No matter what field you’re in, the goal is always to work hard and put in your time to make it to the top. That’s exactly what comedian Whitney Cummings has done—the funny lady has been on the comedy scene since the early 2000s and in the past few years has scored a special on Comedy Central, starred in a sitcom on NBC, produced 2 Broke Girls and most recently, released a special—I’m Your Girlfriend—on HBO, which aired last night. (If you missed it, you can catch it on HBO Now.) Not only that, she’s done all that in a field that’s dominated by men, which is no easy feat.
Cummings is largely known to be pro-women. And she does hold some traditional feminist views—she’s quick to point out problems in the porn industry (“There’s a menu on the side you can pick from. Girl-on-girl, college girl—there’s no, ‘CEO'”), is particularly passionate about birth control and women’s health, and is open about her personal experiences as everything from a working woman to a woman in her thirties who’s liberated by the decision to freeze her eggs. She talks about how women today are strong in their own right—”women are badasses now,” she declares, and rightly so.
But as much as she supports strong, badass women, her performance in I’m Your Girlfriend implies that you have to be a certain kind of badass to be the sort of woman she supports. She talks about how all her “girlfriends now are strong, self-sufficient, have awesome jobs…” which, of course, is admirable; we certainly should be celebrating these women as role models, and encouraging young women to recognize those opportunities should be available to them. Obviously, that’s not where the problem is. The problem is, the context that phrase comes in suggests that women who don’t choose that path are “weak” and “submissive”—her words, not ours. Badass women come in many different forms. There are the women who become CEOs; there are those who opt to be stay-at-home moms; and there are many, many other women in between the two ends of that spectrum. Whatever your personal values, we should never be implying that one woman’s choices are more valid than another’s.
That’s not the only instance where Cummings shuts down women whose values aren’t in line with her own. She’s talking about how music isn’t exactly doing a good job at framing the way we talk about women, referring to lyrics by male rappers that read “Ima knock the pussy out like fight night” and “I’m gonna beat that pussy up.” Yeah, we know—lyrics like that make us cringe just as much as they do you. But Cummings segues into a bit that knocks Nicki Minaj in a way that isn’t entirely fair. Sure, there are valid reasons why Nicki might not be the *best* role model for women; but Cummings definitely doesn’t mention any of those reasons. Instead, she claims to have been a Nicki fan until “I heard her talk.” We’re not really sure what this means, because she doesn’t actually explain it. She goes on to call Nicki a “hypocrite” for saying male rappers don’t respect her as a female rapper, yet still poses provocatively such as on her cover for “Anaconda.”
“We don’t respect you, because we can see your asshole,” Cummings points out. “Has nothing to do with the fact that you’re a woman.” Except… it does. Cummings says she thinks women should be able to be “sexy, and glamorous, and feminine, and professional”—but then adds, “as you’re getting dressed for your album cover, you also have to acknowledge basic human nature and neurology.” As in, “men’s brains are basically only designed to look for holes.” This makes us a little uncomfortable—it reminds us of the outdated, anti-feminist idea that women who dress in certain ways shouldn’t expect to be respected.
It doesn’t end there. Cummings sheds light on the power dynamic between men and women in relationships, specifically when it comes to money. She starts by talking about how she’s gotten to a place where she’s self-sufficient and making her own money—but rather than make statements that might actually be empowering for women, she reverts back to old-fashioned gender roles and says it’s made her the “man in the relationship.” ICYMI, it’s 2016, and being the breadwinner doesn’t make you “the man.”
Yes, okay—this is comedy, and yes, comedy is usually funniest when it’s mildly offensive. But there’s probably a better way of doing that than with overdone jokes based on outdated gender conventions and other stereotypes, like how guys with tattoos are “assholes” and how women on birth control are “sluts.” Overall, is I’m Your Girlfriend worth a watch? Sure—there are some funny moments in there, and the way she talks about ex-boyfriends and the struggles of being single is just like what your best friend would probably say. But when the majority of her performance centers around women and women’s issues, it’s important to take note of where Cummings gets it wrong.