An open letter to comedy…

My name is Matt Drufke and I have been doing standup comedy while based in the Chicago suburbs for almost eighteen years. I love being a suburban comedian. I have always found the scene out here so supportive and caring and filled with people who care as much about how you’re doing as they care about how much you make them laugh. And perhaps this is why I find myself needing to write this. Because something happened this week and it bothered me enough where I wanted to write this.

I’m not saying that my letter is solely about the suburban Chicago scene. I’m sure what I’m about to say is an issue in many scenes. And I could give so many prefaces, but I guess the one I want to stress the most is that what I’m writing about isn’t an issue I have with ALL comedians. In fact, I hadn’t even planned on saying anything, but the more and more people I spoke to, the more I felt like the issue I’m about to raise isn’t something that upsets only me.

I would also understand if someone say, “Hey, just who the fuck are you?” And that would be a totally fair point. In fact, if I didn’t produce a weekly show, I’m not sure I would still be doing comedy. Since comedy returned post-COVID, I could probably count the amount of open mics I’ve gone to on my fingers and toes. And, for the sake of honesty, it’s not like I was a comedy superstar before that. So I would understand any criticism directed towards me.

So, having said all of that, let’s have a conversation. And, by that, I mean a very one-sided conversation where you read my opinions and there is no dialogue unless you choose to reply in the comments. Here we go…

---

Earlier this week, I went to an open mic. And that’s rare for me. I often make the decision to stay home with my family instead of going out and micing. And I almost never go on a Monday, which falls right in the middle of my workweek which consists of three 12-hour days. But, due to a series of circumstances, I found myself being able to open mic. So I went to a mic not that far from my house and everything seemed promising. There were lots of people who I like and respect there. The room was filled not just with comedians, but with audience members (to a non-comedian, audience members at an open mic- at least by me- are a very rare thing so a room full of them is like Shangri-La). Everyone was laughing and drinking and overall having themselves a merry time. And because I had never been to this mic before, the gentleman running it gave me a nice spot on the long list. I sat down at the bar, ordered a Jameson and ginger ale, and started listening to the comedy.

That is when things became less fun.

So many of the jokes I heard that night involved punchlines that either bordered on (or directly were) misogynistic, transphobic, or homophobic. Women were often called “bitches”. Multiple jokes had the following joke formula: “I was enjoying (behavior that may be considered slightly feminine). Guess I’m gay!” There was just a lot of a lot and I’m not going to pretend like it didn’t make me uncomfortable (though, I’m also willing to admit that I’m somewhat of a coward for waiting until right now to address it). I’m also going to come out and say that many of these jokes were met with a positive audience approval in some shape or form. There is no doubt that, from a solely comedy standpoint, these jokes would have to be considered “successful” if the sole goal is to get audiences to laugh. It did get to the point where even the host was pointing out that most comedians were choosing to end their sets with offensive, upsetting and disturbing material.

I left the open mic and drove home and have been thinking about it since. I have reached out to some of my comedy peers who I trust and the response I got was almost unanimous: “Yeah, that kind of happens everywhere. And it bothers us, too. But there’s not really anything that can be done about it.” I suppose that last sentence is true. This just seems to be the new trend of comedy, at least in my neck in the woods.

Boy, I don’t feel great about it.

---

Some of you may be saying, “Matt, why do you even care? No one is telling you what you can or can’t talk about. Why do you want to make people adhere to restrictions you would not placed on yourself?” And I guess this is as fair of a question from an imaginary person I’m giving a specious argument to. Still, I think I’m gonna try and answer.

I’m not going to try and speak for groups I am not a part of, but I can’t imagine that women or LGBT+ comedians or audience members are particularly thrilled having their identity used as a punchline. If a comedian refers to women as “bitches” and women are in the crowd hearing men laugh, how do they assume the men in the room are viewing them? If there are homosexual comments in the audience hearing a comedian say, “Guess I’m gay now” as a punchline, how are they not to think that the comedian thinks their sexuality is a joke to them?

And now let’s expand on that: why would female or LGBT comedians (or black comedians in a room making racist jokes) want to ever return to where that kind of material is welcome? To prove my point, the mic I went to had thirty comedians on it. Two were women. And I get that. I would not want to be in a place that makes me uncomfortable, and I would understand if being referred to as a bitch for a few hours may be just the thing do make me uncomfortable. I know enough female comedians to know that being a woman trying to make people laugh is more challenging in comparison to their male counterparts. I cannot imagine this is helping, and that is a bad thing. Because comedy needs MORE points of view in order to be a more engaging and entertaining artform, and that can only exist the more welcoming we are to those different voices. Also, it’s not just comedians who may never come back. It’s audience members.

The reality is that there is a proportionality between comedians and audience. If there is a place with a lot of diversity in the performers, there will be diversity in the audience. If you have a mostly white dude roster of comedians, your comedy audience will also be mostly white dudes (of which the technical terminology, according to the brilliant Sammy Mowrey, is a “subreddit”). And while you may thrive performing for your subreddits, there will come a time when you have to perform for a more diverse audience, and then you will have a more difficult time because you have not prepared yourself for that experience. Diversity of thought and opinion is important and there are ways to make sure that is more likely to happen during a comedy event. If you are a producer, you can make sure your lineup has proper representation. If you are a comedian, you can make sure that everyone is respected, both onstage and off. And that can start with the language and content you choose to tell onstage.

---

By the way, I’m not blameless in this at all. When I first got started in comedy, I used to do a joke about performing in Platteville, Wisconsin during hunting season. Platteville is home to a university, and my joke is that people were hunting liberal arts majors. I donned the voice of a hunter and would yell a homophobic slur as a way to show what I think of the people in that particular region of that particular state. My reasoning had been that because it is this imaginary gross dude saying the word and not me, I get a pass for using that word that I would never use in my own life onstage. And then one day, I did that joke and I was approached by a comedian I respect (who is gay), who basically told me, “Hey, I get what you’re doing. But don’t you think you could use, literally, any other word?”

And, of course, I could. That comedian would later tell me all the times he heard that word said to him and how that makes him feel. And I had never considered that. From that moment on, I never used that word again onstage. I remember apologizing to that comedian and the reaction I got couldn’t have been better. “Matt, I know you’re a good person. And I know you wouldn’t, knowingly, try to upset people… especially when you’re onstage. I’m glad you listened to me, and I know you’ll take it to heart.”

It reminded me on a WTF podcast I had heard where Todd Glass was the guest. Todd was using the podcast to come out, and he had a conversation with Marc Maron about how there was still pushback from people (both onstage and off) in the language, specifically homophobic language, being used. Glass went on to say something that will stick with me forever. To paraphrase it: if we’re doing something wrong and no one is calling us out on it, it makes sense that a person will probably keep doing it. However, once addressed with the fact that our words or actions are upsetting someone, we have two choices: we can change our behavior because we realize we were wrong, or we can keep doing that behavior and claim that the person who approached us is wrong.

I love that concept, because I have done a lot of things wrong in my life. And the ones I have done knowingly are me being an asshole, and I’m not going to pretend I’m not one sometime. But the times when someone has approached me to let me know how my words have affected them have always been taken with care and concern. Because I understand how scary it can be to tell someone that. And if someone is going to show me that kind of respect and bravery, it is my job as a fucking human being to respond in kind.

---

Last thing, because y’all don’t need a sermon from me.

I get that these observations coming from me may seem odd. I’m an old, cis white dude from the suburbs. The worse things that can be said about me (cracker? honky? Probable Republican?) are things that just roll off the back. I get that me going off on a screed discussing how women and the LGBT community may seem shallow coming from me. I get that, and I got the same criticisms, both publicly and privately, last year after I wrote hear about the new Hogwarts game. And that point is totally fair: I will never understand what it is like to be a woman or person of color or member of the LGBT community, in comedy or just life in general.

However, after that open mic I went to, I started talking to people in chats. So many people felt the same way I did and shared there stories and some even encouraged me to write this piece. So, why I am writing this? Well, for starters, because I have the platform to do so. Also, I have been a comedian for a long time. I am lucky to share stages with amazing and hilarious people. And because I know, as a community, we can be better. We can let people know when they’re making people uncomfortable. Most importantly, we can police ourselves. Believe me, this is something I work on all the time.

I know that so many comedians out there love comedy the way I do, Hell, they probably love it more. So let’s give it the care and respect it deserves.