Log In


Reset Password
Arts and Entertainment

Tig Notaro, Queen Latifah and the power of the unadorned female body

In her recent comedy special, “Boyish Girl Interrupted,”Tig Notaro set up an interesting experiment: How would an audience react to her if she performed in a state of undress typically reserved for men, and that revealed the way her body didn’t meet their expectations?

In her new HBO stand-up special, “Boyish Girl Interrupted” Tig Notaro tells a story about being patted down by the Transportation Security Administration after having a double mastectomy. Notaro chose not to have reconstructive surgery, and in the special, which aired on Saturday night, Notaro described the agent’s escalating confusion about whether she was actually a woman, given her lack of either breasts or a bra.

It was a funny, stark joke about life with and in remission from cancer. But it was after Notaro finished telling the story that something really exciting happened. First, she took off her jacket. And as she unbuttoned a few buttons on her shirt, the audience began to cheer.

“Do not tempt me. I will do it,” Notaro told the audience, unbuttoning her cuffs. “Of course I’m not going to take my shirt off on my special,” she said, completely deadpan. And then she did, settling the shirt and blazer on her mic stand.

It was the second time in six months that HBO has aired a special or a movie that provides striking testimony to the idea that the female body still has power to shock us, especially when it’s presented without adornment or modification. Both Notaro and Queen Latifah, who stripped down for a powerful scene in Bessie Smith biopic “Bessie,” which aired in May, have defied convention, giving us striking images that expand our ideas about what a woman’s body looks like.

“I’ll tell you,” Notaro said after settling her clothes and giving the audience a moment to calm down. “I am afraid to fly.” Instead of telling a story about her body and the way it had been reshaped by medical intervention, she proceeded to tell stories about trips on extremely small signs, public pool signage, her favorite way to prank her friends, and her grandmother’s Alzheimer’s disease.

If Notaro had told the assembled audience how to process the sight of her body, and how to respond to the fact that she was going to finish her set topless, taking her shirt off still would have been an audacious move. But by moving on to other subjects, Notaro set up an interesting experiment: How would an audience react to her if she performed in a state of undress typically reserved for men, and that revealed the way her body didn’t meet their expectations? Would it be distracting?

When some people laughed after she made the simple statement “I love music,” Notaro called the audience on the nervous tension present in those giggles. “I’ve never detected a punchline there,” she told them. “Maybe I should listen more.”

“Bessie” creates a similar space for the audience to process their response to a woman’s naked body. In one of the most powerful scenes in Dee Rees’ movie, Smith strips off the dress, headpiece and wig she’s worn for a performance. She sits in front of a mirror. And she simply looks at herself_for an unusually long period of time, by movie standards. There’s no expository dialogue that explains Smith’s reaction to herself. The movie makes no explicit callback to the scene later in the action. We’re left to decide how we feel about the swell of Smith’s stomach, the hair flattened against her head, and most of all, the look she gives herself.

There’s plenty of media out there telling us how we ought to feel about women’s bodies. Self-esteem is big business for Dove. Stripping down is an opportunity for BuzzFeed to do a mashup of cultural commentary and a discussion of male body image. But “Boyish Girl Interrupted” and “Bessie” strip away the framing and the potential self-congratulation that follows from it.

Tig Notaro and Queen Latifah aren’t going to reward you for looking at them. All you’re left with is your own reaction.



Reader Comments