After seriously troubling news of several mishandled or ignored sexual harassment cases in the L.A. standup and improv scenes, comedians and comedy fans who worry that further inquiry and policy changes are necessary are happy to hear that no, that was pretty much it.
“I’m not sure what ended up happening in the all of those cases everyone was talking about, but I’m excited it was fixed,” said one standup comedian, making notes in his Moleskine on a joke about women kamagra online making sandwiches. “Hearing about this stuff has really been a bummer but I’m glad we don’t have to think about it any more.”
The viral stories of harassment the past few months, in some cases, uncovered incidents kept hidden for years. This may make some wonder what stories are still untold and about assault and misconduct in upper levels of the comedy world where people have more power and there’s more at stake. Fortunately, the research says there’s nothing to see here, according to a study by captain of the indie improv team Show Us Your Boobs.
“My research on my improv team says this kind of thing doesn’t really ever happen,” says the captain, a second year improviser and well-regarded authority on the subject. “But, as a leader, I do take this seriously, so I’ve avoided having women on our team at all.”
An informal survey of other teams and comedy groups seems to indicate that this strategy is catching on, and whether it can be credited with the fact that we solved sexual harassment in comedy is unclear. But one thing is clear: We totally did.
