Co-creator and star of the critically acclaimed, absurdly hilarious comedy series Broad City, Ilana Glazer brings her second stand-up comedy tour to the Charleston Gaillard Center on July 21.
When Broad City ended in 2019 after five seasons on Comedy Central, Glazer was inspired to return to her roots in stand-up. She debuted her first comedy special THE PLANET IS BURNING on Amazon Prime in 2020. In the special, Glazer didn’t shy away from political topics — she finds humor in tough subjects like homophobes, Nazis and the patriarchy (especially as it relates to the crappy quality of women’s razors).
In her current stand-up tour, Glazer will focus more on her lived experiences of political issues instead of the issues themselves.
“The thing that I actually don’t like about THE PLANET IS BURNING is that I talk about my perspective from a little bit outside of me. … This [new] special is a bit more about my experience in my body. I see the world through the lens of a queer Jewish woman’s experience, so that’s inherently political,” she said.
This tour will be less about politics, she said, and more about “things I love talking about, like sex, drugs and how it feels to be alive right now.”
Her stand-up touches on subjects explored in her TV show Broad City, which starred Glazer and her co-creator (and real-life best friend) Abbi Jacobson as outsized versions of themselves. It’s about being broke, young and a hot mess in New York City. The series has been praised by many as trailblazing for its feminist and nuanced handling of topics like female friendship and LGBTQ+ characters.
In both her art and her activism, Glazer is a staunch advocate for the environment and human rights. Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Glazer has been vocal on her social media about civic engagement. Hillary Clinton even made a 2016 appearance on Broad City when Glazer’s semi-autobiographical character Ilana Wexler became a cold call volunteer for Clinton’s presidential campaign.
That same year, Glazer started a political advocacy group Generator Collective with former WeWork executive Glennis Meagher.
“We’re a political messaging machine,” Glazer said of the collective. “Instead of this approach like, ‘Everything is on fire!’ Generator Collective is a resource for engaging with the democratic process.”
The goal is to lower the barriers to entry when discussing politics and treating democracy as a practice to consistently engage with, Glazer said. The collective shares stories of individual experiences with policy on social media and makes cheat-sheets of ballots to educate voters, among other initiatives.
Art as activism
Glazer, who welcomed her first child in 2021, will also talk in her stand-up about her experience as a new mom. She became pregnant after wrapping work on her 2021 film False Positive, which follows expectant mother Lucy, portrayed by Glazer, who also co-wrote the screenplay. She makes a major departure from the comedy she’s known for with the horror-thriller which draws comparison to Roman Polanski’s 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby.
Glazer said she spent three years considering her choice before deciding to pursue pregnancy. She was fearful about aspects of it, and that fear inspired her to write False Positive. The film follows Glazer’s pregnant character as she grows increasingly suspicious of her husband and their prominent fertility doctor. She sets out to uncover a disturbing conspiracy.
“It has been a longtime phenomenon of fertility doctors non-consensually inseminating their patients with their own sperm,” Glazer said. “How is that, A, not a huge deal that’s being covered by the news, and B, how is policy not being made around this?”
She lives by the advice of fellow filmmaker-activist Paola Mendoza, citing Mendoza’s idea that from art, there is activism, and from activism there is policy.
“These components bleed into one another to create our society and culture,” Glazer said. “I’m excited about how arts can shape policy, and how activists can be artists.”
For artists and comedians who want to talk about politics in their work, she advises staying as close and true to your lived experience as possible.
“Stay true to your unique lived experience and avoid being preachy. That makes it you, makes it your art.
“It doesn’t even matter what body you’re in, who comes before you represents you. There are expectations of what a White guy is. What a queer woman is. What a Black woman is. Other people can politicize your experience, and that will happen after the fact when it comes out. But I would say the closer you can stay true, the more specific you can be in your lived experience, the stronger [your work] will be.”
Tickets for the 7 p.m. July 21 performance
at the Gaillard start at $27. ilanaglazerlive.com.
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