Not that best profile, but it's nice to see Janeane get exposure.
NYT: "Janeane Garofalo Never Sold Out. What A Relief"
by Anonymous | reply 116 | September 30, 2024 1:00 AM |
I’ve hated this talent-free cunt ever since I listened to her bullying poor Sam Seder on her Air America show.
by Anonymous | reply 1 | July 14, 2022 9:47 PM |
Too bad the article is behind a paywall.
by Anonymous | reply 2 | July 14, 2022 9:47 PM |
She sucked then and sucks now
by Anonymous | reply 3 | July 14, 2022 9:49 PM |
R2 I know. I'll try to cut and paste.
by Anonymous | reply 4 | July 14, 2022 10:15 PM |
I like her okay but then like a mean part of me wonders can one sell out if no one's buying. But like for real how was the Truth About Cats and Dogsn not a wee bit of a sell out?
by Anonymous | reply 5 | July 14, 2022 10:19 PM |
R5 Well, it started out as an indie movie.
by Anonymous | reply 6 | July 14, 2022 10:25 PM |
She looks more like a Script Girl. I think she's just really good at schmoozing and friends then give her work.
by Anonymous | reply 7 | July 14, 2022 10:30 PM |
She never sold out a show, that is.
by Anonymous | reply 8 | July 14, 2022 10:49 PM |
Does the article discuss her plastic surgery?
For me, who started as a big fan of hers (especially on THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW), it's been diminishing returns with her. From what I've sampled of her more recent work, she seems to have become more self-important without much to back it up by way of insight or comic take. She also sounds to me like someone who's tried to puff up her vocabulary by flipping through a thesaurus.
by Anonymous | reply 9 | July 14, 2022 10:49 PM |
R10 Check her recent movies.
by Anonymous | reply 10 | July 14, 2022 10:59 PM |
I loved Janeane since I first saw her on The Ben Stiller Show and later SNL and Reality Bites. I thought she was hysterical in those. And I felt for her when she recounted how she was mistreated during her brief stint on SNL. (Imagine being a woman in the cast with Chris Farley, Adam Sandler and Mike Meyers just for starters. How obnoxious and toxic could that atmosphere have been??!! I still like her and will stop and watch her on TV if I see her. But although she is certainly "edgier" since she lost weight, shaved her hair and got all of those awful tattoos, the comedy isn't edgier. SHE just seems more on the edge (as in just about to go over the edge....) Like I said, I still like her, but she just doesn't seem as funny anymore. I think Air America sucked the comedy out of more than a few comedians. I'm looking at you, Al Franken.
by Anonymous | reply 11 | July 14, 2022 11:09 PM |
R11 Uh, when did she shave her head?
by Anonymous | reply 12 | July 14, 2022 11:11 PM |
She shaved the side of her head at some point, like Cyndi Lauper.
by Anonymous | reply 13 | July 14, 2022 11:36 PM |
R14 Don't recall that.
by Anonymous | reply 14 | July 14, 2022 11:46 PM |
There are ZERO photos of her with a shaved head.
by Anonymous | reply 15 | July 14, 2022 11:47 PM |
It happened, R14.
by Anonymous | reply 16 | July 14, 2022 11:48 PM |
I didn't say her head was completely shaved. She shaved the side of her head.
by Anonymous | reply 17 | July 14, 2022 11:49 PM |
R17 Pics or it didn't happen.
by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 14, 2022 11:51 PM |
R14, trust me. I worked in the same building when she was at Air America. She shaved the side of her head. it was a hairdo. Let's move on now...
by Anonymous | reply 19 | July 14, 2022 11:51 PM |
Stop pretending like this fucking bitch is anything but a god-damn follower who copied my hairstyle!
by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 14, 2022 11:53 PM |
R20 Anybody can say anything on the net. She did bleach her hair blonde around that time..
by Anonymous | reply 21 | July 14, 2022 11:54 PM |
R2, you can bypass pretty much any paywalled article by running it through archive.ph.
by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 14, 2022 11:55 PM |
For the paywalled peeps:
Janeane Garofalo Never Sold Out. What a Relief. That concept might be the reason her trailblazing stand-up career has been overshadowed; it may also be the reason she’s still so sharp, our critic argues.
On a rainy Wednesday night in Brooklyn, after an introduction with a minimum of fanfare, Janeane Garofalo walked onstage at the Eastville Comedy Club and looked out at a dozen people so scattered that calling them a crowd seems like a stretch. She spotted one man by himself who had attended a show of hers a few days earlier and happily pointed him out.
Third on a bill filled with young unknowns, Garofalo, 57, settled into her set with supreme comfort, wandering into multiple tangents and digging into self-deprecation. “When someone tells me I can’t do something,” she said, holding the pause with precision timing honed over three and half decades of telling jokes, “I’m grateful.”
It was a humble setting to see one of the most consequential comics of the past half century. Garofalo is a pioneer and Generation X icon who for a few years, it was reasonable to argue, meant for stand-up what Kurt Cobain did for music. The only moment during the set that hinted at her legacy came when Garofalo walked out of the spotlight and into the audience. The couple in the front row, already laughing, sat up a little straighter.
Later in the set, she turned to her career. “The ’90s were good, but then it dipped,” Garofalo said, adding dryly that she now realized that comedy was not her forte. “You know what is? Filibustering.”
(Cont’d)
by Anonymous | reply 23 | July 14, 2022 11:57 PM |
Janeane Garofalo performs constantly in New York on bills with other comics, though you might not know it because she has little to no public profile. She’s not on Twitter, Instagram or any social media. She has no website or podcast, hasn’t done a special in years and doesn’t even have a computer, smartphone or email address. She turned down interviews with me twice. If you want to see her perform — and I recommend it — you have to search her out and sit in the room with her. I periodically stumble across her in a show and it always comes as a happy surprise from another time, like discovering a storied zine that only a few people still knew existed.
As she made jokes about refusing to go to the doctor and her inability to apply herself, a cringeworthy thought occurred to me: Is this what not selling out looks like?
I always found that pejorative phrase ridiculous: Selling out. Isn’t that the goal? It never made sense to me that a band stunk as soon as it signed with a major label. Or that artists should be shamed for making money to pay the rent. But as the stigmatization of selling out has faded over the past few decades, so vanished from the conversation that you rarely hear it used without sarcasm, I confess that I miss it. Something useful has been lost.
In his shrewd new book “The Nineties,” Chuck Klosterman argues that nothing defined that decade more than the concept of selling out. To illustrate, he focuses on “Reality Bites,” now considered the quintessential Generation X movie. It also happens to feature Janeane Garofalo as a jaded eye-roller who delivers quips like “Evian is naïve spelled backwards.”
by Anonymous | reply 24 | July 14, 2022 11:57 PM |
The movie centers on an aspiring filmmaker played by Winona Ryder who is pursued by a responsible corporate striver (Ben Stiller, the film’s director) and a caddish poet who hates the right things (Ethan Hawke). She chooses Hawke. Klosterman writes that while Hawke’s character seems irresponsible to boomers and toxic to millennials, he was the right choice for Generation X. For them, and only them, Klosterman argues, “an authentic jerk was preferable to a likable sellout.”
“Reality Bites” was released when I was in college, and most people I knew didn’t root for either of Winona Ryder’s options so much as against the movie, sensing a cynical attempt to capture the youth market, a major studio romanticizing indie credibility. Stiller screened it on campuses across the country, and at my school, he was received with hostility at the postshow Q. and A. One student questioned the filmmakers for mocking corporate greed while taking product-placement money from the Gap and R.J. Reynolds. Stiller bristled, saying it cost money to make a movie.
In promoting “Reality Bites,” Garofalo took a cannier approach. Appearing on “Late Show With David Letterman,” she short-circuited complaints about hypocrisy by criticizing Universal Pictures for trying to market “Reality Bites” as a Generation X story. It’s not, she said, dismissing the term as a buzzword, which was how I saw it at the time, too, and telling the flummoxed Letterman that she was uncomfortable following the script mapped out with his producers for their conversation. She sold the movie perfectly by performing contempt for selling a movie.
The partnership between Stiller and Garofalo is an even better representation of the 1990s divide on selling out than “Reality Bites.” They dated briefly and worked together throughout the decade, starring on TV shows and appearing in movies, co-hosting the MTV Movie Awards and co-writing a self-help spoof, “Feel This Book.” Stiller was a bigger star, but Garofalo had more cachet. (On Entertainment Weekly’s 1997 list of the 50 Funniest People Alive, she came in 39th, five spots ahead of him.) While his fame has grown, her seismic significance to comedy has been forgotten enough to make a refresher necessary.
(Cont’d)
by Anonymous | reply 25 | July 14, 2022 11:58 PM |
Just as the 1980s comedy boom was going bust, Garofalo — along with Colin Quinn, Dana Gould and Alan Gelfant — put on a show at a bookstore in Hollywood that became a weekly magnet for talented young stand-ups looking beyond conventional club comedy. Stiller performed there and used some of the comics on his breakthrough television series, “The Ben Stiller Show.” So did David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, who met through Garofalo and went on to make another sketch comedy landmark, “Mr. Show.”
This bookstore was one of the centers of a blossoming new comedy scene. Some called it alternative comedy, others balked at that term. The cool move was to embrace it ironically as Garofalo did in one of her early television appearances. When the host of “The Dennis Miller Show” made a joke about her Doc Martens, she deadpanned: “I’m the alternative queen.”
Garofalo didn’t just help shift the comedy scene away from clubs. Her style represented a sea change from the polished, tight and desperately relatable bits ready-made to translate into a sitcom or a late-night appearance. In jean shorts and tights, she inched stand-up closer to the eccentric solo show, where a sharply honed point of view mattered more than accessible setups and hard punch lines. Her humor leaned on stories and a political sensibility, refracted through a culturally savvy lens. She fiercely skewered the fashion industry for giving women body image issues and fashionistas later pushed back by putting her on worst-dressed lists. Her jokes scoffed at cliché (“I don’t even speak during sex for fear of sounding trite”), and she dropped references in televised sets that not everyone would get (Antigone, Sub Pop Records) and continually teased the crowd.
On her 1995 HBO half-hour, she walked onstage to applause that she immediately mocked: “You just did that because this is on television.” In the beloved “Larry Sanders Show” and the cult movie “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion,” she played sarcastic (and now very meme-able) misanthropes, becoming the rare comic who represented something larger in the culture. Original writers for “Friends” and MTV’s “Daria” have cited Garofalo as an inspiration for characters for their shows. In his recent memoir “Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama,” Odenkirk argues that Garofalo’s early stand-up anticipated much of the ambitious work in our current scene. “Janeane was the spark of the big bang, of a comedy reinvention that still resonates.”
Whereas Stiller shifted into blockbuster movies in the 1990s, Garofalo ran into choppier waters in the mainstream in ways that now seem clearly sexist. Her stint at “Saturday Night Live” was chronicled in an infamous New York magazine piece that included scenes of Al Franken yelling at her, Adam Sandler giving her the silent treatment and a writer unleashing his wrath after she called a sketch sexist. She compared her treatment there to “fraternity hazing” and didn’t last a full season. When it came to the big screen, she dismissed her one major leading role, a female Cyrano in “The Truth About Cats and Dogs,” as “not my kind of movie.”
(Cont’d)
by Anonymous | reply 26 | July 15, 2022 12:00 AM |
It’s hard to say if these experiences changed her view on establishment success or confirmed it. But at the end of the decade, in her book with Stiller, she gave this advice: “Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest,” before adding, “If you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong. The masses have never been arbiters of the sublime, and they often fail to recognize the truly great individual. Taking into account the public’s regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent on you to not fit in.”
When The Times did a story on the new generation of alt comics in 1997, Stiller recalled that when Garofalo had a bit that killed, she would not repeat it out of fear of being a hack. “It’s almost like she was going too far the other way, because she didn’t want to be accepted,” he said. Odenkirk hit similar notes discussing her in “We Killed,” an oral history about women in comedy: “Anything successful is something she’s not interested in,” he said. “That’s not a good thing in the long run.”
That may be true if the goal is conventional Hollywood success. But what if you actually believed the 1990s discourse about selling out? Or short of that, just internalized it? Then some skepticism about success makes sense. And why not? Only a fool thinks the funniest comics are the most popular or that deeply respected ones don’t remain obscure. Moreover, it’s entirely reasonable to look at the state of popular culture and just roll your eyes.
There has always been something off-putting about self-righteousness over selling out. Indie music snobs are easy to parody. And obsession with credibility can paralyze artists. “Nothing was more inadvertently detrimental to the Gen X psyche” than anxiety over selling out, Klosterman wrote, expressing a view darker than my own, so alert to cost that it gives short shrift to the benefits.
(Cont’d)
by Anonymous | reply 27 | July 15, 2022 12:01 AM |
Though it can seem otherwise, the ’90s critique of selling out was not only used to sneer. Besides directing a bit of shame at product placement, the most valuable thing it did was provide a powerful vision of making it that didn’t rely on money and popularity. A close read of early issues of The Baffler, a small, influential journal that at its inception that decade was something of a think tank for the dangers of selling out, offered hints at a positive ideal. It could be found in zines, indie music labels, offline.
This utopian view of a culture independent of corporate interference was defiantly local, uncompromising and wary of fame. Today, when everyone is trying to go viral and artists are judged by the most soulless Internet metrics, the value of an alternative seems more important than ever. The current stand-up of Janeane Garofalo fits in nicely.
That doesn’t mean she sees it that way. Her current comedy is filled with self-deprecating jokes about her failures, flaws, projects that didn’t get picked up. After the ’90s, she helped start Air America, the influential liberal radio station that collapsed but not before giving early platforms to Rachel Maddow and Marc Maron. She has taken scores of acting jobs in film and television, but they have little bearing on the one constant: her stand-up, the rare form where you can have near total control over your art.
We live in an age of dumb demographic stereotypes. Millennials, we’re told, are entitled snowflakes and boomers are selfish egotists. Describing huge groups of people in a few traits is absurd, but that doesn’t mean those reductionist ideas don’t shape us. The water in which you swim matters. I was reminded of this at a birthday party for my daughter’s friend. A dad my age told me of being in a band in the ’90s that signed to a major label and how he still talks to his therapist about selling out. Back then I never identified with Generation X, but now I do. When I watch “Reality Bites” today, not only do I like it more, but I can find something to relate to in every character, too.
(Cont’d) fuck this article is long!
by Anonymous | reply 28 | July 15, 2022 12:02 AM |
In movies and plays from the 1990s (“Clerks,” Eric Bogosian’s “subUrbia”), the slacker could be a goofy kind of hero. Compare that with the ethos today summed up by Bo Burnham in his special “Inside,” which features his song “Welcome to the Internet.” The refrain goes: “Apathy’s a tragedy and boredom is a crime/anything and everything all of the time.”
Garofalo’s stand-up always made apathy and boredom look cool, glamorous and, most important, sensible. About boomers, she joked: “They got married and worked hard so their kids didn’t have to, and guess what, we don’t.” There’s a performance in this, of course, since she has always worked hard, but the hustle and grind has never been her brand, to use a word she probably wouldn’t.
Garofalo isn’t that different today than she was three decades ago, less likely to skewer those who promulgate unrealistic body standards than to confess her own. Her hair is longer, more tangled, but her clothes remain darkly colored, rumpled. “I’m not ready for Eileen Fisher,” she said in characteristic deadpan. “I can’t cross that Rubicon.”
Her affect remains wry, offhanded; she walks onstage holding papers and uses references more highbrow than your typical joke slinger, but she is also often disarmingly personal and self-loathing.
The main impression you get from her act is of a restlessness that is physical, as she roams into the crowd, but also intellectual, as she repeatedly entertains new ideas, following them down rabbit holes even at the expense of the joke. There is a real excitement and unpredictability about her sets that can be captured only in live performance. She never tells a joke the same way twice. Her comedy always seems resolutely present, frequently vulnerable, challenging and delighting her audience in equal measure.
It would be easy to see Garofalo performing with comics half her age to a sparse Brooklyn crowd as a portrait of decline. But to my Generation X eyes, it looks like a kind of triumph.
Fin.
by Anonymous | reply 29 | July 15, 2022 12:02 AM |
R2 and R4: I pasted it.
by Anonymous | reply 30 | July 15, 2022 12:03 AM |
R30 Thanks a million.
by Anonymous | reply 31 | July 15, 2022 12:06 AM |
"Pics or it didn't happen."
By the way, this is about the most obnoxious and wrong-headed statement that people on this board make. And they make it all the time. Did you take pictures of your last dump? Did it happen anyway?
by Anonymous | reply 32 | July 15, 2022 12:19 AM |
But does/did she wear wigs? Anybody see her take it off>
by Anonymous | reply 33 | July 15, 2022 12:24 AM |
When was she given the opportunity TO sell out?
by Anonymous | reply 34 | July 15, 2022 12:26 AM |
[quote]She shaved the side of her head at some point,
THIS 👏 NEVER 👏 HAPPENED 👏
by Anonymous | reply 35 | July 15, 2022 12:30 AM |
Who in the fuck cares! The Garafalotroll why does this upset your pathetic ass so much? You need to fuck off!
by Anonymous | reply 36 | July 15, 2022 12:32 AM |
R36 It doesn't't.
by Anonymous | reply 37 | July 15, 2022 12:34 AM |
She's always seemed so dour and lame. I liked her in Reality Bites, though.
by Anonymous | reply 38 | July 15, 2022 12:34 AM |
She often goes weeks without bathing. You can smell her through walls.
by Anonymous | reply 39 | July 15, 2022 12:36 AM |
[quote]She's always seemed so dour and lame.
She’s a typical Gen X’er.
by Anonymous | reply 40 | July 15, 2022 12:38 AM |
R40 I like a lot of the Gen X icons, even the ones in that movie with her (Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke) appeal to me way more - I think it's because they actually register as having a pulse, unlike Janeane.
by Anonymous | reply 41 | July 15, 2022 12:43 AM |
She was iconic in Romy and Michelle.
by Anonymous | reply 42 | July 15, 2022 12:46 AM |
I loved the two standup specials she did for HBO in the 90s. But I agree with the earlier poster that the Bush era sucked a lot of the funny out of 90s comedians.
by Anonymous | reply 43 | July 15, 2022 12:48 AM |
Winona Ryder is a Gen X hero because she stuck it to the man when she stole $5000 worth of name-brand shit from Saks Fifth Avenue and walked out with it in broad daylight.
by Anonymous | reply 44 | July 15, 2022 12:53 AM |
I think Jeaneane should play Funny Girl on Broadway! I think she would do a great job!
by Anonymous | reply 45 | July 15, 2022 1:23 AM |
by Anonymous | reply 46 | July 15, 2022 1:37 AM |
by Anonymous | reply 47 | July 15, 2022 1:38 AM |
I love her but she's her own worst enemy when it comes to holding a job.
by Anonymous | reply 48 | July 15, 2022 1:40 AM |
by Anonymous | reply 49 | July 15, 2022 1:41 AM |
Hot.
by Anonymous | reply 50 | July 15, 2022 1:43 AM |
Pretty sure she suffered emotional or developmental trauma growing up (haven't read the article yet, so don't know if this is discussed at all). I remember when she would have her dad Carmine on during Air America segments with co-host (and hapless clown) Sam Seder, and the dynamics between them were familiar to me, in a bad way.
by Anonymous | reply 51 | July 15, 2022 1:46 AM |
The article was quite interesting. I like Janeane and think she's talented but she's unusually reclusive by modern actor/ comedian standards. Most of these people are on Twitter and insta daily.I must spend too much time here because after I read it I thought " The Garofalo troll will no doubt be posting this tonight ".
by Anonymous | reply 52 | July 15, 2022 1:49 AM |
r51 It's more just the great hatred between American Jews and American Irish.
by Anonymous | reply 53 | July 15, 2022 1:51 AM |
r52
[quote] unusually reclusive
a simple search will show you that is not true in the slightest.
by Anonymous | reply 54 | July 15, 2022 1:52 AM |
What went down with her and Sam Seder? I admit I find Sam Seder fairly annoying.
by Anonymous | reply 55 | July 15, 2022 1:53 AM |
I don't remember her dad much on the show (altho I do remember the name) but I also remember her being absent a lot of the time, until Sam finally just took over the show. I got the impression she didn't mesh well with him and it seemed like it might be mostly coming from her.
When she showed up in a new adult woman sitcom what was it, 7 years ago or more? Her character was fun and the show was well written. But then she didn't come back for season two and I found out she'd had issues with the script direction or some diva-y bullshit.
I saw her live for a standup set once. It was much shorter than I was expecting - maybe 40-45 minutes if you don't count the Stokes music? She had a legal pad and used that to keep track of what she wanted to say. She had some funny moments but it was not that impressive.
by Anonymous | reply 56 | July 15, 2022 1:55 AM |
AS COMPARED TO Sandra Bernhard, who I wanted to see in person badly but she kept cancelling her shows because I assume she didn't sell enough tickets. Didn't see her doing any advertising either so maybe that was why. At least Janeane showed up!
by Anonymous | reply 57 | July 15, 2022 1:57 AM |
She hated SNL. I'd like to see a documentary about SNL short timers. Where they simply interview everyone who left after a brief period of time. I've long suspected you have to kind of be an asshole to thrive there.
by Anonymous | reply 58 | July 15, 2022 1:59 AM |
R58 according to what I've read, that is the case, or at least it used to be. Wasn't she there during the time when they were still doing piles of coke each week?
by Anonymous | reply 59 | July 15, 2022 2:05 AM |
Didn't Ben Stiller, Jerry Seinfeld or some other comic break her heart after he dumped her & married some glamzon? Thought that propelled her into psychomania weirdo land. Then she was on TV with said comic & tried to say they were STILL friends, but her face clearly said she was lying & still carrying the torch.
by Anonymous | reply 60 | July 15, 2022 2:06 AM |
R59 No, this was way past that.
by Anonymous | reply 61 | July 15, 2022 2:09 AM |
I wonder why Al Franken yelled at her?
by Anonymous | reply 62 | July 15, 2022 2:11 AM |
by Anonymous | reply 63 | July 15, 2022 2:11 AM |
Ben Stiller was so handsome then.
by Anonymous | reply 64 | July 15, 2022 2:14 AM |
I was a bit shocked by her appearance on the final season of Younger, where she looked ravaged and extremely unattractive, yet was supposed to be playing a somewhat love interest. The performance was awkward and not present like she was doing it for the paycheck alone. Lost a lot of respect for her and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
by Anonymous | reply 65 | July 15, 2022 2:20 AM |
Is she SMI? Drug ravaged? 30 years of opiates or something?
by Anonymous | reply 66 | July 15, 2022 2:26 AM |
This special was always my favorite. The 1995 half-hour one from HBO is good, too.
by Anonymous | reply 67 | July 15, 2022 2:46 AM |
R59 I'm not sure. This was during the early 90s but undoubtedly there was some drug use. SNL has always seemed like a harsh place even by entertainment standards. I remember years ago reading an interview with a mad tv cast member where she said that the mad tv cast didn't feel as pitted against each other. In contrast to rumors she had heard about the SNL environment, which was apparently quite backbiting.
by Anonymous | reply 68 | July 15, 2022 2:53 AM |
Jeff Ross' advice to Janeane Garofalo on the Jerry Stiller roast: "you're allowed to turn things down."
by Anonymous | reply 69 | July 15, 2022 2:55 AM |
[quote]I wonder why Al Franken yelled at her?
According to the explosive New York magazine article about her/the show, it was because she attempted to memorize her lines instead of just reading off cue cards in a scene with David Spade and Adam Sandler, and he thought it made them "look bad."
by Anonymous | reply 70 | July 15, 2022 3:06 AM |
She and Paula Poundstone are self-described asexuals. All comedians are messed up in one way or another, but what specific kind of trauma causes that?
by Anonymous | reply 71 | July 15, 2022 3:07 AM |
r66 If smugness was a drug, she would of od'd a long time ago.
while certainly there were hard drugs, for women in the scene, alcohol is the popular drug of choice for female comics. . . because they build up too many emotional and mental walls and it bulldozes through all that in a way they can still write. you find more alcoholics than anything else. . . and they all end up with the same characteristics.
Or it's just the curse of the female comic..
even though they had different experiences, she's comparable to Margaret Cho in this way. . . both desperate to be something they weren't.
Ms. Cho desired tobe cool, queer, progressive beyond progressive and defying stereotypes of being the typical asian girl (while being a stereotype and staying a "girl" far too long) and Garofalo as the post beatnik, pseudo intellectual, hipster or really, the liberal (mtv) Kennedy, and becoming a humourous killjoy that drained the life out of a room as she wanted to be taken oh, so seriously. (It's surprising she didn't just retire in the SFV with animal refugee.) She was a better at reciting other people's lines than her own.
Fish outta water: Cho desperately tried to fit into the NYC scene for far too long, likewise, Garofalo did the same with L.A. neither suited for it and that aspect did hurt their careers.
and both in the arena of being associated with the biggest shitlords of comedy. . . they both have many strong ties in the industry, I'd argue even beloved but their own schtick was limited - it would be like expecting Sinbad to perform as one of the kings of comedy, it was never going to turn out as anything but bitter spinster. They were commercially friendly but that only led to them being furthered typecast and being hired for more of the same.
For comics, there is a choice between being successful or great. They took the path of trying to be successful despite the universe repeatedly telling them stop taking yourself so seriously and make another choice. . . they had the options, they just didn't have the clit for it.
Their relationships with other comics is worth exploring, the d-bags in particular. . . the mostly men because neither had great or lasting relationships (friendships) with women - which is another reason of why they had limited chance on the mainstream commercial path... they had no idea of how to relate to fraus.
Another one of their contemporaries was Amy Schumer, a symbol of frau humour, she wanted the kind of relationship they both had with the male comics.. . she was in the peripheral of the same crowd but where they were treated with respect despite their largely mediocre careers, she was the one treated more of a try too hard (She was.) groupie,
Or you can look at Lisa Lampanelli that took the non-commercial friendly route and was quite successful at it but hated virtually everyone and was hated as poseur in return... she had no chill, and an insult comic that is unable to take a joke about themselves is just a bully. Most in this crowd have a love/hate relationship, Lisa was just outright hated.
We could argue this is the problem of female comics in general, the patriarchy wah, wah, but it comes down most care too much. There's only a handful of women that really didn't give a fuck, that trudge through the highs and lows, and push through - also, most them tried a hand at everything than limiting themselves to performance.
In truth, there's only a handful of men that match the same but you don't struggle as much to name them. . . it's a lot more transparent what category they belong to.
by Anonymous | reply 72 | July 15, 2022 3:23 AM |
Terrific comment r72, thanks for that. Very interesting.
by Anonymous | reply 73 | July 15, 2022 5:04 AM |
R70 and now she's gone to reading her standup jokes off a legal pad
by Anonymous | reply 74 | July 15, 2022 10:53 PM |
I wish the Garafalo troll would dry up. She’s the least likely obsession one could ever imagine for a gay on the DL. She’s repulsive and so is her troll here on the DL. Even her name is repulsive.
by Anonymous | reply 75 | July 15, 2022 11:01 PM |
Amy Schumer is 20 years younger than Janeane, they aren't the same generation and the field has changed from when Janeane was making a name for herself.
by Anonymous | reply 76 | July 15, 2022 11:06 PM |
Was she really the inspiration for Daria? That's the only gay connection there could be.
by Anonymous | reply 77 | July 15, 2022 11:07 PM |
R77 As a young gayling I loved Janeane and her Gen X sarcastic loser persona.
by Anonymous | reply 78 | July 15, 2022 11:10 PM |
R79 Ditto.
by Anonymous | reply 79 | July 15, 2022 11:30 PM |
She was in two movies that I had on VHS and watched over and over in high school and college. Reality Bites and The Truth About Cats and Dogs. (RB being a truly great flick (to me) and TTACAD being incredibly stupid but so damn watchable.)
I will love her always.
by Anonymous | reply 81 | July 22, 2022 7:12 AM |
How can you date 90s Ben Stiller and not want to have sex with him?
by Anonymous | reply 82 | July 22, 2022 8:37 AM |
Humorless, cold and so self obsessed. No thanks
by Anonymous | reply 84 | August 5, 2022 1:09 AM |
And not remotely attractive
by Anonymous | reply 85 | August 5, 2022 1:17 AM |
Come on, she had one of the sexiest mouths of anybody in the 90s.
Great eyes, too.
by Anonymous | reply 86 | August 5, 2022 1:32 AM |
Here's the complete set from Janeane's appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She's there all month.
by Anonymous | reply 87 | August 9, 2022 8:31 PM |
I liked her in the 90s. Her look and her sardonic attitude were well matched. At some point, though, she seemed to become more bitter and spiteful than relatably critical.
It's funny, I always relate her in my mind with Natalie Merchant because they vaguely resemble one another and both were major alternative youth culture icons in the 90s. But Merchant's music is usually uplifting and Garofalo is like an emotional black hole that sucks all the energy and light around her into it.
by Anonymous | reply 88 | August 9, 2022 8:41 PM |
She has no website or podcast, hasn’t done a special in years and doesn’t even have a computer, smartphone or email address.
How is it POSSIBLE to function in modern society without a smartphone or email? You don't have to be tweeting every meal but you do have to be online.
by Anonymous | reply 89 | August 9, 2022 8:50 PM |
R89 If she still has a lot of money, then she pays an assistant to do all of that so that she can say she rejects the lifestyle.
by Anonymous | reply 90 | August 9, 2022 8:52 PM |
She was so funny on the King of Queens.
by Anonymous | reply 92 | February 26, 2023 10:22 PM |
She could have had a Julia-Louis Dreyfus career if she'd lightened up a bit and gotten along. She was just as pretty and had a similar vibe back in the day.
by Anonymous | reply 93 | February 26, 2023 10:28 PM |
Not to pick nits, but I've seen her in a few romcoms and popcorn movies before. Isn't that technically 'selling out'?
by Anonymous | reply 94 | February 26, 2023 11:38 PM |
I hung out with her once in HOuston in the 80's. Frumpy, grumpy and not at all pleasant then, I can't imagine she's mellowed. She seemed to like me when I started sniping back at her but I refused to hang out with her again even after she invited me to one of her shows at the Laff Stop.
by Anonymous | reply 95 | February 26, 2023 11:39 PM |
Don't order from Domino's. They donate to Operation Rescue.
by Anonymous | reply 96 | February 26, 2023 11:50 PM |
She’s also not funny and insufferable.
by Anonymous | reply 97 | February 26, 2023 11:59 PM |
She was adorable before she destroyed her body with tattoos and looking underweight.
by Anonymous | reply 98 | February 27, 2023 12:00 AM |
[quote] Most care too much. There's only a handful of women that really didn't give a fuck, that trudge through the highs and lows, and push through - also, most them tried a hand at everything than limiting themselves to performance.
Maria Bamford is one such. A vulnerable and insightful voice in the wilderness, and also funny as hell.
by Anonymous | reply 99 | February 27, 2023 12:04 AM |
I love Bamford. She's doing a kickstarter for a new comedy dealing with her OCD issues. I feel bad for her because she's been dealing with her mental health issues for so long.
by Anonymous | reply 100 | February 27, 2023 1:49 AM |
She kind of disappeared. I was a teen when she was big and didn’t pay attention to her. What was she known for?
by Anonymous | reply 101 | February 27, 2023 1:52 AM |
R102 he looks like if you put Elijah Wood through a mangle.
by Anonymous | reply 103 | February 27, 2023 11:40 AM |
There’s too many vowels in her name
by Anonymous | reply 104 | February 27, 2023 12:38 PM |
[R102] That's not her boyfriend.
by Anonymous | reply 105 | March 3, 2023 4:43 PM |
Happy 59th Birthday to my longtime crush, the one and only Janeane Garofalo. Enjoy it, stay safe, and try to cut out the smokes. Buy a new wig or two. One more year until the big 6-0.
by Anonymous | reply 107 | September 29, 2023 1:44 AM |
She never sold out because there were never any potential buyers.
by Anonymous | reply 108 | September 29, 2023 1:47 AM |
Love her. My favorite was her role in Romy & Michelle when she was the inventor of the quick burning paper. I've used that line many times.
by Anonymous | reply 109 | September 29, 2023 1:49 AM |
The day has come. Today, the queen and my crush Janeane Garofalo turns 60. She'll always be eternally young to me. Hip, cool, and everything else.
Still hoping for that comeback, and I know she is too.
Happy Birthday, Janeane. Try to cut out the smokes. Buy a new wig or two.
by Anonymous | reply 110 | September 29, 2024 4:58 AM |
Janeane Garofalo never sold out because there simply were no buyers.
by Anonymous | reply 111 | September 29, 2024 5:11 AM |
R11 That's harsh.
by Anonymous | reply 112 | September 30, 2024 12:42 AM |
She was such a cute Italian-American girl in her youth. Then she lost tons of weight and tattooed herself. The cuteness was gone. Her 90s stuff was very funny.
by Anonymous | reply 113 | September 30, 2024 12:43 AM |
R109, wasn’t it Post-Its?
by Anonymous | reply 114 | September 30, 2024 12:44 AM |
Remember when everyone thought she was the voice of Daria?
by Anonymous | reply 115 | September 30, 2024 12:44 AM |
I think the idea way other of a documentary featuring SNL shorttimers is pretty genius, especially here in the year when the show is going to be lionized nonstop.
by Anonymous | reply 116 | September 30, 2024 1:00 AM |