How Did Comedy Lose Its Humor? Arielle Isaac Norman on taking back the jokes.

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 8 April 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, Meghan welcomes Arielle Isaac Norman, an Austin-based comedian who has opened for Louie C.K., Bobcat Goldthwait, Tim Dillon, Joe DeRosa, Eddie Pepitone and Maria Bamford, among others. Arielle, who describes herself as a “politically non-binary lesbian,” has a new YouTube special, Ellen DeGenderless, in which she discusses gender identity, sexuality, pronouns, social issues, and pop culture. This conversation covers all of those topics and more — including Arielle’s friendship with Louis CK and her thoughts about his sexual behaviors and resulting cancelation.

GUEST BIO

Arielle Isaac Norman is an Austin-based comedian. Her new special, Ellen Degenderless, is now streaming on YouTube. Find her on Instagram at @ellendegenderless and on YouTube or Spotify at Politically Non-binary.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	We did kind of create a weird, you know, our own version of a cultural revolution where the craziest people, the most censorious people could be so loud that they were able to get so many of us to shut up and not say things. And it was hard to
0:24.3	see that it wasn't the majority of people. Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host,
0:31.6	Megan Dom. Quick note before we get started, it has to do with the unspeak easy. I'll be quick, but I want to tell you that
0:39.2	the co-ed retreat in Chicago, June 4th and 5th, has guest speakers. They have officially been
0:45.6	announced. They include Nadine Straussen, prominent free speech advocate and former president of
0:53.9	the ACLU for a really long time until 2008 or so.
0:58.4	So she can perhaps tell us what's happened there since.
1:03.0	We'll also be joined by Eric Smith, who is a professor of rhetorics and the co-founder and
1:10.4	president of Free Black Thought. Eric has been on
1:13.1	this podcast a couple of times. And also we'll be joined by Lisa Sullen Davis, the author of many
1:19.9	books who writes about many things, but perhaps most notably gender. And she's been on this show
1:25.5	a couple of times to talk about that, and she will be back soon.
1:29.0	So June 4th and 5th, it's not an overnight, sorry, but it is for everyone, not just women.
1:36.1	So go to the unspeakese.com and check it out. Got to apply because I have to make sure you're not
1:41.8	crazy, but other than that, everybody's welcome.
1:45.2	Okay.
1:46.1	My guest is Ariel Isaac Norman.
1:49.9	Ariel is a comedian who has opened for Louis C.K., Bobcat Goldthwaite, Tim Dillon, Eddie Papitone, Maria Bamford, who's been a guest on this show, by the way, Maria Bamford has.
2:01.4	Ariel describes herself as a politically non-binary lesbian.
2:06.7	And she has lately positioned herself firmly on the third rail of comedy, if not all of culture,
2:13.1	because she makes jokes about gender.
2:16.1	Lots of them.
	...

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