On March 8, the Queen’s Head Pub was enlivened with meals, drinks, and laughs — all because of the Harvard Faculty Girls’s Heart. In honor of Girls’s Week, an annual week of occasions and celebrations devoted to selling the voices of girls and gender-expansive individuals on campus, the Girls’s Heart held their second annual comedy present, titled “Males Aren’t Humorous.”
The title, though jarring for some, is one thing Girls’s Heart undergraduate intern Olivia F. Knowledge ’26 is pleased with, she mentioned in an interview with The Crimson.
Knowledge recalled pitching the identify and being shocked when it was green-lit, saying she “feels nice” about with the ability to benefit from the liberties of free speech in such a public means. Referring to it as “a bit,” Knowledge mentioned the title is “very on the nostril,” flipping the script of the sadly frequent remark that “ladies aren’t humorous.”
Regardless of inevitable backlash from the group, which Knowledge brilliantly labored into her set, the bigger Queen’s Head Pub was booked for this yr’s present fairly than the smaller Lowell Screening Room, the setting of final yr’s present.
The change in venue was evidently needed — Harvard college students, associates, and even non-Harvard college students stuffed the seats. Sarah Seligman, a pupil at Smith Faculty in Northampton, Mass., attended after seeing the flyer promoting the present. Coming from a ladies’s faculty the place the occasions are sometimes “women-centric or simply form of queer-centric,” Seligman was shocked by the boys within the viewers and was “glad to see that help.”
As implied by the title, nonetheless, there have been no males to be discovered among the many present’s performers. Three Letter Acronym (TLA), an improv troupe that carried out, was small however mighty with out their male counterparts. Katie A. Silverman ’27, who carried out with TLA, commented on the separation of the group for this present and her second of realization that this present of completely ladies comics was uncommon: one devoted to fairness in comedy fairly than equality.
Whereas this night boasted a welcoming surroundings, each Silverman and Knowledge famous their apprehension to hitch comedy areas. For Silverman, she mentioned that there’s a “very explicit kind of girl” who could be thought of humorous — a class that her and her comedy don’t fall into. For Knowledge, beginning comedy was an outlet for her bubbly character and located it “liberating” for ladies who’re inspired to “be quiet” and “take up much less house,” admonishments to which she is clearly no stranger.
Knowledge enjoys the liberty of the house: “Folks snicker while you say issues generally, they usually provide you with a microphone, and also you get to carry it and speak into it,” she mentioned.
Nonetheless, Knowledge and Silverman comment on the vastly male-dominated comedic areas that make it each “intimidating” for Silverman and troublesome to start comedy of any kind as a lady. Silverman has discovered there to be a typical “group common” which makes it troublesome to do any comedy that’s “identity-specific.” Equally, Knowledge finds these areas could be unwelcoming on the very least.
“There are extremely humorous males on the market. There are additionally a whole lot of areas that permit them be extremely humorous,” Knowledge mentioned. “And a few of the ladies who did this present by no means did comedy till somebody particularly was like, ‘You’re humorous.’”
Silverman had equally clever phrases for all underrepresented of us: “If you happen to do not see your self on the market, then that is why it is advisable to be on the market,” she mentioned.
Knowledge’s recommendation for aspiring comics, nonetheless, is easy: “Assist different individuals doing it.” Viewers members positive did at this yr’s present — laughs rang out steadily for all ladies who carried out and, in doing so, embodied the bravery to persevere within the pursuit of snickers.
—Workers author Madelyn E. McKenzie could be reached at madelyn.mckenzie@thecrimson.com.
