As Ana Gasteyer made her way Saturday night onto the Center for the Arts' Mainstage Theatre, her gracious voice definitely displayed humility. Her modesty was made even more apparent as she quickly commented on the resonance of her microphone, saying it made her sound somewhat "echo-y and important."
And important she is. Best known for her last six years as a cast member on "Saturday Night Live," Gasteyer has pioneered new views on sketch comedy and has made several breakthroughs regarding women's roles on television. Instead of performing a stand-up routine, Gasteyer specifically discussed her experiences at SNL and shared her views on women in comedy and television with a warm, intimate audience. The comedian recently left the show, partially motivated by the departure of fellow cast member and friend Will Farrell, someone she is convinced "is a woman."
To break the ice, Gasteyer showed the audience her first SNL sketch: a dead-on impersonation of Martha Stewart preparing for a Christmas special - sans shirt.
"I'm very proud of it, even if I had to do it topless," Gasteyer said, kicking off the evening (and her SNL career) with the piece.
Later, Gasteyer cited a joke about the number of feminists it takes to screw in a light bulb (the answer: "That's not funny.") as evidence that "women are able to laugh at themselves now." Most of her "victims," from Hillary Clinton to Celine Dion, have taken their parodies well. Despite Gasteyer's feeling that SNL "eviscerated" Stewart, the home decoration maven loved Gasteyer's parodies and even allowed her to appear on her show.
While discussing the emotional investments of the actor and writers of the SNL team, Gasteyer noted the differences between how men and women work and how they cope with difficulties.
"Women aren't team-sport players," she said, explaining how women of her generation were far less involved in organized sports than their counterparts today. She said that when skits are rejected before the live performances, women take it more personally than men.
"Women cry, while men just shrug it off," she said. "We are a lot more competitive, but we're told to play by the 'men's rules.'"
However, according to Gasteyer, the girls do have an ace up their sleeve: "Sketch comedy is a very recent phenomenon, brought forth by typical, straight men. Women have an edge, because we can play with gender roles in a way that men cannot."
Gasteyer went on to show what she called "the most successful sketch of last season." It was a parody of Kotex maxi-pads called Kotex Classic, a throwback to a time when things were "bigger and simpler." The pad was huge and protruded from questionable angles in the front and back. Gasteyer said it took months for the sketch to air due to "an old-fashioned male staff afraid to push the boundaries of feminine hygiene."
Breaking another TV taboo, Gasteyer was the first pregnant woman to be on SNL, despite its 28-year history. Saying that her friends said "You can NOT tell anyone for six or seven months," Gasteyer made it a personal mission to represent pregnant women on television.
The next sketch she shared was a commercial parody for a pregnancy test. Though Gasteyer's character was clearly in her last trimester, the character took a pregnancy test as a voiceover related her thoughts: "Me? Pregnant? No." Lauded as a "new and novel idea," this sketch was as acclaimed as Kotex Classic.
Proving her earlier point that women need to be able to make fun of themselves, technical difficulties prompted Gasteyer to use her razor-sharp wit against her own performance. When a member of the stage crew had trouble finding a clip that Gasteyer had decided to use on the spot, Gasteyer made the self-deprecation she'd mentioned earlier evident:
"The woman couldn't get it all on one tape," she said, referring to herself. "I'm so sick of this s---."
Gasteyer was optimistic about the rising status of women in the media, but she showed pragmatism in her expectations for her gender's opportunities in the near future.
"There are no major female comedy box office stars, and there probably won't be for a while," she said. "For now, TV is the top of the barrel."
