Film Review: Hysterical, Hot Docs 2021

In Hysterical, stand-up comedians - including Kelly Bachman, Margaret Cho, Fortune Feimster, Nikki Glaser, Marina Franklin, Kathy Griffin, Lisa Lampanelli, Sherri Shepherd, Iliza Shlesinger and many more - bare it all in this well-executed documentary about women and comedy. 

For anyone with an interest in any of the comedians mentioned above, this film comes very highly recommended. Hysterical is also for those with an interest in entertainment, the #MeToo movement, and feminism at large. Despite those weighty themes, this film is by no means a chore to sit through. The film does demonstrate, through interviews with the comedians, how serious topics such as breast cancer, rape, and Harvey Weinstein can be funny. As it is said in the film, white men have the privilege of making anything a set, even horses, but women still need to prove themselves deserving of the spotlight. 

Hysterical is organized almost like an academic paper with subheadings helpfully indicating themes that unite the comedians together. For example, many of the comedians, like Margaret Cho, had to overcome familial expectations of what ‘proper women’ should be doing to find careers in stand-up. There is an illuminating segment in the film that discusses how female comedians in the 50s or 60s would open their sets with how “horrible” they themselves were as human beings – discussing how they, like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, left behind their obligations at home, in order to seek validation on stage. Male comedians never had this issue.

Gendered expectations of acting prim and proper, and not being able to call out bullshit, still exist to this day. But it was Kelly Bachman who did not back down from calling out Harvey Weinstein as a rapist when he attended her set one fateful day in 2019. She turned a new chapter for comics, and many, like Amy Schumer, are eternally grateful that she was and still is able to speak truth to power. Hysterical discusses how the ideal image of femininity is passivity, so when women speak up, abusers (mostly men) become afraid of garnering negative attention. Hence the double standard women like Kathy Griffin have had to bear, as artists like Marilyn Manson also decapitated or murdered Trump effigies on stage. 

Hysterical came out before the most recent sexual assault/abuse allegations about Manson did, which more or less makes the point that we need people to speak up against injustice, even if it is in a ‘comedic’ format that may be more painful than funny, but is still funny nevertheless.

An affirming aspect of the film that I wish we could have seen more of is the mentorship and support each of the comedians provides to others. Amy Schumer and Nikki Glaser with other comics made a video for Kathy Griffin the night she began to see her life fall apart after her Trump head sketch in 2017. When you are with someone that just ‘gets it,’ you feel at home and you also feel that you have a place at the table to tell your truth. 

Hysterical shows that although women have torn each other down before, the stakes are higher now than they ever were for women to build each other up in the comedy arena. Some comedians, such as Lisa Lampanelli, find second careers in self-help and in encouraging kindness to one another. Some jokes are mean, but some jokes are also hiding vulnerable truths about all of us who live on this planet together. Lampanelli is just skipping the joke part to get at the truths (but she’s still funny, don’t worry).

So, without further ado, let’s once again acknowledge that women are funny, and that Hysterical is awesome for consolidating the many efforts of women comics to the present day.

Hysterical is now playing in Canada as part of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival until May 9, 2021. Watch it here.