#Michelle wolf how to#
#Michelle wolf series#

I’m not saying it won’t in the future but it’s not my favorite topic. It doesn’t interest me to do it right now. I also find political jokes, at this point, to be kind of boring and just so one-note. I like more social commentary, and of course those end up being political issues as well but that’s only because life is political. But they’re also not my favorite type of jokes to write.

#Michelle wolf how to#

It doesn’t mean I’m a political comedian, it just means I know how to write political jokes. You give me a subject and a half-hour, I’ll give you 10 jokes. And it’s a weird thing to make an assumption about, because I was hired to do a job a job I’m still very proud of, and a job that-I don’t think they thought I was going to do it that way. What prompted that decision?ĭoing the Correspondents’ Dinner, people just assumed that I was a political comedian. In this new special, you deliberately don’t tell jokes about Trump or really politics more broadly. But it’s really made me less cautious and more bold. So I’m just going to do the stuff that makes me laugh and hopefully the people that have similar sense of humor or appreciate jokes, that it also makes them laugh. Because you’re like, right, I’m not going to try to make everyone happy. And then as soon as people hated me, there was so much freedom in that. I think I spent too much time hoping everyone would like me. You’ve obviously had that experience yourself of being, if not “canceled” then at least having people go after you for something you’ve said. And I think part of it is because in those moments, when you’re watching someone’s head get chopped off, you’re thinking, “Well, my life is terrible, but at least I’m not that guy.’” We’ve always liked watching people die, whether it be literally or now more figuratively. There used to be stonings, beheadings, burnings at the stake, gladiators. This “cancel culture” or whatever it is, this isn’t new.

But then the more I worked on the joke the more it felt like an appropriate way to introduce comedy right now. And as soon as she did that, I was like, right after taping my last special, I guess I have my first new joke. And I put something in my Instagram story and that woman replied with what I say in the special. Why did you want to open the special with that?Īfter I shot my last special, I went away for a week and that’s when I actually saw otters. Your new special opens with a joke about otters raping seals, which is very funny but also makes a larger point about outrage culture, which has become such a big topic in comedy right now. I know a lot of people loved me from the Correspondents’ Dinner, I know a lot of people hated me from the Correspondents’ Dinner, and I just hope when people watch this special they just get converted to fans of my comedy.

I think you can tell I’m having a good time. And I think it’s also reflected in the special. It’s probably been the best year of my life. I’ve gotten to spend this last year just doing stand-up for the first time in my career. Does this new special feel like a comeback of sorts? So it’s been about two years since your last special, you had a very big 2018, and then we haven’t seen you for a while. 10, we talked to Wolf about everything that has gone down over the past two years and why she decided to stop telling Trump jokes after the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “It’s probably been the best year of my life,” Wolf says.Īhead of the new special’s release on Dec. But when Netflix prematurely canceled it after just 10 episodes, Wolf decided to rededicate her energy toward stand-up.Īfter years spent writing for Late Night with Seth Meyers, helping Chris Rock with his “sorority racist” Oscars monologue, and then serving as a contributor on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, 2019 was the first year during which she only did stand-up comedy.

#Michelle wolf series#

The controversial performance dramatically raised Wolf’s profile and drew outsized attention to her “late night”-style series The Break, which premiered exactly one month later. They haven’t invited a comedian back since. It’s been almost two years since Wolf broke into the stand-up mainstream with Nice Lady on HBO (deemed the best special of 2017 by this website) and just about a year and a half since she broke Washington, D.C., with her scathing White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech.Īfter Wolf joked that she loved Sarah Huckabee Sanders “as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale” and complimented her “resourceful” approach to makeup by saying, “She burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye,” prominent media figures on both sides of the partisan divide denounced her and even the White House Correspondents’ Association tried to distance themselves from her.

The punchline comes near the end of her masterful hour-long set-and she doesn’t say his name. Michelle Wolf mentions the current president of the United States just once in her new Netflix special Joke Show.