Jena Friedman Returns (Again!): ‘Not Funny’
The Last Laugh
The Daily Beast
4.6 • 661 Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2023
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jena Friedman wants you to know that she’s in on the joke. And in her new book of essays, pointedly titled ‘Not Funny,’ she deftly demonstrates how she has become one of the most uncompromising comedic voices of her generation, from her days as a field producer on ‘The Daily Show,’ to her Oscar-nominated writing on Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,’ to her first hour-long stand-up ‘Ladykiller,’ in which she delivered some killer abortion jokes while pregnant with her first child. In her third appearance on the podcast, Friedman holds nothing back, spilling tea about her negative experience with James Corden, revealing why she decided to turn the tables on male comedians like Jon Stewart and Jim Gaffigan by asking them the offensive questions female comedians tend to get in interviews and discussing that time Bill Burr “told on himself” by responding to her tweets about predatory comics.
Follow Jena Friedman on Twitter @JenaFriedman and Instagram @jenafriedman
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Buy Jena Friedman’s book ‘Not Funny: Essays on Life, Comedy, Culture, Et Cetera’
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | My guest on this week's show readily admits that her comedy is not for everyone. |
| 0:05.8 | But this is her third time on the podcast, so you could probably guess that it's definitely for me. |
| 0:10.9 | My mom tried to follow me on Instagram recently, and I blocked her immediately. |
| 0:18.0 | It felt like that moment in Jurassic Park where they learn how to unlock doors. |
| 0:27.0 | She couldn't be here tonight |
| 0:28.6 | because my comedy's not for everyone. |
| 0:32.6 | I love my mom. We get along great. |
| 0:36.4 | When I first came out as a comedian, |
| 0:40.3 | she treated the news like there had been a death in the family. |
| 0:45.3 | She said, I'd rather you be gay |
| 0:48.3 | because at least that's something you can't control. |
| 0:52.3 | This is the last at least that's something you can't control. |
| 0:59.0 | This is the last laugh. |
| 1:01.0 | I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, |
| 1:04.5 | and that was Jenna Friedman from her recent Peacock stand-up special, |
| 1:05.5 | Lady Killer. |
| 1:09.0 | So Jenna and I go way back on this podcast to her first appearance on our sixth episode in April |
| 1:12.2 | of 2019 when she was promoting her criminally underrated adult swim show, Soft Focus. |
| 1:18.8 | When she returned in 2021, it was as an Oscar nominee for her role as one of the screenwriters |
| 1:24.8 | on Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat subsequent movie film. |
| 1:28.5 | And now she's back once more to talk about her new book, which I absolutely loved, called Not Funny. |
| 1:35.4 | It's sort of a memoir, kind of a book of essays about comedy, and despite its title, is often hilarious. |
... |
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