Last night the Geegsters performed in the rematch of the Battle of the Sexes Improv Smackdown and due to a variety of forces, we were not the victors. It was a long, tiring, but also fun show. Ultimately, the audience was dominated by a population of dudes who were going to clap for the Cups no matter what, so short of us flashing titties or pulling Margaret Cho out of our vaginas, we were not going to take this one.
It's amazing how distinctly disadvantaged you feel being female in a situation like this. Usually, when the Geegsters or any other mono-gendered troupe performs, its no big deal. All the guys we play with are supportive and we love them right back. But when you bring on the gender issue yourself...ouch. Men have so much more ammunition against us than we do vice versa. I felt that they could just get up and waggle and we had to work super-hard to be, at minimum, funnier.
While I am happy to concede that Los Cuphos are funnier than the Geegsters, I am not willing to concede that MEN are funnier. That is a sack of crap.
I was also revisited by the Smart Girl Hater vibe last night when I delivered my articulate, jabbing side of the debate against the other guys "yeah, whatever" retorts. The guy won, of course, because when I get my intimidating tall smart woman on, guys have traditionally hated me for it. But I couldn't see getting up there and acting like a spazz, because that ain't me. It's a weird thing, having always been praised for being smart in school and then being ignored/dismissed for it later. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. In the Ivy League of my mind, I believe smart should trump whatever the fuck that was.
The all-male troupe is no longer all-male, as they added a lovely female player. I was hoping there would be some sort of "girls are funny so we put one in our troupe" moment, but they made like she was a robot and didn't go there.
There was a lot of man-on-man kissing last night.
ALSO:
I am still pondering that f-ing NYTimes article from last week, since it seems that the main Amazing Girl is attending my 'mater in the fall. I had this college admissions moment where I realized that I was such hotter real estate than these blandly achieving types:
1) I went to a poor public high school near the Mexican border
2) My mother did not attend college
3) My dad was old and by then, freshly dead
4) My essay KICKED ASS
5) I wrote, produced, and directed my own plays
6) My SAT scores were average (what the hell is a 2400? In my day, perfect was 1600) but my grades were good and I kept taking math even after I got a C in whatever math class that was. I'm sure my stepdad remembers.
7) School paper!
I didn't do sports, I didn't volunteer much, I blatantly ignored all the Mexican culture that was everywhere, I took French, I wrote short stories, and I did improv.
Also, there was a baby bust in the mid-seventies. There were less of us to go around, and thus the acceptance rates were higher back in my day.
Posted by Zerd at April 8, 2007 01:33 PM