Even if you’ve never heard the words Broad City strung together, chances are you’ve heard “yas queen” somewhere. The Comedy Central hit sitcom Broad City’s most prominent export is more a rallying cry than a catchphrase, and it has struck a chord with a generation that’s proudly feminist no matter where on the gender spectrum you fall. And that is a victory to Broad City co-creator, writer and star Ilana Glazer.
“It’s a beautiful phrase, and I love that it starts from a place of femaleness,” she tells me. But at the same time, Glazer is concerned she’s appropriating a phrase coined in the 1980s within the drag community. Only half-joking, she asks herself, “Am I a dumb white bitch that I’m saying ‘yas queen’?”
This, in essence, is who Ilana Glazer is. She is one of the funniest people in comedy today, thanks in no small part to her role as the unhinged, perpetually stoned Ilana Wexler on Broad City. She’s also one of the smartest: Thoughtful and empathetic, Glazer graduated from NYU with a psychology degree, which may explain her knack for conjuring up characters that sometimes do stupid, terrible things but never from a place of malice.
Glazer will co-headline the upcoming “Yaaas Queen Yaaas” comedy tour with Phoebe Robinson, a kindred spirit who hosts the popular podcasts 2 Dope Queens and Sooo Many White Guys (the latter of which Glazer serves as executive producer). The pair will perform two shows on Nov. 5 at the Barrymore Theatre: 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
The Bozho chatted with Glazer to discuss finding one’s voice, why working with Robinson is like pie, and how depression can be funny.
Obviously most people are probably going to know you for “Broad City,” but you got your start doing stand-up and improv. I am curious to know what your earliest sets were like, as you were starting to find your voice.
I still feel like I’m trying to find my voice. I think my early live stuff — like improv, stand-up and sketch — was helping me find my voice to make TV. And it’s been fun to go back to my earlier experiences in comedy and go back to that. I really have been challenging myself to find my voice in stand-up. But my earlier sets, it’s hard to remember actually. I think that my stand-up is true to what it was when I first started. Really, where I was developing was in TV writing and producing and acting, so I feel like it’s not as progressed as my TV writing, since I started stand-up in my early days, but my sense of self has developed. So that’s really helped guide my voice as I’ve gotten back into stand-up in the past couple years.
Did you meet Phoebe through stand-up?
I can’t remember which club we met at exactly, but we’ve been friends for I want to say eight years. But then I think, “Wait, did I say eight years a year ago?” So like almost 10 years. (laughs)
Did you two always know you wanted to do something together, or did it just sort of happen as you started producing her podcast?
We came to this point where I was like, “You know, it’s fun to make stuff with your friends.” I think I had enough practice on it on Broad City, in compartmentalizing shit but also letting it flow. And Phoebe and I have done a lot of stuff together. We started Sooo Many White Guys, and we’re also working on a show for TV for Phoebe, and then this became sort of a natural next step, filling it in like pie I guess. (laughs) We’re just working together, growing as friends and collaborators.
Shifting gears a little, you’re in the middle of another season of “Broad City,” and it’s a little different since it’s the first to be set in winter. It’s normally a pretty joyful show, so was the darker setting a way to approach darker material without it seeming like a sudden change?
I think originally we just set out to explore New York in the winter, since New York is such a seasonal city. It’s a different city in spring, summer, winter and fall, even though the earth burning is sort of messing that up. But it really has different mentalities in each season. So at first, we were just like, “You know, we’ve never done a winter season.” We’d done a lot of summer, and a little spring/fall light-jacket weather, but winter is a different deal. And once we started exploring that, we were like, “Ah, shit. This is gonna be depressing.” (laughs) There’s just a depressing air around winter here. A sort of desperation.
Is it difficult to keep things light and comedic when you’re dealing with such a depressing backdrop?
I think it’s contrast that often makes comedy work, so it actually gave gravity to the backdrop and then allowed us to be lighter in a way. The episode where I’m depressed and using the (seasonal affective disorder) lamp — it’s so wacky and absurd because it’s also so depressing and real. That contrast allows for some magic juices to flow. The show’s gotten more layered in its tone over the past four seasons. Earlier on it was poppier and lighter, and this stuff is heavier in general and realer, so I think winter ended up being just a natural place to go. Especially with the election and the whole politiscape. It just ended up working together really well, all these elements that we had wanted to do prior.
You mention the political landscape. How did you go about getting Hillary Clinton on the show?
Each step of the way, I think it seemed more coordinated in retrospect than it is. We think divine forces came together. But when we had Hillary Clinton on Broad City, we just were exalted by the opportunity to have a real historical figure on our show and also an icon for strong women. I mean, yes, I voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton, so there was overlap, and there wasn’t. There were two separate things, like “This is gonna make for great TV” and “This is the most qualified presidential candidate who’s ever run for office.” It was like two different worlds for me.
And then we had “cuckily” assumed that she was going to win, and wrote the season not addressing the politiscape so much. But then, when the person who ended up being the 45th president was elected, we were just all talking about it constantly. It changed our lives, for me and Abbi, and what we talk about and how we think, and we ended up having to reflect that in the characters, because the mentality changed.
I appreciated your decision to bleep his name out on the show.
Thank you. I appreciate your appreciation. It’s an ugly word. And we definitely have to look at the ugliness and choose to learn from it, but then balance it out with an escape from the ugliness.
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