Page 137 - Katherine Ryan press pack

husband who has some dependency issues. She dealt with it in a

really healthy way; instead of it imploding, she got a lot of exercise

and made herself feel better. I just think there’s something in that for

me: this theme of when men get revenge, Liam Neeson will ring you

up and say he’ll come and destroy you, or in Machete, they’ll climb

the building using their intestines as a rope. When women get

revenge, what do we do? What’s a revenge body? We just shrink?

What kind of revenge is that? I think there’s something really funny

in that. I like to combine a few different things: I like to talk about

culture, but not so that I can be gossipy about the Kardashians; it’s

because it always flags up a greater theme for me, an important

social observation, and then I see if I can make it make it funny and

have a laugh.

BROWN: Do you feel that, as a comedian, you have a social

responsibility to talk about these things? Can you be an apolitical

comedian?

RYAN: I think you could be, and I know many comedians who don’t

talk politics at all. I applaud them for that; I think it’s a really smart

way to be. A lot of people want escapism when they go to see

comedy—they don’t want to hear about important issues. I’m not

really the kind of comedian that can do that. I try not to focus on it

too much—I would never be described as a hugely political

woman—but the fact of the matter is, just me being a female,

immigrant, stand-up comedian, single-mother … that is political. We

still live in a world where a woman with a voice is a political gesture.

I’m dealt with differently than male comedians are dealt with by

people on Twitter and probably a lot of the media. We’ve not

completely escaped from that. I do feel like I have a responsibility to