Speaker 1: This is from British classicist Mary Beard's manifesto called Women
Speaker 1: and Power, which is super short and pretty powerful. She says,
Speaker 1: we find repeated stress throughout ancient literature on the authority
Speaker 1: of the deep male voice in contrast to the female.
Speaker 1: As one ancient scientific treatise explicitly put it, a low
Speaker 1: pitched voice indicated manly courage, a high pitched voice female cowardice.
Speaker 1: Other classical writers insisted that the tone and timbre of
Speaker 1: women's speech always threatened to subvert not just the voice
Speaker 1: of the male orator, but also, and I love this,
Speaker 1: the social and political stability, the health of the whole state.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're doing. Our voice is a reflection
Speaker 1: of our life experience, ants where we've been, and who
Speaker 1: we've listened to. But we can also own it and
Speaker 1: even change it if we want. This is the podcast
Speaker 1: that's all about the voice, but it's also all about power.
Speaker 1: Who has it, how we get it, how we sound
Speaker 1: when we have it. I'm Samara Bay. I'm a dialect
Speaker 1: coach for actors in Hollywood on movies like the upcoming
Speaker 1: Wonder Woman's sequel and a bunch of other stuff I
Speaker 1: can't talk about. And I'm also a speech coach for entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: for politicians, for women everywhere ready to use their voice
Speaker 1: to get what they want. Welcome to permission to speak.
Speaker 1: Let's do this. Today's guest is Zara nor Box. She
Speaker 1: is an Iranian American comedian whose latest one woman show
Speaker 1: is called On Behalf of All Muslims Colon, a comedy special.
Speaker 1: I find her fascinating. She teamed up with a philanthropic
Speaker 1: organization called Pop Culture Collaborative, which you should look up.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. Their mission is I have it here. It
Speaker 1: states that through partnerships between the social justice sector and
Speaker 1: the pop culture industries, the Collaborative believes activists, artists, and
Speaker 1: philanthropists can encourage mass audiences to reckon with the past
Speaker 1: and rewrite the story of our nation's future. I mean
Speaker 1: basically want to just like stand up out of my
Speaker 1: chair and applaud So Pop Culture Collaborative actually paid Zara
Speaker 1: to spend a year analyzing how to basically solve bro
Speaker 1: comedy culture, and we get to talk about that in
Speaker 1: this interview. I wanted to have her on because of that,
Speaker 1: and because I feel like she's an amazing example of
Speaker 1: somebody who is fearlessly diving into the somewhat thankless mess
Speaker 1: of how to talk seriously about what it is to
Speaker 1: be funny and what it takes to actually make social change.
Speaker 1: And I also wanted to have her on because the
Speaker 1: story of how she found her own voice as somebody
Speaker 1: who you know sort of very much shows up in
Speaker 1: a room as a quote unquote outsider in the comedy
Speaker 1: world for being a woman, for being a woman of color,
Speaker 1: for being a woman who's queer, for being you know,
Speaker 1: the list of things, and bonus, she tells us about
Speaker 1: crowd work, which I feel like when a comedian is
Speaker 1: willing to tell you how to work crowd and how
Speaker 1: to get them on your side, even when they seem
Speaker 1: a little hostile up top, like you should listen and
Speaker 1: with that, here she is. So you're a comedian. One
Speaker 1: of the things that you have talked about is this
Speaker 1: sense that we all have that comedy is uh and
Speaker 1: historically has been developed in bars and nightclubs, and thus
Speaker 1: is inevitably somewhat misogynistic because there is a culture there
Speaker 1: that is pretty set. You were interviewed in an article
Speaker 1: for Bustle Online, and this is the quote The underdog
Speaker 1: ends up being the guy at the bar trying to score.
Speaker 1: As a woman in that scene, I felt like I
Speaker 1: was always responding to either how fuckable or unfusckable I was.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a language to kind of say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm being tasked with identifying myself with the male gaze
Speaker 1: at the bar and then proving that I can be
Speaker 1: funnier than them by being more crass. I had no
Speaker 1: interest in doing that, and at the time, how that
Speaker 1: translated for me is that I just wasn't good. Yep.
Speaker 1: I read that and was like, God, that feels like
Speaker 1: putting into words probably so many people's experience, whether actually
Speaker 1: it's for comedy or just for work culture, like why
Speaker 1: am I not funny? Oh? I know because of my audience,
Speaker 1: not because of me? So I mean my real question
Speaker 1: is like, what was your process out of that? How
Speaker 1: did you find your voice? Well? I think a big
Speaker 1: part of it was learning how to name all of
Speaker 1: the obstacles. Yeah, because I think, like I said, like,
Speaker 1: at that time, all these things just get categorized as
Speaker 1: just well, you're just not good, you just don't have it,
Speaker 1: You're just not dedicated. It's about your work ethic, and
Speaker 1: so then those things just kind of make you go, well,
Speaker 1: there's it's not actionable. There's nothing I can do about
Speaker 1: the fact that I'm just not good at this. I
Speaker 1: lean on a lot of my actor training to go like,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, So then how do I change that?
Speaker 1: Because if it's a moral or ethical thing, there's not
Speaker 1: much I can do about that. That's a that's a
Speaker 1: state of being, you know, and and that's in my head.
Speaker 1: But if it's about how I engage with the audience differently,
Speaker 1: the questions that I asked differently, the stage setups that
Speaker 1: I seek out, the theatrical constructs that I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: And what I started to notice was, Okay, hold up.
Speaker 1: You know I studied meta theater in UH college. What
Speaker 1: is meta theater? Meta theater is the theater of theater,
Speaker 1: you know, Like right now we're in a podcast booth
Speaker 1: and we're having a conversation. It's facilitating the opportunity for
Speaker 1: us to dive deep on a conversation that we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have if there was the distractions of our day. So
Speaker 1: in stand up comedy, the theater of it all is okay,
Speaker 1: we can stop worrying about each other. We're we're gonna
Speaker 1: take hits and we're gonna send hits, and that's part
Speaker 1: of the relief, right. But the thing is, if you're
Speaker 1: a person who walks around already feeling like no one's
Speaker 1: paying enough attention to the hits coming your way, that's
Speaker 1: not at all a relief. It's very stressful, but it's
Speaker 1: very bro. It's very bro for guys to get together
Speaker 1: and be like, anybody, yeah, you know, you could take
Speaker 1: that right, and it's like and it's all play and
Speaker 1: that's fun for them, and surprise, it's difficult for guys
Speaker 1: to learn it's not fun for you. What do you know?
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I'm sorry, you know that. That's
Speaker 1: tough for them to hear, especially when surprise they're getting off,
Speaker 1: they're having a relaxed experience. And it creeped me out
Speaker 1: that like, this sort of standard of funny that we've
Speaker 1: set is really rooted in a suspension enough disbelief that's
Speaker 1: about a step away from rape culture. You've got a
Speaker 1: theatrical construct that's in a bar, and you've got a
Speaker 1: bar's power dynamic dictating the way that people engage with
Speaker 1: each other and celebrate. So then everybody who's the underdog
Speaker 1: at a bar is the guy trying to score. Everybody
Speaker 1: who's in the way of that is the jerk or
Speaker 1: the hot girl who won't give it away. The jerk.
Speaker 1: She's the jerk, you know. But if you really open
Speaker 1: up the framing of it and you make the theater bigger,
Speaker 1: you know, cinematic, and you go okay. Well, when she
Speaker 1: woke up this morning, her hair went one direction and
Speaker 1: her calic was doing its thing, and she had to like,
Speaker 1: you know, take a shower, brush out her hair, get
Speaker 1: a product that's like you know, doing something to her
Speaker 1: brain through its skull, and then she had to like
Speaker 1: you know, put all kinds of like chemicals on her
Speaker 1: face and watch a bunch of YouTube tutorials that she's
Speaker 1: been watching since she was fifteen too, like manufacture a
Speaker 1: look of natural. And then all of that is like
Speaker 1: expenses that she doesn't have, and makeup she's relying on
Speaker 1: that she's invested in for like three years, and she's
Speaker 1: hoping that all of these things are going to like
Speaker 1: pull together the same face she had yesterday. But somehow,
Speaker 1: with the humidity and the sweat of the environment of
Speaker 1: like a stressful meeting, made her makeup like really set
Speaker 1: and she's been working on her body for like a
Speaker 1: hundred years and so that she can like you know,
Speaker 1: present to patriarchy. She shows up at this bar and
Speaker 1: really she's just looking for a good lay with a
Speaker 1: good guy who's not going to kill her. Like now
Speaker 1: you have an underdog with a much more powerful foe,
Speaker 1: but it takes time. You have to develop that. And
Speaker 1: so then that was the other obstacle was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's no time at a bar. I have to win
Speaker 1: folks over in ten seconds. I have ten seconds, actly five,
Speaker 1: but ten seconds, and I have to work off of
Speaker 1: who they see, you know. So then you've got these
Speaker 1: comedians who get regulated to storytelling and one person shows
Speaker 1: when really the reason why we're doing that is because
Speaker 1: to bring everybody the real underdogs that we are in
Speaker 1: our lives, we have to go into a story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's unfamiliar to folks, and so that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do with this report that I did through Pop
Speaker 1: Culture Collaborative was to like really make it clear to
Speaker 1: people all of the things that make it impossible to
Speaker 1: be funny like your guy friend, and that every time
Speaker 1: we are funny like them, that's not revolutionary, we're just
Speaker 1: inhabiting patriarchy in a different kind of way, like we
Speaker 1: figured out how to assimilate, but it definite leave us.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I want to talk about this study on
Speaker 1: doing deep dive. I you know, came across obviously you're comedian,
Speaker 1: your writer at your podcast host, which we want to
Speaker 1: talk about as well, but you're also an activist. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's the word that you use for it,
Speaker 1: but you're very much if we're still allowed to say
Speaker 1: disrupting oh quotes, you know, like comedy culture, not just
Speaker 1: by existing although in that regard as well, but also
Speaker 1: specifically by doing this study with this organization that you
Speaker 1: just referenced. I'm assumming getting paid to do so and
Speaker 1: really looking at not only this issue of like what's
Speaker 1: funny for who, but also the pipeline that that ends
Speaker 1: up affecting. And I specifically want you to tell us
Speaker 1: about it in terms of this idea of tension versus release,
Speaker 1: because this is exists in comedy. I don't know if
Speaker 1: if people outside of the comedy world think about this equation,
Speaker 1: but this feels like kind of an age old comedy
Speaker 1: equation that there's tension and then the comedian releases the
Speaker 1: tension with the punch line and everybody goes ha ha, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're this seemed like your way in that you
Speaker 1: were like, hold up, what makes us all tense is
Speaker 1: not the same? Yes, how did they find you? How
Speaker 1: did you find them? And how did you decide to
Speaker 1: sort of do this and didn't reveal. I met up
Speaker 1: for coffee with Bridget Antoinette Evans and Tracy events like
Speaker 1: and I complained about comedy for an hour and then
Speaker 1: I got a grant. There's really something to be said
Speaker 1: for everybody taking an acting class man, because you really
Speaker 1: have to get specific about your obstacles and then you
Speaker 1: know what, then you can articulate them to people. And
Speaker 1: I had the benefit also of being invited to the
Speaker 1: Sundance Creative Change Retreat presented by an organization called the
Speaker 1: Opportunity Agenda. And I call them the liberal Illuminati, because
Speaker 1: I was like, who are you? I want to know them.
Speaker 1: You look very powerful to me, and you are everywhere,
Speaker 1: but no one knows this, uh. And they brought together
Speaker 1: all these folks from all these different areas for activism
Speaker 1: and I was there with Harry and come out and
Speaker 1: you know, like as peers. And I was like, whoa
Speaker 1: hold up, I'm quitting comedy also, and they were like
Speaker 1: why and I was like, here's why. And I laid
Speaker 1: out for them all my complaints, like I can't do
Speaker 1: this because of this, and I can't do that because
Speaker 1: of that, and they said, your complaints are analysis. And
Speaker 1: I had not pursued academia beyond my bachelor's you know,
Speaker 1: so like I never thought about it that way. I
Speaker 1: was always just you know, trying to fix what's broken
Speaker 1: and it wasn't working and I just was stuck. And
Speaker 1: they were like, that's racism, that's institutionalized racism. And I
Speaker 1: was like, no way. I mean, this turns back into
Speaker 1: the first question to write. I mean it really nick
Speaker 1: naming stuff. You know, words are problematic, but words are
Speaker 1: also incredibly valuable. When it's like, oh, this weird experience
Speaker 1: I'm having that makes me feel like even more other
Speaker 1: than than ever, because I feel like I'm having a
Speaker 1: different experience than everyone else. That word instantly makes me
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, I'm actually having a related experience to
Speaker 1: a bunch of p who all feel like they're having
Speaker 1: these solo, isolated experiences exactly, and then when I started
Speaker 1: talking about it, then people would say things like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I have that. In the medical field, Oh
Speaker 1: I have that. As a classical musician, Oh I have that.
Speaker 1: You know where we get put in these physicians where
Speaker 1: we have to explain the distance between our context and
Speaker 1: people's expectation of our context. Say more about that in
Speaker 1: terms of like stereotypes or what you mean when you're
Speaker 1: an ethnically ambiguous woman and you get up on stage
Speaker 1: and the audience wants to know where you're from, and
Speaker 1: there's a power dynamic that exists with women that is attention,
Speaker 1: that is, you know, I have an expectation, I have
Speaker 1: a question, answer it. And when you're a woman, that
Speaker 1: power dynamic of like I need something from you, give
Speaker 1: it to me exists is normative and subconscious and habitual.
Speaker 1: And when you're a woman of color, than the expectation
Speaker 1: for people to educate about where you're like, don't just
Speaker 1: don't just relieve my tension, but also fill in all
Speaker 1: of the gaps of anything I've ever wanted to know
Speaker 1: since you're here, if you don't mind exactly exactly, And
Speaker 1: especially with liberal audiences, because they believe that it is
Speaker 1: their job to learn from difference. They're pre set to
Speaker 1: expect that when difference presents itself on stage, they should
Speaker 1: learn from difference, and so then that learning kills comedy.
Speaker 1: Nobody laughs when they're learning. You can't learn when you're laughing.
Speaker 1: You laugh when you get it. You laugh because you
Speaker 1: just told me something that I already knew, and I
Speaker 1: forgot that I knew it. Oh you're human, I forgot. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that's funny. How did I forget that? You know? Oh?
Speaker 1: You do that just like me. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: recognize that. But when we're learning, we stop laughing. We
Speaker 1: listen when we're actually learning, and you know that experience
Speaker 1: of when people are actually listening to you versus when
Speaker 1: they're not right. We all know that feeling. So in
Speaker 1: comedy like tension. I mean, you ever get a breathless laugh.
Speaker 1: It's the worst thing in the world. People have to
Speaker 1: go ha ha ha. They have to take a breath
Speaker 1: in if that anticipation is not there and someone wants
Speaker 1: to agree with you or disagree with you or what
Speaker 1: you just said. They think they know where you're going,
Speaker 1: but they're not sure. They see a magic tricks about
Speaker 1: to happen, and they want to catch it before you
Speaker 1: trick them. That has to be there, that tension has
Speaker 1: to exist. But what happens for people who are not
Speaker 1: sis hetero white men on stage is that it's not
Speaker 1: the normative social experience for us to have authorship over
Speaker 1: that tension. When we see a white guy on stage
Speaker 1: with a mic, we go, oh, what's he gonna do
Speaker 1: with that power? And then we're along for the ride.
Speaker 1: When I take that mic, then people go, wait, where
Speaker 1: are you from? And how did you get here? And
Speaker 1: where are your parents? And how did they get here?
Speaker 1: And do they approve of what you're saying? And do
Speaker 1: I agree that I'm going to let you be in
Speaker 1: charge of that? That's a lot Before I opened my mouth,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is so genius exactly, And I mean
Speaker 1: so then the question, of course, is like, so, what's
Speaker 1: the solution so people like you don't quit? I'll say
Speaker 1: this because it's never one solution, right, you know, we
Speaker 1: say it takes a village. But I think what we
Speaker 1: forget about that is it's not just people. It's also institutions.
Speaker 1: So it's not just about the people in the audiences,
Speaker 1: it's also about the pipelines. It's also about those gatekeepers.
Speaker 1: It's also about the metrics that we use to gauge
Speaker 1: a laugh. It's also about the way that we determine
Speaker 1: whether or not a comedian successful. What are we gonna
Speaker 1: do if all of the time the metric for success
Speaker 1: is how heartily you laugh at what you already knew
Speaker 1: to be true. Yep, we can't move forward real far.
Speaker 1: So what I think we have to remember is it's
Speaker 1: not always meant to be funny to you. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not the every tension romans that it's not always
Speaker 1: meant for everybody. Right. So if that's the case, if
Speaker 1: it's not good and I and people always say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, guy, I'll get a lot of bro comics
Speaker 1: who are like, what are we gonna do with comedy
Speaker 1: if it's not about laughter? And it's like, okay, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: Gallagher tours. There are comedians making money who aren't funny.
Speaker 1: People will survive, the industry will survive, Capitalism will still thrive.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. You know, I lost a friendship over Nanette. Oh.
Speaker 1: Nanetta is a classic stand up comedy structure. It's fucking stunning. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he is a comedian of color and could not
Speaker 1: wrap his mind around the fact that if it wasn't
Speaker 1: funny to him, it should not have any value to
Speaker 1: anybody else, and that that was something that offended me.
Speaker 1: I'm scared for you that you have a friend like that.
Speaker 1: Well not anymore. I'll tell you why. Nana is a
Speaker 1: classic comedic structure. Comedy is a personal essay. You begin
Speaker 1: with an argument, you carry it all the way through,
Speaker 1: example after example after example, you make a case. It's
Speaker 1: not about subplots. It's not about wrapping up you know
Speaker 1: what he said or she said or they did. It's
Speaker 1: about the argument. So Nnette Show is an argument, you know,
Speaker 1: and then too it closes on the highest point of tension.
Speaker 1: That's comedy, the mic drop. But the thing is the
Speaker 1: celebration for Nanette. What makes it so impactful, which is
Speaker 1: a real metric for success in comedy, and what makes
Speaker 1: it so revolutionary is that the mic drop comes when
Speaker 1: they let the tension release for them and not the crowd.
Speaker 1: This is a celebration for me. It lands on you buy.
Speaker 1: That's the greatest mic drop of all time. It's fantastic
Speaker 1: and it's classic comedy. Okay, we'll be back, Okay, We're back,
Speaker 1: and we were talking in the break and I want
Speaker 1: to bring this up because this whole idea of tension
Speaker 1: and releasing the tension does remind me of, you know,
Speaker 1: being a woman, and how much the idea of people pleasing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I showed you I have a pin on
Speaker 1: my jacket today that's like a little award for not
Speaker 1: pleasing everybody, which I almost wear ironically because i feel
Speaker 1: like I get through a whole day and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh funk, I pleased everybody I can. I'm trying not
Speaker 1: to because that means, you know, but it's a lot
Speaker 1: of mental labor, Okay. So on Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Speaker 1: is like a pyramid right of like safety at the
Speaker 1: physiological level, belonging you know, community and uh esteem and
Speaker 1: then self actualization. And so many times folks think that
Speaker 1: they're having a conversation at the level of self actualization,
Speaker 1: like we're just talking extractly, right, when they don't realize
Speaker 1: that for the other person, it's hitting them in a
Speaker 1: space of belonging, you know, whether or not they feel
Speaker 1: connected to that other person anymore, like you lost your friend, right,
Speaker 1: And I think for women are sense of belonging, likability, accommodation.
Speaker 1: All those things threatened our belonging, but also belonging for
Speaker 1: us as capital, yeah where property, you know, and for
Speaker 1: people of color this is even more triggering. So you
Speaker 1: know when people say, like, don't be so accommodating, or
Speaker 1: you know, don't be so gracious, or you know, don't
Speaker 1: try to please everybody, it's like, well, it's not really
Speaker 1: always up to me though, And that's also not a
Speaker 1: percent of the time a way that I can be
Speaker 1: successful institutionally speaking. I mean this on a really practical
Speaker 1: level is also why I pushed back as a professional
Speaker 1: voice coach on like making fun of girls for vocal
Speaker 1: fry yoh yeah, Like, can I admit that sound repeatedly
Speaker 1: without break is like a little bit jarring and I
Speaker 1: want somebody to breathe a little bit more sure, But
Speaker 1: on a much more holistic level, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: what's happening societally for that human being trying to make
Speaker 1: it in the world and get some of their needs met,
Speaker 1: I bet that vocal fries helping them get there. There's
Speaker 1: a sense of belonging because boy do they sound like
Speaker 1: their peers. There's a sense of safety because they're not
Speaker 1: scaring that guy. See. See this is the thing is like,
Speaker 1: sometimes I wonder if leadership is its own pronoun. Who wait,
Speaker 1: what's like? What if I was just like yeah, will
Speaker 1: be like, uh say more because I see so many
Speaker 1: women who inhabit leadership. But there's a masculine edge to
Speaker 1: it somehow that we have to present and perform to.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that's natural to us. It doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: a performance, and sometimes it's a performance because it's like,
Speaker 1: we all have masculine and feminine energies and that's cool.
Speaker 1: But if we're just like ratching up the masculine because
Speaker 1: it's inherently coded as more powerful in this world, then
Speaker 1: we're never actually finding what female leadership sounds like. And
Speaker 1: by the way, that's the point of this podcast. Like
Speaker 1: if uh, if an orc came in to tell me
Speaker 1: that the company is failing, then I am gonna be
Speaker 1: focused on the fact that the company is failing. Like
Speaker 1: why does it matter how you present? You know I've
Speaker 1: already been hired, you checked my resume, you read my references.
Speaker 1: I have been here. I'm here because you have the
Speaker 1: stipulated trust in me in this position. So when I
Speaker 1: tell you we're screwed and you're in trouble, then everything
Speaker 1: moves forward from there. Why is it backward in an
Speaker 1: attack on my character? Obviously, logically that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, right, Everything else is sexism. You don't like
Speaker 1: the package? Why are you looking at the package? And
Speaker 1: it's so sexist to examine and evaluate the value of
Speaker 1: the package. I want to ask about your podcast Good
Speaker 1: Muslimpad Muslim, which recently aired its final episode after five years,
Speaker 1: and specifically in terms of how revealing we are publicly,
Speaker 1: which is obviously something I'm considering having my own nascent podcast.
Speaker 1: But also I see you know, quote unquote influences or
Speaker 1: anybody on the interwebs struggling with this and that sense
Speaker 1: of like I would like to reveal authentic things about
Speaker 1: myself because it feels like I'm finding my community, and
Speaker 1: also some of it feels like I'm doing it for
Speaker 1: other people and it doesn't like what how do you
Speaker 1: figure out what's private? Oh? Yeah, that's a great question
Speaker 1: for me. Safety has played a big role in that,
Speaker 1: you know, because being an Iranian woman in this country
Speaker 1: continues to be a more and more dangerous thing. I
Speaker 1: always thought that I didn't have to really be all
Speaker 1: that aware of politics. And part of the reason why
Speaker 1: I got into comedy ha ha was to escape politics.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to just be silly, imagine that,
Speaker 1: just be funny. And then I realized when I got
Speaker 1: invited to this conference and you run, that turned out
Speaker 1: I think to be a scam maybe um that I
Speaker 1: can't do that. I have to actually keep up, you know,
Speaker 1: and know what I'm up against. Uh, speaking of those obstacles,
Speaker 1: and that sucks because there are some things that I
Speaker 1: want to be able to talk about that I think
Speaker 1: are important to talk about, but it just puts me
Speaker 1: at a risk that is, you know, um, not worth it.
Speaker 1: And on the other hand, you have talked really openly
Speaker 1: about a lot of things from your surgery two sexuality exactly.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, your reaction to the Pulse
Speaker 1: student night club shooting. Yeah, I came out as bisexual.
Speaker 1: Part of the blessing and curse of me is that
Speaker 1: I have to dialogue it in order to know what
Speaker 1: it is that I'm thinking, which can be tough for
Speaker 1: folks who care a lot about what people say. You know,
Speaker 1: for all that invested, I'm always trying to figure out, well,
Speaker 1: is this the word you know, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: words are so fluid for me, like they they're they're
Speaker 1: so restricative, and you're we're always looking for like is
Speaker 1: this the right now? Phrase? I wanted to understood. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's why we communicate literally, Yes, is this? Why is this?
Speaker 1: How is this? You know? Um? I actually took communications
Speaker 1: coaching because I was in a leadership position I got.
Speaker 1: I was project manager of a company and I didn't
Speaker 1: know what that meant. Was you swallow blame? Well, they
Speaker 1: never tell you that, and they promote you. And I
Speaker 1: got an evaluation at three sixty evaluation where they said, uh,
Speaker 1: you're too tall and too loud, and just because you're
Speaker 1: tall and loud doesn't mean when you get you get
Speaker 1: what you want. You're a brasive and nobody likes you.
Speaker 1: We haven't liked you for the last five years. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is mostly women. One guy. It was hilarious as
Speaker 1: I got the position because I was scary enough that
Speaker 1: I could contend with the one guy. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I mean that's why I was there was none of
Speaker 1: them wanted to hold the accountable. But then in the
Speaker 1: process of me holding everyone accountable, then it came to
Speaker 1: that and I could have left, but I wanted to
Speaker 1: know why did this happen? Yeah, and I had a
Speaker 1: friend who was doing communications coaching, and I asked her
Speaker 1: she could come in and I learned so much and
Speaker 1: she taught me that charisma is the ability to speak
Speaker 1: to people's strengths and that in times of crisis, we
Speaker 1: all think that everyone will show up as their best self,
Speaker 1: but really people will show up as their worst self.
Speaker 1: It's our most primitive base selves is what's gonna show
Speaker 1: up because it's not practiced. We don't practice crisis. And
Speaker 1: kind of crisis do you think she's talking about there,
Speaker 1: Like when we're in a position of conflict with somebody,
Speaker 1: that's what. Because there's there's some like there's some really lovely,
Speaker 1: kind of Mr. Rogers type sentiment about how in like
Speaker 1: massive you know, typhoon types of people will people will
Speaker 1: really like save each other and surprise each other and
Speaker 1: strangers end up, you know, being really loving. And you
Speaker 1: can point to that, but I think actually what's much
Speaker 1: more interesting, because it happens much more regularly for our lives,
Speaker 1: is what you're talking about, the kind type of prices
Speaker 1: where you're being called on ship and all of your
Speaker 1: all of your internal biases come to the surface. Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: not the tsunami, but the tsunami of the soul. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the white fragility suit is what's practiced. One of the
Speaker 1: other lessons she gave me was I don't have to
Speaker 1: say all of the processing part out loud, And she
Speaker 1: taught me this phrase, I think you can trust yourself
Speaker 1: to blank blank blank. I said that to my actors
Speaker 1: all the time, right, It's such a call to instinct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: rather than what do you mean by tell me more
Speaker 1: about the processing thing? So you know, I was constantly
Speaker 1: afraid that I wasn't doing things right, that I was
Speaker 1: an accommodating people correctly, and especially after that meeting, it
Speaker 1: didn't help my fear of belonging and certainly made it
Speaker 1: difficult to hold pop full accountable. But what she was
Speaker 1: saying to me was, or what I heard, was that
Speaker 1: I can rely on the capabilities that I have already
Speaker 1: in place to examine my thoughts as they come up
Speaker 1: and take a moment to decide whether or not those
Speaker 1: are the things that I want to discuss. And she said,
Speaker 1: if you don't know yet, then let the person know
Speaker 1: you need some time, trust that they can handle that
Speaker 1: you need a pause. And it was such a beautiful
Speaker 1: way to put it, because it wasn't like I didn't
Speaker 1: think I deserved it. It was that I was afraid
Speaker 1: that everything would go awry because there was always such
Speaker 1: a sense of urgency. And it's like the other half
Speaker 1: of permission to speak is permission to not speak. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: writing this tsunami of practical advice, I'd like to ask
Speaker 1: you for some tips. I specifically would like to focus
Speaker 1: on your experience in front of crowds. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners are not necessarily comedians, but they are
Speaker 1: having more and more opportunities slash, you know, challenging themselves
Speaker 1: into being in public, speaking in public, and you know,
Speaker 1: not everybody is like a crowd. That's my sweet spot.
Speaker 1: But it feels like you've found that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: do love the last paragraph of one of your MPR
Speaker 1: pieces that's about Jemma that I pronounce it. This is
Speaker 1: about the mass shooting at christ Church. So you know, morning,
Speaker 1: you said, and this is coming off of your surgery
Speaker 1: for thyroid cancer that made it hard for your neck
Speaker 1: to participate in communication. Yeah you said it. Wasn't the
Speaker 1: first mass shooting, it wouldn't be the last. So often
Speaker 1: tragedy is what brings us together. That it made me
Speaker 1: appreciate the ritual of Gemma all the more, which is
Speaker 1: Friday gathering. Growing up, we went to mosque every Friday.
Speaker 1: Whether enjoy sorrow, grief, or uncertainty. I think it's because
Speaker 1: of that tradition that I love performing live so much,
Speaker 1: even when it's just with a dozen friends in my
Speaker 1: living room, even when it runs me ragged, I love
Speaker 1: being there with the crowd. And now I might have
Speaker 1: a scar to remind me just how much. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I really I loved a lot about that, obviously, but
Speaker 1: specifically I want to talk about that. It's a different
Speaker 1: way of envisioning. It's a different theater of the theater
Speaker 1: of the relationship with the crowd. So it isn't just like,
Speaker 1: oh god, I'm up here and people are looking at me. Yes,
Speaker 1: So talk about that, like, how do you create a
Speaker 1: sense of like we're all in this together? Well, I
Speaker 1: go super like, I dive deep into nature. This is
Speaker 1: for me. I go, you're my guest dude. Other people,
Speaker 1: this is I'm giving the advice that works for me
Speaker 1: I do a deep dive into nature, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: what's up meat? Sex? Here? We are these organisms, these bodies, right,
Speaker 1: So what are the hierarchies about? And I asked myself
Speaker 1: what really is at stake? And I engage with all
Speaker 1: the doubt. I always say to my students, the people
Speaker 1: I mentor lean into the self doubt, trust the self doubt,
Speaker 1: because especially for us, as women, women of color, otherwise voices,
Speaker 1: there's so much that we have to just push aside
Speaker 1: into subconscious and move forward, you know. And then when
Speaker 1: we're called upon to be highlighted, that self doubt has
Speaker 1: never had its time in the sun, you know, it's yeah,
Speaker 1: So then it's just all anxiety. It's just all fuzz,
Speaker 1: you know, And so we have to unpack it, unpack, unpack, unpack.
Speaker 1: So I asked myself, what's at steak? What's actually at stake? Well,
Speaker 1: I get fired. Is my reputation at steak? You know?
Speaker 1: Am I in actual danger? And and if I can
Speaker 1: say yes to any of that, then I'll say, well,
Speaker 1: then is there another way for me to approach this topic?
Speaker 1: Because if that's really true, then let's not do that
Speaker 1: to me, you know, And then sometimes I re contextualize
Speaker 1: because sometimes my anxiety is the exhilaration and excitement, and
Speaker 1: I'm not as practiced in owning and enjoying and embodying exhilaration,
Speaker 1: you know, as a woman. For me, it was always
Speaker 1: about bottling it up. Bottle it up, push it to
Speaker 1: the side. Bottle it up, push it to the side.
Speaker 1: Don't be too loud, don't be too you know, you're
Speaker 1: too tall, You're too loud. Right, So I'm really practiced
Speaker 1: and being small, And so then I say, I'm really exhilarated.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited, you know. And then sometimes I think
Speaker 1: about the scarcity of experience. How many times will I
Speaker 1: have a chance to do this kind of performance. It
Speaker 1: means a lot to me, and because I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to always lean on our instincts in an
Speaker 1: athletic experience. That's the most like primal instinct we have,
Speaker 1: you know, it goes back millennia. I feel my quads
Speaker 1: and I actually massage my quads and I do like everybody, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's your fight or flight. Think about it. When you bolt,
Speaker 1: what's got to kick in your hamstrings? In your quads go?
Speaker 1: You know, So I lean into my quads, and for
Speaker 1: the lines that I'm the most afraid of, you know,
Speaker 1: with a crowd that I find them in my quads,
Speaker 1: you know, I just like lunge into them. And then
Speaker 1: I remember that the audience is my partner on stage there,
Speaker 1: my scene partner, and that they're there to do a
Speaker 1: job with me, is to have a good time. And
Speaker 1: I speak to their strengths. Yeah, you guys know how
Speaker 1: to have a good time. We know how to do this,
Speaker 1: We know how to let go. And if they don't know,
Speaker 1: then I asked them about it. So you know what
Speaker 1: is that about? And people also know what it means
Speaker 1: to be a heckler to take up too much stage time.
Speaker 1: And so why lean on that? You know you're doing
Speaker 1: that thing? Friends and move to the other person, and
Speaker 1: I build community, you know, and sometimes I split the
Speaker 1: audience in half. The advice that one of my great
Speaker 1: mentors w Kmlbell, comedian Emmy winner United States of America
Speaker 1: on CNN, I'll be in the spring season, watch it.
Speaker 1: He used to say, never let the audience be a
Speaker 1: faceless mass, hold them accountable, assign them an opinion, let
Speaker 1: them voice that they disagree, but make them do their job.
Speaker 1: They're a live crowd for a reason. It's not television.
Speaker 1: And I put in every performance I think of something
Speaker 1: new that I'm trying to gain some new information. You know,
Speaker 1: what if there's more to this joke, What if there's
Speaker 1: more to this idea or this premise? What do you
Speaker 1: mean about the separating them in half thing? So I'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, you guys are amazing over here, but this
Speaker 1: side so very conscious, very like out loud, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: very out loud. This side, I don't know what's happening
Speaker 1: with you. You folks are with me? Or sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: just find the one person who gets it and I'll
Speaker 1: alienate everyone else and connect with that one person. Then
Speaker 1: what happens is people lean in, and then other people
Speaker 1: lean in, and then the person who is making it
Speaker 1: a terrible show the whole time makes themselves clear. And
Speaker 1: what ends up happening is people walk away going that
Speaker 1: was a weird crowd, not you bombed. Yeah, crowd work
Speaker 1: well in any presentation. I think people just forget that
Speaker 1: the audience is in a relationship with you. They're they're
Speaker 1: in a dynamic with you, and if you feel like
Speaker 1: they've turned into an evaluative mass then hold them accountable
Speaker 1: for that. And if you don't know how to do that,
Speaker 1: then those are the things to prepare yourself with. And
Speaker 1: you are suggesting for yourself that one of the tools
Speaker 1: is to literally ask them. Yeah, because we do for get.
Speaker 1: I mean, I coach people in this and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes I'm like, if there's something you don't know about
Speaker 1: people up top, and it's not even a hostile crowd
Speaker 1: as just you literally you've done a bunch of research,
Speaker 1: but like who actually showed up to this I don't
Speaker 1: know fundraiser or conference, ask questions, get a show of hands,
Speaker 1: or get people to voice. But like the more you know,
Speaker 1: the better. But also theater wise, that's a way of saying, like,
Speaker 1: you guys are participants, were in a room together, We're
Speaker 1: all meet sacks in a room together. Let's like not
Speaker 1: pretend we're not exactly. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and then when we come back, we're going to find
Speaker 1: out whose voice Zara admires. Okay, we're back, and Zara,
Speaker 1: tell us who you chose. Lisa Marie Rollins, Yes, tell
Speaker 1: me about her. She's my director for my comedy special
Speaker 1: on Behalf of All Muslims a comedy special, and she
Speaker 1: she really supported me in the vision for the show.
Speaker 1: And I've been following her career for a real long time,
Speaker 1: in part because she's amazing, and in part because we
Speaker 1: started out together as solo performers in W. Kmal Belle
Speaker 1: Solo Performance Workshop. And at that time, I remember she
Speaker 1: was producing for him, and the way that she would
Speaker 1: hold space and then can be a student with us,
Speaker 1: you know, be production manager here and then come sitting
Speaker 1: in class at us and then and I um, I
Speaker 1: just saw all of the different ways that she engaged
Speaker 1: with people, crowds, spaces. She was always thinking about kind
Speaker 1: of what's the construct and seeing, you know, what does
Speaker 1: she need from it? And how does she give to it?
Speaker 1: And I don't know that she necessarily thinks about it consciously.
Speaker 1: I just saw how fluidly she moved through it, and
Speaker 1: it really struck me and I really admired it. And
Speaker 1: then when it came to my show, Oh man, did
Speaker 1: I rely on her so much to speak multiple languages
Speaker 1: of academia, comedy theater, even you know, philanthropy in the
Speaker 1: grant writing process, in addition to just how she held
Speaker 1: vision for this medium of stand up comedy, which is
Speaker 1: like a singular individual up against the needs of a
Speaker 1: theater space that wants, you know, spectacle for its audience live,
Speaker 1: you know, not just one person up against the blank.
Speaker 1: You know. It also strikes me we're gonna listen to
Speaker 1: her in a second, but a lot of her public
Speaker 1: work as a playwright and as a writer is about
Speaker 1: her as she calls a transracial adoption experience, which means
Speaker 1: that she's mixed race, right, and what that did for her,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, you know. It's it's really like the idea
Speaker 1: of code switching, which is a really like a well
Speaker 1: known trope in certainly an African American culture, because you
Speaker 1: have to you you you were raised to feel like
Speaker 1: you have to speak differently in different contexts in order
Speaker 1: to be taken seriously in different context is something we
Speaker 1: actually all do. It's like totally a linguistic thing. We
Speaker 1: all talked differently to different people. But it doesn't have
Speaker 1: as much of a loaded quality to it when you know,
Speaker 1: we aren't in like a less dominant culture and having
Speaker 1: to sort of prove ourselves. But I'm sure that's something
Speaker 1: that's so front of mine for her. So the way
Speaker 1: that you just describe that experience of her being able
Speaker 1: to kind of chameleon in various spaces, feels like it
Speaker 1: may be something that was like a lifelong skill. Oh,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely, we're gonna listen role vast. But there was
Speaker 1: something she said in here. She was being interviewed about
Speaker 1: her writing style and like her relationship to the whole, Like,
Speaker 1: you're only a legit writer if you carve out four
Speaker 1: hours a day and it's the same exact four hours
Speaker 1: every day, and like, you know, the sort of discipline
Speaker 1: side of being a writer. And this was her response
Speaker 1: as a person who acknowledges how all the aspects of
Speaker 1: my life informed mus help as a writer, my teaching work,
Speaker 1: my activist work, my racial positionality, all of those things
Speaker 1: inform who I am. It's part of the feeling of
Speaker 1: my creative well. And so this notion that I just
Speaker 1: have to be sitting all day and outputting without any
Speaker 1: kind of mental, spiritual, physical intake was not right for me.
Speaker 1: When I'm hearing her voice, she's on like a really
Speaker 1: technical level. She's using a lot of pitch. She does
Speaker 1: a little bit of a special kind of upspeak that
Speaker 1: isn't like I end all of my thoughts with a
Speaker 1: question accidentally, but rather it's like an in the middle
Speaker 1: of a long thought, like I'm about I'm saying the
Speaker 1: first half of it so that then you have the
Speaker 1: payoff at the end of it, which is like a
Speaker 1: kind of upspeak that we all do that we should
Speaker 1: do because it's I mean, I'm putting in quotes, but
Speaker 1: like it's it's good storytelling. The two main things that
Speaker 1: I feel when I'm listening to her speak just really
Speaker 1: really technically is one that she's using pitch and things
Speaker 1: like you know what I was just describing that are
Speaker 1: classic kind of storytelling modes, like i have a long
Speaker 1: and complicated thought, but I'm going to take care of
Speaker 1: you as I go through it a and be there's
Speaker 1: like there's there's like a motion in it, like you
Speaker 1: can see her voice almost like cracked at this one
Speaker 1: moment and she didn't give a fuck, but like there.
Speaker 1: You know, how we talk about things that matter to
Speaker 1: us in a way that sounds like they matter to
Speaker 1: us is something we've all, in certain ways been kind
Speaker 1: of trained out of. This is part of why I
Speaker 1: think vocal fry exists, because it's like it's waysy to
Speaker 1: kind of hide behind like whatever, I don't really care
Speaker 1: like this kind of thing, and as soon as you
Speaker 1: put breath behind it, and then you have to acknowledge like, Okay,
Speaker 1: my voice kind of wavered when I said that, because
Speaker 1: I actually care, and that's something that all of us,
Speaker 1: you know, I have absolutely this very weak dealt with Shoot,
Speaker 1: I hear myself caring in my voice. Well, that's awkward.
Speaker 1: I have to push through and just trust that it
Speaker 1: would be even more I mean, you know, it would
Speaker 1: be a different kind of awkward if I tried to
Speaker 1: sound as flat and generic as possible, Like it would
Speaker 1: save me in terms of my my embarrassment, but it
Speaker 1: would not save me at all in terms of actually
Speaker 1: getting across what I'm trying to get across and like
Speaker 1: share a real connection with a human being. And we're
Speaker 1: you know, part of working on our voices about like
Speaker 1: prioritizing that, prioritizing human real human connection over saving face.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, saving face. We know how to do. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of us at least there is that
Speaker 1: sense of like whatever, as long as I sort of
Speaker 1: don't really show up in a room, no one can
Speaker 1: make fun of me. Yes, that's fine, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: obviously that will not get us our dreams. That's me
Speaker 1: on a Friday night. Yeah. Anyway, when I was saying
Speaker 1: all that, you were like nodding because it feels like
Speaker 1: it's sort of yeah, because I mean it points, it pinpoints,
Speaker 1: like all the things that I was so drawn to
Speaker 1: that I also wanted to emulate, you know, because of
Speaker 1: course there's like code switching that we do right. And additionally,
Speaker 1: there was a way that she held space in a room,
Speaker 1: navigating how she engaged from what she needed. And I'm
Speaker 1: especially when we met as a comedian and as a
Speaker 1: young comedian, I'm so accustomed to accommodating the needs of
Speaker 1: a crowd and always being high and always being up
Speaker 1: here and always rallying, you know, um, and that space
Speaker 1: of you know, unwavering liability. It was so different to inhabit,
Speaker 1: you know, a different engagement. It's like a real gamble
Speaker 1: in the moment, and the payoff is so much better
Speaker 1: than if you hadn't taken the gamble. But why does
Speaker 1: it feel scary? Yes? And I think that's everything is
Speaker 1: seeing somebody achieve it is that really for me what
Speaker 1: made her a role model and how I moved through
Speaker 1: these artistic spaces. I love that. Thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: her in and for letting us know better. Thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll be info about her in the show notes. Thank
Speaker 1: you for being here, thank you for having me. Thank
Speaker 1: you for the permission. You're welcome. Thank you to Zara
Speaker 1: for coming in. You can find out more about her
Speaker 1: in the show notes or on our website Permission to
Speaker 1: Speak pod dot com. Also, you can go to Permission
Speaker 1: to Speak pod dot com if you have any awesome
Speaker 1: quotes you'd like me to read at the top of
Speaker 1: the episodes, and if you have any questions, I will
Speaker 1: do and ask me anything episode from time to time,
Speaker 1: and I want to know what is getting in the
Speaker 1: way of your voice. You can also send d M
Speaker 1: s or voice messages to our instagram at Permission to
Speaker 1: Speak Pod, where we're posting a bunch of content and
Speaker 1: please join the community. Thanks as well to Sophie Lichterman
Speaker 1: and the team at iHeart Radio, to Megan Read, to
Speaker 1: my family and cohort, and to all of you. We're
Speaker 1: recording this podcast in the I Heart Radio studios in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: on land used to belong to the Tongva indigenous tribe,
Speaker 1: and you can visit U s d a C dot
Speaker 1: us to learn more about honoring native land. Permission to
Speaker 1: Speak is a production of I Heart Radio and Double
Speaker 1: Vision Executive produced by Katherine Burke Canton and Mark Canton.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, listen on the
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.