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Promotional art for Nice Lady
Cover image credit: Promotional image via Prime Video

Nice Lady

Michelle Wolf

HBO · 2017 · 57 min

Michelle Wolf rejects polite comedy in her debut stand-up hour.

Michelle Wolf opens her debut HBO special with an immediate, unsentimental defense of Hillary Clinton that doubles as a defense of her own famously high-pitched voice. She argues that “nice” is a useless standard for female leaders, asserting that “shrill” voices are actually the ones that get things done. It sets the tone for an hour that rejects the standard, polite compromises of feminist comedy in favor of aggressive, unsanitized observations about gender, reproduction, and the double standards of modern womanhood.\n\nFilmed at the NYU Skirball Center in New York City, the special caught Wolf at a pivotal moment in her career. At the time of its late 2017 release, she was primarily known as a correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and a writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers. A few months later, her performance at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner would turn her into a lightning rod for national political discourse. Nice Lady serves as a snapshot of her comedic engine running at full power just before that mainstream explosion.\n\nRather than saving her most provocative arguments for the end, Wolf spends the hour launching directly into challenging premises. She compares a scrotum to a “goblin’s coin purse,” points out that it is technically more difficult to bake a croissant than to make a human life, and suggests using farts as a rape whistle. When she makes a joke about Bill Cosby’s eye and the crowd groans, she immediately steers into the discomfort, scolding them for being too delicate. The special received strong critical praise for its relentless pacing and Wolf’s complete, unwavering command of the stage.

The set list

5 bits

  1. Feminism and focusing on material issues over symbolic ones

    Declares herself a feminist while satirizing superficial trends like Instagram's 'free the nipple' campaign or putting women on currency, prioritizing equal pay and having friends that can help you move over pretty friends.

  2. Why Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election

    Riffs on how Clinton could not be a 'nice lady' and become president, noting that nice women do not run for president because niceness avoids hard truths.

  3. Men walking women to their front doors after dates

    Deconstructs the chivalrous pretense of protection, pointing out that by the end of the evening, the man escorting her is the most dangerous element at the door.

  4. Impression of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

    Performs a precise, hunched-over physical impression of the Supreme Court Justice.

  5. The closer (spoiler). Show it

    Reading persistent text messages from a date off her phone closer

    Concludes the show by pulling out her phone and reading an escalating exchange with a man she went on one date with, discovering he is completely immune to her weirdness.

How it plays

Tone
Caustic, sharp, tongue-in-cheek, and unapologetic.
On stage
Sly mischief maker with a friendly, peppy demeanor who delivers sharp, caustic, and unapologetic punchlines.
Pace
Exhibits verbal control and precision, letting lines breathe before moving on, and frequently piling on a flurry of multiple tags to punctuate punchlines.
About
feminism, societal double standards, dating and texting, politics and Hillary Clinton, female body and reproductive biology, male anatomy

What the critics said

Critically praised as a sharp, evergreen, and fearless debut hour that captured the cultural climate of 2017 without over-relying on transient headlines.

In the room: Taped in front of a live crowd at NYU's Skirball Center that showed initial hesitation to her early feminism remarks before Wolf deftly engaged and maneuvered them.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: tv.apple.com, tvinsider.com, en.wikipedia.org, letterboxd.com, nytimes.com, indiewire.com, newyorker.com, rottentomatoes.com, imdb.com, 800poundgorillamedia.com, goldderby.com.

Backstory

Filmed in 2017 amid cultural anxiety, double standards, and national conversations surrounding feminism, gender dynamics, and the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Details

Released
Taped
Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York City
Runtime
57 min
Where
HBO
Director
Neal Brennan
Honors
Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Special
Topics
After
Joke Show (2019)

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