JOIN USWhen body shaming hurts
Lisa Lampanelli didn’t become an insult comic by herself. A heckler helped. At her fifth stand-up performance, with members of her family in the audience, she did a 10-minute set and killed it. And while watching the next comic bomb, a guy in the crowd yelled: “Bring back the fat chick!”
Lisa, 55, sniffles describing the moment. “I was insecure and ashamed,” she said, adding that still there is no insult that hurts more than “fat.” Yet she also said this moment instantly changed her career. She went home that night and started writing mean put-downs. The next time someone mocked her, she’d be ready. That’s how she built the armour for a stage persona that became famous on comedy roasts.
In her new project, she dispenses with the protection, exploring a more vulnerable side in her first foray into the theatre, the drama Stuffed. The four-person play, in which she stars, explores women’s relationship with their bodies and with food, examining topics like bulimia, gastric sleeve surgery and the scourge of putting on jeans.
Women and eating
What began as an autobiographical solo show inspired by Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking evolved into a multicharacter play that has the feel of a bull session among women with wildly different perspectives. The purpose, Lisa said, was to get several women’s voices in themix, including one who is too thin and another who is overweight and entirely content.
“I looked around and couldn’t believe no one has written a show about women and eating,” said Lisa, who begins many sentences with “dude” and ends with the snap in her voice that comes from delivering thousands of punchlines. “It’s the biggest issue women have.”
Lisa McNulty, the producing artistic director of WP (formerly the Women’s Project), which is presenting Stuffed, said Lisa has a gift for trading in harsh humour that, against all odds, still seems generous. “She’s a genius at finding affection in an insult,” Lisa McNulty said, adding that she believes Lisa’s understanding of how to unspool a joke gives her an instinctive sense for structuring a play.
Lisa has spent most of her life obsessed with body issues. She has read books on eating right, taken workshops, spent a month in food rehab and had surgery that led to losing more than 100 pounds. But the struggle remains. The weekend before she sat down for an interview, she was asked at a “mindful eating” workshop how much time was spent thinking about food and body image. “I was the highest in the class: 90% of the time,” she said, straightening her skirt before adding: “Even when I’m talking to you, I’m like, ‘Does my arm look fat?’”
For those who know Lisa from regular appearances on Comedy Central (the Pamela Anderson roast in 2005 was her breakthrough), it might be jarring to hear her talk about her insecurities.
Her image on those shows was steely, impenetrable and brutally harsh. Now that Joan Rivers is gone, no one in comedy is stomping on sensitivities as consistently. “I still don’t know anyone who goes deeper or harder than she does,” said Jeff Ross, a roast fixture. “A lot of comedians move to Hollywood and get nicer, but she never did that.”
In an age when comedians are more anxious about sparking controversy, Lisa regularly traffics in retrograde stereotypes and punchlines that offend. But she defends her jokes, saying she makes fun of everyone and fans can tell her intentions are benign.
What stands out about Lisa’s description of her career, however, is how alert she is to the ways words can wound. After years working clubs out of town, she started performing at the prestigious Comedy Cellar in the late 1990s, where she endured the ritual hazing offstage from regulars like Jim Norton and Dave Attell. Unlike some comics, she recalls this with no affection. “I was miserable,” she said. “I’d go home in tears a lot of the time.”
Compelling
Once she started appearing on Comedy Central roasts and began playing bigger theatres, she stopped going to clubs. Later came a spot on Celebrity Apprentice where she proved to be a compelling reality show character, battling with stars as varied as Miss Universe and the Incredible Hulk (or at least Lou Ferrigno, who played the part on TV).
Right now, Lisa is focused on theatre. She plans to write more scripts, including a follow-up on relationships. For motivation, she thinks back to that heckler. “He didn’t make me feel bad — I made me feel bad,” she said. Lisa added that she knew when it came to her comic style, her heart was in the right place. “I heard Cher say, ‘I answer to two people: Myself and God.’ I say, ‘I only answer to me,’” she said, pausing for the punchline. “I’m not sure I appreciate God’s opinion.”