Wanda Sykes (
)
Comedian Kathy Griffin likes to tell tales out of school — perhaps no more so than when she’s talking about what it means to be a high-level woman in the traditionally male-dominated field of comedy.
“Once I was in this meeting a few years ago with this guy, Ben Silverman,” says Griffin of the former NBC Entertainment chief. “And I was talking to him about going from my Bravo show to a more scripted show. And I was really complimenting him on ‘30 Rock,’ and I said, ‘What’s so great is it’s really proven that just like the shows I grew up with — “Phyllis” and “Mary Tyler Moore” and “Rhoda” and all these female-driven comedies — Tina [Fey] has kind of brought that back in a way that’s so wonderful and successful.’ ”
Griffin — who is one of three female headliners for the New York Comedy Festival, which marks the most women ever on the top billing of the lineup — gets right to the punch line about the closed-doors meeting. After she was told “30 Rock” didn’t make that much money, and after she countered that it had garnered so many Emmys, she heard a line she’ll never forget. “He said: ‘And — it’s really Alec [Baldwin]’s show,’ ” says Griffin, 51, laughing in disbelief. “It’s based on Tina Fey. It’s based on her life. She wrote it. It’s based on her own personal experience that no one ever had, which is to be the first female head writer on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ so I never forgot that phrase. ‘It’s really Alec’s show.’ So I was like, ‘Buh-bye, Ben. Thanks for your time. I’m going to go back to my little cable show and be really, really funny.’ ”
[A representative for Silverman said, “Ben denies Kathy’s statement and is proud that he has worked alongside super-talented comediennes including everyone from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to America Ferrera and Sofia Vergara.”]
Indeed, as Griffin knows better than most, to be a female comic is to work harder, jump higher and get past more misconceptions. Happily, though, it’s finally starting to pay off. Over the summer, Kristin Wiig’s movie “Bridesmaids” shattered box-office records. Highly rated female-centric comedies dominate the fall lineup, from “New Girl” on Fox to Whitney Cummings’ double-header with “Whitney” on NBC and “Two Broke Girls” on CBS. And over on E!, Chelsea Handler’s fempire only continues to grow as she wields unprecedented power in upcoming contract negotiations.
“We’ve entered a new age of the female comedian,” says Caroline Hirsch, the owner of Carolines on Broadway and organizer of the New York Comedy Festival, which runs tomorrow to Sunday.
“These are no shrinking violets.
We’re seeing a new generation of strong and influential female voices in comedy.”
Indeed, the success of “Bridesmaids,” which had a budget of only $32.5 million and boasted a spectacular $287 million in global ticket sales, flew directly in the face of these long-standing stereotypes.
“What really excites me about ‘Bridesmaids,’ ” Griffin says, “is the fact that so many of my straight dude friends were recommending it to me. They’re not [usually] going to see a chick flick.”
Griffin also points to the inspiration she sees in this season’s sitcom It girl, her friend 29-year-old Cummings. “She and I have been e-mailing back and forth a lot, and I said, ‘Look, it’s not lost on me that what you’re doing is unprecedented in the history of television. Which is basically to be doing the Seinfeld-ian model for starring in a network show that you’re also writing or co-writing. And then it’s doubly impressive to have another network show on the side that you’re co-writing with Michael Patrick King.’ ”
Of course, Cummings isn’t escaping without plenty of barbs along the way, including one viciously funny taunt from another festival headliner this year, Norm Macdonald. He said, in a thinly veiled reference to Cummings’ attendance on a Comedy Central roast in an interview he gave to “Opie & Anthony” this year: “Hey, guess what, there’s a young girl that’s middling attractive that swears a lot. Let’s get her.”
Cummings’ response? “Norm is hilarious,” she told a reporter.
Amy Schumer is yet another pretty, raunchy comic to break out of the celebrity roasts this year. Schumer, 30, just sold pilots to CBS and Comedy Central, and she’s also executive producing a reality series about women in comedy — so she knows whereof she speaks.
“I think people who say ‘Women aren’t funny’ are just sad and misinformed . . . I think they didn’t have sex until well after college and have an off relationship with their mothers,” she says. “This is a great time for women in comedy or just women in general. I love the things we are allowed to do now. Like vote and have consensual sex.”
A new documentary out next month on the subject, cheekily called “Women Aren’t Funny,” inspired by the infamous 2007 Christopher Hitchens essay in Vanity Fair, was created by a female comic who broke out on “Last Comic Standing,” Bonnie McFarlane and her comedian husband, Rich Vos.
Why do fewer women do stand-up? “Women like going to the bathroom together, so going on the road for three weeks alone isn’t usually at the top of their bucket lists,” says McFarlane, 42.
While Griffin calls Hitchens’ piece a “shock jock” tactic, McFarlane says, “I think guys say things like that to make women mad, and then point and say, ‘Look! See?’ ”
Comedic digs about women not being funny don’t bother Griffin.
“I don’t really get bothered by the old fogies who say chicks aren’t funny. A lot of people made a big fuss about Jerry Lewis [who said in 2000 he didn’t like ‘any’ female comedians], too. What bothers me is when a currently working executive who signs the checks and makes the decisions about what goes on a TV slate, when those people don’t think chicks are funny. But what’s great is that it’s finally getting to the place where it should be in comedy. Which is: You should be judged on whether or not you’re funny.
“I mean, I’m doing four hourlong specials for Bravo this year, and that’s a record,” she concludes of her mind-boggling feat of material generation that puts even a prolific comic like Chris Rock to shame. “It’s never been done — by a male or a female.”
mstadtmiller@nypost.com
Wednesday
7 p.m., Comics to Watch, Carolines on Broadway, 1626 Broadway, $16.50
8 p.m., “Stand Up for Heroes” (Jon Stewart, Ricky Gervais, Bruce Springsteen), Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, $250 – $2,500
Thursday
7:30 p.m., 10:15 p.m., Louis C.K., Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, $29.50 – $52.50
7:30 p.m., Wanda Sykes, Town Hall, 143 W. 43rd St., $50.50 – $62.50
Friday
8 p.m., Louis C.K., St. George Theatre, 35 Hyatt St., Staten Island, $30- $50
8 p.m., Tracy Morgan, Beacon Theatre, 2124 Broadway, $34.50 – $62.50
Saturday
8 p.m., Norm Macdonald, Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., $34.50 – $46.50
8 p.m., Kathy Griffin, Carnegie Hall, Seventh Avenue at 57th Street, $44 – $90
8 p.m., Sarah Silverman and Friends, BAM, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn, $36 – $46
Sunday
8 p.m., Jo Koy, Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St., $32.50 – $38.50
— For more information, see nycomedyfestival.com