“Death is like plastic surgery without the waking and up and looking pretty part,” Joan Rivers told a Times of London reporter in 2010. Last week, Joan got to find out if this was how death works when she passed away at the age of 81.
Of anyone, Joan is probably regretting being silenced by death the most, because she would be right out there saying the rudest, most inappropriate and funniest things about it.
I didn’t love Joan Rivers. And I didn’t hate her, either. In fact, I didn’t pay much attention to her at all, but I do have a lot of respect for her bravado and her legacy as a pioneering female comedian.
It’s hard to remember that these were the days of Leave It to Beaver and shirtwaist dresses, where the advice to a woman who wanted some extra applause was to put on lipstick before serving dinner. She not only wore her lipstick better than most, she made reservations for dinner, darling. And she was always willing to say things–even about herself–that other wouldn’t, and this opened the door for the rest of us.
“When they bury me and dig me up, they’ll discover I’m absolutely non-biodegradable and non-recyclable,” Joan joked in interviews. According to news sources, Joan had asked to be cremated, but I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. All that burnt plastic can be hell on the air quality.
Early Joan was following her dream to become an actress when she was cast as a lesbian in the play Driftwood. There she played a character who had a crush on another female character, the then-unknown Barbra Streisand. This was not exactly the type of role to take if you wanted to be considered a mainstream actress. But people kept telling her that she was funny, so she switched from seeking out acting roles to doing stand-up and working a day job as a receptionist.
Joan came along behind women like Lucille Ball and Phyllis Diller, who were hamming it up with their signature hairstyles and jokes about housework and laundry. The range of female personalities was narrow and Joan broke it wide open by saying the unspeakable.
“I just say what others are thinking,” she would quip. In fact, she called out people who well-deserved the cutting edge of her tongue, and although she sometimes went to places that were no longer fun, just mean, we got the message about who need a spanking.
Joan was the first woman to make jokes about the more delicate and sacrosanct parts of being a woman, such as pregnancy. Joan also made fun of her own sex life and her failings as a helicopter parent telling this well-known joke:
“My daughter and I are very close. We speak every single day, and I call her every day, and I say the same thing: ‘Pick up, I know you’re there.’ And she says the same thing back, ‘How’d you get this new number?'”
She had no shame about wanting to be pretty and using every trick in the book to get there. She was practically a pioneer in plastic surgery. I hope The Real Housewives are staging a month-long vigil along with their surgeons and some $40-a-pop scented candles.
People got to know Joan on The Johnny Carson Show, where she was a frequent guest, and the darling of other male comedians. But she got shut down and pushed out by them for decades after trying to launch a competing after-hours talk show called The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers. How original. But also how ballsy.
She was the first woman to have her own late night talk show on a major network, but she paid the price by being ostracized by peevish Carson and his successors. She probably just forgot what they hadn’t: That she was still just a funny girl comic to them, their guest, their little girl.
Love her or hate her, Joan Rivers changed comedy and fashion. She gave the rest of us a the freedom to talk about blow jobs, breast feeding and episiotomies, on stage, and online.
We will miss her acerbic style and jaw-dropping, filthy jokes. Thanks, Joan, for kicking the door open all while making my skin crawl just a little.
1 Comment
I like her.