Copyright Variety
Iliza Shlesinger will bring the laughs with her when she hosts Variety‘s Power of Women gala on Oct. 29 in Beverly Hills. “It’s the perfect fit,” the comedian says of the gig. “My whole career has been commentary on women, and I always want my female audience feeling a little bit better than when they walked in.” Funny, empowering and insightful? Yep, she checks all three boxes. The event, in partnership with Lifetime, will honor Sydney Sweeney, Nicole Scherzinger, Wanda Sykes, Kate Hudson and Jamie Lee Curtis, highlighting female leaders in the entertainment industry, who are profiled in the Women’s Impact Report. Shlesinger, who is currently touring the country with her “Iliza! Live” show and can be seen in the Amazon Prime comedy special “A Different Animal,” spends a good deal of her stand-up act encouraging women to stand in their power. “I think to be a woman who dares to get out of bed often garners criticism, and so I think that there is something truly special about being around powerful women who don’t ask permission, who create their own lane and do it,” she says. Shlesinger is certainly one of those women, which helps keep her focused on her gift to make people laugh. “You have to truly believe that what you have to say is so important that it warrants a microphone that makes you louder than everyone else,” she says. “And you have to believe that the way that you look at things is so funny that people are gonna want to stop and listen.” She sums it up: “It’s about feeling seen. Especially as a woman, I think that that’s paramount — feeling seen and feeling heard. And that is the guiding light of my career, knowing that what I have to say is just as valid — if not more valid — than the male comic next to me and deciding that I’m allowed to talk and it’s gonna be pretty good. And, 20 years in, survey says what I have to say is pretty good.” But if her audience really listens to her act, it’s not just jokes; there’s also a hefty dose of wisdom behind the words. “As you age in comedy, it’s OK to just tell superficial jokes. There’s nothing wrong with that,” she says. “But I feel things very deeply as an artist. I think comics and comedy get brushed off as, ‘you’re just a comic.’ At the end of the day, I’m not just some road dog who’s there to tell some dick jokes. I’m an artist, and I feel very deeply. I see things a certain way. And I feel like it’s my job to hold up a mirror to society and to call out things when I see them, especially for women, because we’re told that we’re crazy,” she says. “I know a lot of other women don’t have the voice to say the things that they want to say. And so I just try to say the way I’m feeling, and I hope that other people feel the same way.” While touring the U.S. and Europe with her comedy show, she notes that one thing she sees over and over is that people are having a hard time “dealing with things that — by the grace of God — you or I don’t have to deal with.” She explains, “The fact that people take the time out of their stresses and their lives to watch my stand-up or buy a ticket, the fact that people give me their time is something that has never been lost on me. I’ve never taken it for granted. And to get to be a part of people’s lives when they are going through something horrible is actually, energetically, a very special thing. I think about that a lot.” Also on her mind: censorship, which has been a hot topic in the entertainment business since the cancellation of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” and the suspension of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “People on both sides who have ideas about how this country should be run slowly chip away at the moral fabric and constitutional foundation, misinterpreting and deliberately interpreting our amendments,” she says. “If enough people do that, at the end of the day, we do not have the America that the bulk of normal people love and defend. As a Jewish person, I think about this like: very bad things happen when very good men do nothing. It’s so important to have critical thinking and to have healthy, open public debate. Comedy should be an example of that. No comics should be censored. No comics should be told that because of one thing that you said, you can’t have a career. If you don’t like what a comic is saying, then you don’t have to watch that comic. This idea that your feelings are facts and that your feelings take precedence over everything else in this person’s life, so much so that that person should be wiped off a map, is delusional and, quite frankly, self-centered.” If Shlesinger sounds passionate about the topic, it’s because she is. The comic has long used her platform to speak out against antisemitism — and make sure her voice is heard. “Antisemitism is as old as Judaism itself, that’s the truth,” she says. “But the other truth, the louder truth, is that Jews aren’t going anywhere and now, more than ever before, we are able to be more vocal about our permanence. But the fact that I have to think carefully about my answer to why hating Jews is unacceptable should be a tonal indicator of the blatant and ignorant hatred we are up against. Every socio-political and religious conflict on Earth is assigned nuance, but when it comes to the blanket dismissal of Jewish people, it has become acceptable, and lauded, to be absolute.”
