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Longtime Late Show With David Letterman standup comedy booker Eddie Brill will no longer handle those duties following an uproar over a New York Times interview in which he said the reason he booked more male than female comedians was that “there are a lot less female comics who are authentic. I see a lot of female comics who to please an audience will act like men.” CBS had no comment yesterday but a person knowledgeable about Late Show said it was returning to a system whereby a staffer from the show will scout comedians at clubs and other performance spaces and invite them to perform for senior producers who will make booking decisions. The Times said Brill was expected to remain as a warm-up comedian for the studio audience.
CBS ‘Late Show’ Replaces Comic Booker
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First! I agree with Brill about female comics, however, maybe Letterman should think “out the box” and try “ethnic” female comics who are Black / Asian / Hispanic. But I find that female comics try to be as crude and lewd as male comics and the ones today just aren’t that funny.
What a tool. He has no business judging comics since he’s the worst one in town. His neanderthal views reflect Dave’s thinking. Sexism is as bad as ever in that writer’s room. You can hear it in Dave’s lame-o jokes.
If your argument was that shows like Letterman, SNL, Daily Show, etc. need an infusion of female writers, I’d certainly agree. But saying that’s why they’re not funny is specifically because they lack females in the process completely overlooks the fact that the nature of the program itself dictates the qualify of humor. Letterman at 11:30 EST was never going to be the same unhinged guy he was at 12:30. We watched the same happen with Conan. SNL wasn’t magically funnier once they had a female head writer (and it didn’t magically get funnier when that female was replaced by a male, either). The nature of the program and the nature of the face/voice is much more critical to your enjoyment than the folks behind the curtain.
I agree with the spirit of your post – that in a lot of ways, comedy writers rooms are just glorified “He-man Woman Haters” clubs and really need a solid injection of diversity. But don’t assume a sudden injection of female writers would make Jay Leno funny.
One of the best jokes I ever heard:
“I’ll now do my impression of every female comic. ‘My boyfriend blah blah blah…’”
Whiney, 2BrokeGirls and Chelsea Handler do nothing to disprove Brill’s theory.
If he still gets to keep his incredibly cush warm-up gig, what’s the point?
A standup guy; one of Dave’s intimates. Real shame. Talented guy … another case of be careful what you say in the media. He probably thought he was being funny … and, he was.
Sad turn of events. Great guy!
Absolutely true. Most female comics are so eager to prove their “man-like” sense of vulgarity that they forget to be funny.
I am a woman and i have to agree. Other than Ellen who does not do much standup anymore, cannot think of one female comic who is really LOL funny. Some of them who used to be funny somehow got meaner as they got more famous – people like JOan Rivers and Rosanne Barr – and stopped being funny. If the point of diversity culture is that we are all different then men and women are different and maybe one of those differences is that women are just not that funny (except as writers – there are funy women writers)
I suspect the reason female writers seem to be funny to you, while female comics don’t, is a built-in bias.
Years ago they used to say female musicians didn’t have the chops to perform in symphony orchestras. There were all kinds of theories put forward as to why, but it was clear that women couldn’t possibly be as good as men, ’cause they’d given everybody a fair audition and they could SEE that the women weren’t as good. Then, they switched to having the musicians audition behind a screen–suddenly, the women were just as good as the men.
I suggest the same thing is going on: You can’t tell if something was written by a woman or a man, so you judge it without bias, but the moment a female performer gets up, your judgment is clouded by your assumptions about women comics.
I only have to read the credits or the book jacket to know if something was written by a woman or a man so if I had bias I would not buy books, or go to movies or watch TV shows written by women but that is not the case. I do not think female comics are not as good as men because I am biased – i think that because they do not make me laugh.
Why does vulgarity belong exclusively to men?
Christopher Hitchens said the best female comedians were either fat, Jewish, dykey or some combination of the three.
this firing was a premeditated killing by the Times writer. He should be so proud.
Brill’s a nice guy but that was a dumb thing to think and an even dumber thing to say.
THIS IS WRONG. Not only is Eddie Brill a great guy with a true eye for what makes a good TV comedian, , but as a TALENTLESS female comic wanna-be, even I admit that his statement about women comics is 100%
accurate.
I hope someone calls Julie Klausner and tells her that her slimy ex-boyfriend with the tiny penis who STILL drives a ’94 Honda CRX is posting some pretty stupid sh*t under her name during his one hour of free internet at the public library.
Oh, gotcha! Honda didn’t produce a ’94 CR-X. They had replaced the CR-X in ’92 with the Del Sol.
Sadly Brill is completely right. It’s not that there aren’t funny women, but in a boys club type of environment, they can be very threatening. The smarter the woman the less help and kindness she’s going to find from other comics. Do the period, cum on my face jokes and the insecure male comics can file you away in the Brillzone, you are non-threatening and maybe you’ll have sex with them when they get their own spot on Live at Gotham.
Most male comics are just as bad at being ‘the same’, but because of volume more talented male comics are likely to emerge.
People are commenting as if men own the idea of vulgarity. Men may have cornered the market on getting down and dirty, but that doesn’t mean a woman can’t be do gross and puerile jokes, or any kind of humor for that matter.
A comic or comedy writer should be judged on what’s funny, not his or her gender. Unfortunately, there is still a boys’ club in the comedy world. Trashing some female comics to make your point is ignorant and sad. Sure, not all female comics are good. Same goes for the male comics. If you go to the clubs, you will see an endless display of lame comics who are men. There are plenty of funny ladies who can tell and/or write great jokes just as good as the men – if not better. Welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Brill, Mr. Letterman and Mr. Head Writer of most late night shows.
If you’re talented, you don’t need vulgarity and grossness to be funny, as Ellen, Billy Crystal, and others have proved.
I agree Magilla. Why can’t female comics be just as scatalogical as men? I think Amy Schumer, Sarah Silverman, and Joan Rivers (her fashion police show contains the best one liners in comedy today – Joan: The rumor is that Rhianna and Chris Brown are dating; I asked Rhianna if the rumor was true and she said “beats me.”), are all as funny as any of their male counterparts. This women aren’t funny myth is really perpetuated by an immature, insecure male ego. And I’m a guy.
Brill is a throw back to the Jerry Lewis school of comedy apparently, which Judd Aptow addressed quite eloquently as he accepted the award for co-writing “Bridesmaids”. As for “no female comics who are truly funny”…Whoopi Goldberg, Elayne Boosler, Rita Rudner, Kristen Whig, Melissa McCarthy, Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho…to name a few. And just because they may or may not “do stand-up” doesn’t make them any less of a “female comic” if that’s where they started. Perhaps Brill is simply venting his sour grapes that 1) the women who choose to use vulgarity in their acts use it better than men; 2) that he’s still a warm-up act for Letterman while “women comics” are getting movies, sitcoms, Emmys and Golden Globe nominations.
The guy was stating an observation about what he’s seen. Right or wrong, it’s a legitimate opinion to have. Women comics are in a difficult position out there, and I think his point illustrates some of the traps that exist for them. There’s nothing in that quote that suggests he doesn’t give female comics an equal chance at landing an appearance on the show.
I hope you’re being sarcastic and not dense. Try his comments again in another context and maybe you’ll appreciate why female comics AREN’T getting an “equal chance”: “Yes, it’s true here at Acme Corp we have no black executives, but we just couldn’t find any who weren’t trying to act like white people.”
Um, yes there is. ‘he said the reason he booked more male than female comedians was that “there are a lot less female comics who are authentic.” ‘ So he doesn’t think they’re authentic, therefore he books fewer women than men. Women can’t be authentically less ‘ladylike’? His take on that impacts the opportunity women have to be on the Late Show. It also begs the question, if women do it to please an audience as he claims, what does he care? Last time I checked, pleasing the audience on a talk show was kind of what was expected of a comic. Louis C.K. goes into plenty of jokes about his testicles, and that’s okay, but Sarah Silverman’s gotta keep it clean? Sorry to get in the way of Brill’s Madonna/wh*re complex, but women are all over the spectrum in terms of propriety and vulgarity. Most mix it up.
It’s been my experience that women are every bit as obscene as men.
The story of the Brill firing is more complicated than his benign comment about female comics.
The hidden story is that the booking of BOTH late night shows have been handled by the same interlocking, dependent voices of the Improv chain. The co-owner’s two kids were the booking agents for BOTH shows (until one moved to Comedy Central and Brill filled in). All tryouts are done at those clubs; restrictions are placed on where comics can work since this cozy relationship developed a monopoly.
It’s sad that the two late night hosts whose careers were advanced by their Stand-Up acts, pay so little attention to that tradition and rely instead on the monopolistic thinking of a nepotistic clique.The original NY Times story spoke of how Brill would hold classes for money, and then book the show,an obvious conflict of interest. The next obvious conflict to explore is to what extent the late night hosts have an interest in the comedy chain the Improv.
Maybe this firing will spotlight the void in the late night scrutiny of new Stand-Up talent, along with the hidden and not so hidden conflicts of interest displayed by all.
Never heard about that alleged sweetheart deal with The Improv but wouldn’t surprise me.
Couldn’t let that comment by Comic Observer implying some connection between late night TV show bookers and the Improv go by without responding. It’s a ridiculous, farfetched and ignorant assertion. That is one conflict of interest that in no way exists.
This is one of those things that looks bad and is tough to defend without sounding like the sexist d-bags who’ve already chimed in.
That said, Eddie’s a great guy who slipped up here. He talks about authenticity with comics all the time, regardless of gender– I’m a guy, and I’ve gotten the same note from him. Did he make a mistake publicly generalizing by gender? Yes. But some kind of stereotyping goes on among comics all the time. Just because a comic might say “black comics are more animated,” or “Italian comics are more cocky,” or “female comics are less authentic,” doesn’t mean that he/she bears any prejudice towards those groups. It’s how we talk to each other, and sometimes we forget that it’s not how we should talk to journalists.
I know Eddie didn’t intend to offend, and I know he doesn’t have a hateful bone in his body. Very sad to see him go.
Females can be funny without being grouped into the “Whitney” or “Chelsea Handler” category, who I personally do NOT find funny. Look up Maggie Klaus on YouTube. Just saw her at the Ice House Sunday night and she brought down the house, with hilarious clean humor. She’ll be one to look out for in 2012. Hopefully, this kind of humor will be an uplifting trend on late night.
Brill probably thought he was doing women a favor — you know, like “be a little more femme, baby.” But he’s still a Borscht Belt-style 1950s hack whose material has zero connection to what’s happening in comedy or life in general.
That show would be lucky to have someone like Joan Rivers on. At almost 80 years old, she’s still one of the edgiest stand-ups around. Letterman is about as edgy as a round rock. He bores the hell out of me and so do his comic guests.
Two words: Lisa Lampanelli.