A Piece of Work
I watched the Joan Rivers documentary this morning. It was surprisingly depressing. I have thought about becoming a stand-up comedian before. Never seriously, of course, because I am far too thin-skinned. I'm not even sure I'm strong enough to make it in the behind-the-scenes capacity in which I'd like to work in show business. But it seems like a lot of comediennes started out wanting to be actresses until someone told they they were funny.
Melissa says at one point that a lot of people think it takes a lot of confidence to be a comic, but she thinks they're the most screwed up and needy people alive because they get on stage and say "Laugh." I already feel like that. People think I'm naturally funny because I'm gregarious, but a lot of times I try really hard to craft the perfect joke. And when nobody responds, I think I get just a taste of what it feels like to be standing up on that stage and hear total silence.
The part of it that really broke my heart was seeing just how fragile Joan Rivers really is. She said that she's gotten all the plastic surgery because she's never been a natural beauty and no man has ever told her she was beautiful in her entire life. I also read a quote that she doesn't think any successful female comic was told she was beautiful as a little girl. She really didn't want to do the Comedy Central Roast because she didn't want to hear people talk about how old she is and how much plastic surgery she's had. And you can see on her face that she wasn't enjoying it.
I also found it interesting that Joan really considers herself an actress and she can take anyone saying she's a bad comedienne but cannot take anyone insulting her as an actress. So she wrote this play and took it to Edinburgh and London, but it got bad reviews so she said tearfully that she couldn't bear to bring it to New York. It was so sad. I really wanted to see it.
Melissa says at one point that a lot of people think it takes a lot of confidence to be a comic, but she thinks they're the most screwed up and needy people alive because they get on stage and say "Laugh." I already feel like that. People think I'm naturally funny because I'm gregarious, but a lot of times I try really hard to craft the perfect joke. And when nobody responds, I think I get just a taste of what it feels like to be standing up on that stage and hear total silence.
The part of it that really broke my heart was seeing just how fragile Joan Rivers really is. She said that she's gotten all the plastic surgery because she's never been a natural beauty and no man has ever told her she was beautiful in her entire life. I also read a quote that she doesn't think any successful female comic was told she was beautiful as a little girl. She really didn't want to do the Comedy Central Roast because she didn't want to hear people talk about how old she is and how much plastic surgery she's had. And you can see on her face that she wasn't enjoying it.
I also found it interesting that Joan really considers herself an actress and she can take anyone saying she's a bad comedienne but cannot take anyone insulting her as an actress. So she wrote this play and took it to Edinburgh and London, but it got bad reviews so she said tearfully that she couldn't bear to bring it to New York. It was so sad. I really wanted to see it.