity and sort of surprise on some people's part that certainly at the time of the interview, Burs Jenner still wanted to be known as Burs, that he wanted still to use male pronouns, that that might change in the future. But I think that was, again, a learning experience for a lot of people, that there isn't one rule, that you follow this path and that's how everybody behaves, that trans people are all different and they all have different feelings and the lesson being that we should respect their feelings, whatever they are, when they communicate how they want to be what pronouns they would like to be used, what name they would like to use, that we should respect it. But it isn't always what we might expect kind of thing. I just want to say there's a second thing that really surprised me was how people responded to his coming out as a Republican, which again, like people were surprised that he was a really strong Reaganite, a pretty conservative Republican and again, it was a really interesting challenge to the stereotype that people have, well, oh, all trans people must be liberal, they must be like, no, it's not about your politics, it's not necessarily about your sexuality, it's about your gender expression and I think, again, a really great learning opportunity for a lot of people and me included, again, I'm some expert, I learn from all of these things too. Thank you so much, June, this was fun and maybe I can call on you again. I hope you will, it's always so much fun to talk to you. 2015 is the year of the ass, proclaimed stand-up comedian Amy Schumer, well, it's really the year of Amy Schumer, if you ask me. Right now, she stars in the most groundbreaking, brave, ballsy, brilliant sketch series out there inside Amy Schumer, she has amazing comedy specials and no less than two major motion pictures that she's writing, starring in that are coming up. Even with Judd Apatow directing, and one produced by Bridesmaids Paul Feig, I'm so thrilled to talk to one of her closest collaborators, her own sister, a writer and/or producer on all of these projects, Kim Carameli. Amy, what are you doing here, why don't you get back from Iraq? I think we should see other people. Have you always been a fucking trashy, excuse me, that you like to be awakened by a soft kiss on the cheek or a stranger going down on you? Can I just, like, blow you? I'm gay. This is just a case of slut shaming. This slut is not ashamed. Inside Amy Schumer is a mix of sketches and interviews, often and brilliantly depicting the sexism that women go through every day. Just this third season, Schumer's sketches have dealt with themes such as the truth behind pop culture's obsession with women's asses, rape culture and sports in a genius Friday night light's parody, and the sketch, Last Fuckable Day, guest starring Tina Fey, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Prushear Kett, is about the day that the media decides that a woman or an actress is too old to be believably fuckable anymore. And as we talk about with Kim Carameli in the interview, the writers are really working with themes in real time, putting a spotlight on those structural absurdities that women go through, but the show never gets preachy, just hysterically funny. For me, the inside Amy Schumer staff reached yet another level of ambition with their 12 angry men's sketch a few weeks ago. An incredible recreation of the 1957 movie "Twelve Angry Men", the sketch is filmed in black and white and starring in amazing cast of actors. For example, Jeff Goldblum, Paul Giamatti and John Hawks. But in this version, the 12 angry men of the jury are debating whether Amy Schumer really is hot enough to be on TV. On the hottest day of the year, 12 ordinary men must wrestle with the single most important question of our time. Gentlemen, raise your hands, please, if you think that Amy Schumer is not hot enough to be on television one. 12 men searching for truth. Come on! We get to stop this. I could throw the standard off for shows everywhere. But is the truth so easily found? I think she might be on enough. Are you kidding me? Lions will be drawn. But there are facts that tell us definitively that this woman is objectively not appealing. Tempers will flare. She's not a ten! Maybe you're not a ten either. Oh, Amy, I didn't see you there, I thought you were a garden gnome. I asked writer-producer Kim Carameli about how this sketch came to life. So Amy, last season we did a sketch called "Focused Groups" open this season, Amy and her wrote together. And it's just that idea, it's just so prevalent, the conversation about a comedian, a female comedian is so often about her physical appearance and not like her joke. And it's just that I guess it's something that we didn't really get out of our system. So Amy came in and pitched that she wanted to do a recreation of 12 angry men. And then after speaking with one of our producers, Kevin Caine, he suggested let's do it as a full episode. So yeah, we were all just kind of like so excited about the idea, we'd all seen the movie. And it felt really, really ambitious because again, our sketches are usually three to five minutes long and so to worry about writing a full 22 minute sketch, it was a bit overwhelming and daunting, at least to me, because I had never even attempted anything like that. But Amy put together such an incredible, she wrote it all out and really planned out all the beats. And so once it was all written, it seemed much more doable and exciting. Well, it's incredibly ambitious, the writing, that's how modeling it after the play and then the structure and then getting all these amazing Oscar nominated actors and the filming and everything. It's like a little movie. It's crazy. It felt really special, being on set, I mean, when we got on set and we built it, we built that room on a stage. So when we got there and just seeing how the first shot was set up, the first part that we filmed was, the first part of the movie with the fan in the foreground, as soon as we started rolling, it's just like if you could just feel like that we were doing something pretty special and it was very, very cool and I considered it an honor to even have been a part of that and yeah, it was my favorite thing I've ever been a part of so far. What makes this show stand out so much for me, the sketches besides being just outrageously funny and fearless and smart, it's just like these little smart studies of sexism and stereotypes and structural absurdities that women go through and how we navigate insecurities and say we're sorry all the time and internalize this sexism and are most of the themes, things that you guys discuss, that are part of observations from your real lives? Yes, it's like things that we've seen happen, like things that have happened personally or like things that we've seen in the news that really just stick out and we kind of think I'd like to say something about that but I mean, it doesn't ever really start from the theme itself, like nobody comes in and they're like we should write a sketch about rape or we should write a sketch about how women, whatever, it's kind of like we'll like notice something and then that'll give like a really specific idea and then that's what will be pitched so it's not like, at least for me, it doesn't seem like any of us are like setting out to like what issue can we tackle next, it's like the things that we find funniest is real life and real human behavior and it's often like some of the saddest things that like are so ridiculous that you almost have to laugh and I think that's, at least for me, where the idea of the sketch has come from just because real life is the funniest. And you can tell you guys never go over to preachy or never feel like you have some sort of responsibility to be feminist, it just feels very natural. It comes very, very naturally and it happens really organically in the room. I was wondering if you could just take me into the writing room a little bit for how does a week look like, how do you talk about these themes and who's in there with you? Sure, so there are how many writers are there? It's about like 10 I think, it's all of us sitting around like a large conference table and at the beginning of the week, we come in with, we each have like three to five pitches of a sketch that we would like to be able to write until we like pitch our ideas and then Amy, Jan, Tal and Jessie, Klein get together like over lunch and decide which one of our pitches they think that they would like us to write. So then we welcome back in the room and they tell us this one, we want you to write these two out of the five that you pitched and then we all go back take a day or two on our own to just write the themes and then we come back and we read them out loud. I'm sorry, before we read them out loud, we send in our first draft and then Amy, Jan and Jessie give notes and suggestions of how to tighten it up, cut suggestions for different jokes, how to make it funnier and then we rewrite it and then we come back, we all read it and make suggestions on each other's sketches and punch them up. The reading must be a fun process all of you together. It's all fun, I mean sometimes when somebody will catch a scene and I'll just like think I cannot wait to, not even just to see it on television but I can't wait for us to read it in the room and like to hear Amy read it, it's so fun and we laugh so much. Yeah and every now and then like somebody will pitch a sketch that you're just like oh my god, this is going to be huge, this is going to be so special. That was the case for football town nights when Christine Mange will catch it. We're all just like, hold on to your hat, it was going to be incredible. But you do have, I mean in this you've critiqued everything from ageism to what you were saying, rape culture and sport and birth control and object. What has gotten you the biggest reactions, both positive and negative? People were really into a suckable day with the, yeah people have really been reacting strongly to that. I love all of you, I can't believe you're here, you're like literally my heroes. God you look familiar, are you that girl from the television who talks about her pussy all the time? Yes, yes, thank you, how fun, look I'm sick. Please, come talk about your pussy over here. Is it, is it someone's birthday or? Oh, kind of the opposite, we're celebrating Julia's last fuckable day. Yes, salute. Sorry, did you say Julia's last fuckable day? What is that? In every actress's life, a media decides when you finally reach the point where you're not believably fuckable anymore. It's actually just now in the news, I don't know if he's read about Maggie Jones. Oh yeah, that she couldn't, Maggie Jones 35 and they told her that she couldn't play the lover of a 55 year old man. Yeah, she's like 37 and she, it's just like, the reason that I think the sketches resonate with so many people is because they are real issues, like really happening to a lot of people. And so it's not that far of a jump to really connect with it because it happens every day and it happens all around you, so that's why I think something like last fuckable day, even before the Maggie Jones, people are like, yes, oh my god, that does happen all the time. And it makes me think, I never really thought about that. But now that I look at all these movies, it's like, oh, that is really what these roles now are. It's like women, their roles have become older, start being referred to as like a triumph. And it's like, I don't know. Yeah, so that's really done a lot of attention. And any negative attention? There's only one kind of negative thing. I mean, like people will comment on Twitter all the time, like negative things. And that doesn't really ever bother me. The one thing that really kind of stood out and bothered me was one online magazine wrote a negative review of the interview that Amy did with Daily Jay. Is this just for the listeners? Is this with the transgender, the interview? Yeah. The first thing I said is, okay, then I understand. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that they thought that Amy asking whether or not she was going to like whether or not she still had her penis. And they thought that that was disrespectful. And I don't know. After watching Amy do so many of these interviews, I think that she is so, so respectful. And generally is interested and asks questions that I think people are curious about. And I've never, I've never once in an interview gotten the impression that anybody that she has been interviewing has been upset or offended. And it's just, I don't know, that that just kind of, yeah, I think because she, because she genuinely does care and is genuinely interested. It's just, I don't know. I, so that that was the only thing that, like a little bit of a negative response that actually bothered me because I just disagreed with it. Yeah. And I don't know. Talking a little bit about you, Kim, you were actually a school psychologist before taking this leap to writing. Does that inform any of your writing today? It comes up here and there. Like we have a, we have a scene this year about, you know, Amy speaking with a therapist. And you know, it's like things about like little like, you know, things look like freezing and terminology that it comes up. But I don't, I don't know. I, I hadn't, I hadn't like pitched any, you know, school-centered ideas or anything like that on, on the sketch show. And then you're of course also Amy's sister and you were very close. Could you describe a little bit of your upbringing? There has been no shift or change in like our, our dynamic from the time that, you know, we were, you know, eight and 12. And so now it's, it's really nice actually. Amy is the funniest person I've ever met. And she has always been. So we would, I mean, she, she, since I can remember has always been to be laugh more than anybody. And so my upbringing with her was, we laugh a lot. And we would make up dancers and, and plays and sketches. And she used to like play this character, Madam Wojcke, and have like a crystal ball and like, like, like, make, like, tell my fortune and stuff like that. And it's, it's, you know, she, she's always just, she's always just been so funny and has been the best. And she says, she says, you're the funniest person. She's met in interviews. Is what I've read. We have, we have similar sense of humor. So I think just like the things that make her laugh make me laugh. And so it's just, we have just compatible senses of humor. But, you know, we, we laugh so, so much together. And, and was your whole family funny? I mean, was there laughter in your home? Everybody had a good sense of humor. Our dad is really funny. He's like a really funny, like, dark sense of humor. Our mom is a good laugher. And our brother is also just like crazy funny. He just, he and Amy just did a show together in Chicago. He's a jazz musician. He plays a bass clarinet. And he, she had him like open for her with a couple songs. And then like, bring her up on stage. And as soon as he got the microphone in front of her, he just was, he was so funny. And like, like every, it was, she said, it was like one of the best nights of her life working with him. And I think, yeah, it's just, I think we all just, we all really make each other laugh. Are your parents in creative New York's as well? No, no. Our mom was a speech psychologist and, you know, was with deaf students. Our dad was also, yeah, was with deaf students. Our dad didn't do anything, you know, creative. Yeah, I don't know how, I don't know how we kind of like landed here. What other shows and comedians things do you guys like? So, so many. Do you ever tell? I think it's just the funniest comic. He, he makes me laugh so much. Bill Burr kills me. Chelsea Piretti. I don't know, do you know Chelsea Piretti? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, God. Her special, one of the greats was just like, sort of like, I watched it with Amy and my husband. And we were crying the whole time. And then showed, we've been watching a lot of like, UK series like Happy Valley and our favorites, Judge Judy. And I'm actively, I'm actively campaigning to meet her. But Judge Judy, if you're listening, like hook us a throw up, retrial. It's just you. It's actually still odd that I guess. Oh my God. Yeah. It's like the highest rate of daytime show. It's required viewing. She's so far. She's so funny. It's the best. I'm sure that she hears she'll be on in a minute. She has to be on your show. That would be not the best. I can't, I can't imagine the amazing sketch you guys would write around her. It would actually probably be terrible because we'd be so star struck that we wouldn't be able to like function or perform around her. We just be staring at her smiling. So that would be the entire sketch, just us like beaming at her. So what can we expect the rest of the season? Let me think. I don't know. I don't know what I'm allowed to say because usually I don't do any podcast or interviews because nobody wants to talk to me, but I don't know what I'm allowed to like say. That's going to change after all these things you're doing this year. That's for sure. But we can come to expect that it's going to be really good. Some of my favorite, favorite sketches are coming up. And last week we read that you're writing a new feature with Amy, a mother/daughter action movie produced by Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters, Paul Feig. I mean, how are you doing all this? One at a time. It's really crazy. It's this year, and particularly these last few months have been kind of crazy. And yesterday or the day before they just announced the mother/daughter movie, Amy and I are rewriting it. It was originally a Katie DePaul script, and it's so good. It's so funny. Can't wait to get further into it. This was such a pleasure. Thank you so much. I'm really honored to talk to you and in the future after your movie, if you haven't become so famous after that, that everyone wants to talk to you, I'd love to call on you again and ask about the film. Thank you to all the guests and to you for listening. If you have feedback, head over to the webpage popcultureconfidential.com or Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and write something there. This edition was edited by Tom Hanson, music by Carl Boer, produced by Renee Vittishtet and myself, Christina Yerling-Biro. Until next time. Hello podcast fans, it is I, Bruce Volanche. For over 25 years, I worked on the Academy Awards, so you didn't have to. In that time, I've seen and heard things that should not be seen, or heard or certainly built. And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind-the-scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars, the blood, the sweat, the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar Awards of the past to explain how and why your favorite movie didn't win, why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work. This is the Oscars. What were they thinking? Available wherever you get podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Episode 5: Groundbreakers & Side Splitters by Pop Culture Confidential
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