Contentious Comedic Compassion

Nikki Glaser’s stand-up touches on uncomfortable topics to lessen shame stigmas

BY SETH SOMMERFELD

It might be frowned upon to talk about, but many of us joined the “Move Back In With Your Parents During COVID Club.” But, then again, most of us aren’t very successful stand-up comedians in our 30s.

Nikki Glaser became a known figure in the comedy world with her hilarious Comedy Central celebrity roasts and uproarious appearances on talk shows like Conan (oftentimes making hosts flustered with her frank humor about sex). But when the pandemic hit, she decided to relocate back to her hometown of St. Louis to be with her folks. Even being away from the New York and LA comedy hubs didn’t slow down her career. She turned the move into a reality show on E!, Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?, hosts her The Nikki Glaser Podcast and the reality dating show FBOY Island, and even competed on The Masked Singer

Before she brings her delightful brash humor to town with a stop at The Fox, we caught up with the stand-up to chat about the unusual empathy of her boundary-pushing material. (This Q&A has been condensed, read a longer version at Inlander.com.)

INLANDER: Did moving back home with your parents during the pandemic change your material at all?

GLASER: Me moving back to St. Louis and staying here has been just a shift to focus on things that aren’t work-related, because I moved here so I could avoid work, really, and be around my family more often. And I don’t know that it’s like shown up in my act. I would say the past five to seven years in stand-up, I’ve been really able to talk about what I want to talk about and just kind of do what I want to do. So I think it’s just an extension of that — just going toward what feels best.

Do you think that shift has become the main evolution to your material as you’ve become more established?

Yeah, I think they want authenticity. A lot of comedians are very successful, but they’re performative. They’re kind of doing what’s trendy in comedy, whether it be like the way they act on stage or the things they talk about. And I’ve done that before, too, and I’m susceptible to it even now. I think what everyone wants in their favorite artists is that the artist is coming from a real place. I really have the freedom to just discuss whatever the hell I want.

And oftentimes, it is about sex, because that used to be my favorite thing to talk about, because it’s just the most interesting thing. I think that’s what angered me a lot early on was just being dismissed as someone who’s just like a sex comic. Because I think of sex comics as like, “Oooo this will make everyone titillated! Oh, I’m gonna be edgy!” And it was never my goal to be edgy, I just was edgy. But I think when people write off female comics as like “all the talk’s about sex,” it just frustrates me.

It’s very much like Taylor Swift being written off as like “all she does is write breakup songs.” And you go, “Wow, when men write breakup songs, they sure don’t get any shit for doing it.” They don’t get called out for doing it. And so I felt like it’s just a way to dismiss women and write us off as trying to be people pleasers. And I’ll tell you, it does not please many people to talk about sex as a woman. It’s made my career a lot harder, actually. I really don’t like to make people uncomfortable. I don’t like to make people cringe. I don’t like to make people groan. I don’t like people leaving my show because they’re offended. There are a lot of male comics who f—ing love that. They love when people heckle them or they offend people and people write blogs about them. I get really hurt when I hurt people.

So what are the things that you’re interested in talking about on stage now?

Aging. I’m in my late 30s, and the idea of having kids has always been a topic that I’ve talked about in my set, because I’m a woman. But I think now it’s recently the final countdown of being able to do that. And just aging in general, like my face falling every year a little bit more and just celebrity culture of body positivity yet, they still celebrate anorexics and Gwyneth Paltrow is still making millions off of bone broth, and yet we all are supposed to act like Lizzo all the time. I’m frustrated by this mixed messaging — the paradox of loving yourself yet trying not to age. I just always am working toward listing shame, whether it’s shame around sex, shame around being victimized, shame around your weight, shame around your age, shame around not wanting kids. Because I feel so much shame all the time. And I think I’m just trying to be the thing that I probably need to hear, you know? n