Bridget Everett Thinks Australia Could Help Lead Her Titty-Centric Revolution In Comedy

Bridget Everett is a big fan of comedy that isn’t just dudes “in hoodies telling dick jokes”. In an interview with Vogue (that’s really stuck with me) she celebrated the fact that people are now open to different types of performance — specifically “a woman with a plunging neckline with her titty hanging out”. Bridget Everett is certainly not a dude in a hoodie.

I first came across Everett the same way many people probably did — performing on Inside Amy Schumer and appearing as Maria Bamford’s pal Dagmar on Lady Dynamite. Both shows play with comedy and performance in really interesting ways. While Schumer may have now reached saturation point, it’s easy to forget how innovative her series is in blending stand-up, sketch comedy, and vox pops. And then there’s the cabaret. Closing out an episode of Schumer, Everett belted out “I got them beaver tail titties, I put ‘em in the air” with the bravado of a bawdy comic and the voice of a classically trained diva.

She’s not one thing or the other, but she’s definitely embodying the changing face of comedy and helping shift the norms of how we experience ‘funny stuff’. She’s also about to come to Australia to show us first-hand.

Junkee: So this is your second year in a row coming to Australia (last year for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and now for the Mardi Gras Comedy Festival). Are you doing cabaret again?

Bridget Everett: Some people call it cabaret, some call it stand-up, some just call it comedy!

I’m really interested in asking you about that — your thoughts on the intersection between music and comedy — what came first for you, was it music, or was it the funny stuff?

I consider myself as a singer and that’s where I started. It just happened that I was also funny. I started going to see cabaret shows 15-20 years ago and I was like, ‘oh my god, this is the shit’. The cabaret I was seeing was a lot of wild, late-night, crazy shit. And I was like ‘oh, you can be a singer and do this!’ You don’t just have to go to Broadway or be Britney Spears. I wasn’t really cut out for either of those. Luckily for me, there was another genre, and I found that when I moved to New York.

So do you still see yourself as more a singer than you are a comedian?

Yeah, I’m always surprised when people come up to me after the show and they’re like “oh wow you’re a really good singer” and I’m like “yeah, no shit” [laughs]. People — at least here in the States — are thinking they’re going to a comedy show, and I feel like the comedy is secondary. It’s singing and stories that also happen to be funny.

Do you think that’s because cabaret has a sense of humour? Do you find a lot of cabaret is funny?

The cabaret in New York — the generation I’m part of — it’s about pushing boundaries, it’s about a wild form of self-expression. There’s an old guard of cabaret that doesn’t really recognise me as a member, but the new generation — my peers, the people I think are so fantastic — are people that really have boundary-less ways of expressing themselves and that’s why I was drawn to the world of cabaret.

Based on my performances in Melbourne, it feels like it’s a much more popular medium there than it is here. Here it’s like ‘cabaret, what’s that’? They’re more about stand-up comedy.

That’s actually the next thing I was going to ask you. In the same way you’re talking about the old guard/new guard in cabaret, do you think the same thing is happening in comedy? It’s like, comedy doesn’t just have to be stand-up anymore, there’s all kinds of different funny things?

I think that the evolution of stand-up is a lot slower than what it seems to be like in Australia. It’s still a lot of traditional stand-up here. I got introduced to the world of comedy when Amy Schumer took me out on the road a lot, and it’s just a slower awakening here.

I feel like, my friend Sam Simmons who is an Australian, he’d be called alternative here; but in Australia he’s super popular, killing the game. I think that he has a fan base here, but it’s just different.

You go to a comedy show and it’s billed as ‘alternative comedy’ and it’s like me and Sam, but I always thought of it as ‘what’s funny is funny’, what’s entertaining is entertaining. Audiences in the States have a bit of a harder time getting behind different styles.

Every time I do a show and there’s new people they’re like ‘what the fuck is happening’ and I’m like, ‘just relax, it’s a show, enjoy yourself’ and they settle in and go along for the ride and it’s great. Any time you see something different, it just takes a little while to adjust.

I read a profile of you, I think it was in The Village Voice, where they described your audiences as “busting an emotional nut”. What you’re saying is true — I’ve watched footage of you performing and people go from being so uncomfortable, not even looking at you, to loving having your tits in their face by the end. What’s the best (or worst) reaction you’ve had from a crowd? 

It’s largely fantastic, wherever I go. The best thing that happened to me this last tour was there were a lot of older women, and when I say older I mean eighties and nineties. People bring their grandmothers to my show. That in itself is HILARIOUS, but they end up making the night because they go along for the ride. They wanna sing along, they get up and dance, and it shows the younger people in the audience to let go. It’s not that serious, we’re all just there to have a party. That’s the best of it.

There’s been times when I’ve had walkouts, but to me that’s good. I want people to have a reaction, I want people to feel something. I don’t want to just go along and be something that people just ‘liked’, but didn’t love. I want people to love it, or hate it — but feel something.

I feel powerful and I feel strong and beautiful and I’ve got the voice of an angel and nothing can stop me — and there’s nothing wrong with feeling like that.

I’m sure you’re sick of hearing this, because I know it’s asked of a lot of female performers, but how do you manage that confidence? Is that something that was a struggle for you, or are you a confident, natural performer?

In my personal life, I waffle, you know? There’s times where I’m confident, there’s times where I feel shit about myself, but the Bridget on stage is the Bridget that I wanna always be. What I never understood when I was trying to develop a career was like, just because I’m a big girl with tits and a large energy — I’m kinda like a steamroller — I was like, what’s the problem with that? The more people bucked up against me, the further I went, you know? Because that’s what I felt like I needed to do.

For me, when I’m on stage, it’s the happiest and most comfortable I ever feel. I love singing so much; it’s the way of communication for me that works. Making people feel good about themselves by singing to them is an exceptional experience. I feel good because I feel powerful and I feel strong and beautiful and I’ve got the voice of an angel and nothing can stop me — and there’s nothing wrong with feeling like that.

That’s the best answer to that question I could have hoped for. Lastly — you’ve played at Carnegie Hall, which is amazing. What’s left? Do you have any big goals you want to tick off, or is it about just taking it as it comes?

Well in some ways it’s like, I can’t even believe where I am! I can’t believe I get to fly to Australia to perform and sing, and that the reason I get to do that is because of something I created? It feels bonkers to me. But if I were to think about setting bigger goals, I mean, sure I’d like to play Madison Square Garden one day. I’d love to have everyone in Madison Square Garden singing “put ‘em up, put ‘em up” about different kinds of titties. That would feel like a new kind of revolution. I wanna lead it, and I wanna be there, and I hope it happens.

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Bridget Everett is performing at Sydney’s Mardi Gras Comedy Gala on February 28 and at Max Watt’s on March 2.

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Rebecca Varcoe is a writer and events producer from Melbourne. She makes print humour journal Funny Ha Ha and writes about all kinds of things for a few places online.