Aussie comedian Jess Fuchs on what equality should look like in the comedy world: ‘Let women be mediocre too!’

Jess Fuchs’ dream is to be allowed to be completely mediocre.

Not in a sense that she doesn’t want to be good at what she does (because spoiler alert, she already is). Fuchs’ desire for mediocrity stems from her desire for equality.

The Aussie comedian, writer, actress and middle child – an aspect of her personality that Fuchs says is closely tied to her success in comedy – tells 9honey that while it’s improving, there is still plenty of misogyny in the comedy world.

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She explains the idea that a man can stand on a stage, flop and go home without the weight of the world on his shoulders.

But if Fuchs does that, she’s somehow burdened with being the singular proof to everyone in that audience that “women aren’t funny”.

“It feels quite tokenistic,” she says.

”If I’m the only female comedian on a show, I go on stage and I’m the representative for every single woman.

“But you’ve seen 10 men, nine of which weren’t very good. You just saw one good guy and applied that good kind of like karma to everybody else.”

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She continues: “The industry has definitely changed and improved, but I think [there is] still a lot of internalised misogyny, and we still are kind of quite tokenised – even if there are a couple of us on a lineup.

“There’s still this pressure, which I speak about with a lot of my female friends, to be exceptional every time, every place we perform.”

While some might think that equality in the industry looks like more female comics getting their flowers, to Fuchs it looks like more female comics being average at their job without there being a flow on effect to the whole of womenkind.

“The goal is for a woman to be on stage and be utterly mediocre, and no one cares. That is equality,” she says.

“Because then you would be equal… the men get up and are utterly painstakingly boring, and everyone’s like ‘slay!’

“So to me the beauty and equality within the industry is when a woman can get on stage and just talk about anything without it being like, ‘Oh, yuck smutty’, or, ‘She wasn’t funny’.

“Like that shouldn’t be an indictment on, well, women aren’t funny. It’s like, just cause I wasn’t funny doesn’t mean no other women are funny. It just means I’m not funny.

“So that’s the dream, you know? Just to be able to be absolutely mediocre.”

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But despite it being ‘the dream’, Fuchs is far from mediocre.

In her new stand-up Sex Jokes for Women, the comedian puts herself on the spot, relying on her quick wit rather than a scripted joke to get laughs. 

“I think it’s kind of unique in the grand scheme of comedy shows, because a lot of people spend the year prepping for a show that’s like perfectly timed, and it’s almost like they go on stage and they press play on a recorder and they tell you the jokes,” she explains.

“And so people come to comedy shows as if they’re watching Netflix in their living room. And it’s weird.

“And I’m like, guys, you’ve left the house, you put on pants, you’re wearing a bra, like, we’re in real life. Talk to the person next to you!”

So, Fuchs’ show involves a lot of improve and yes – there is crowd work.

But something she says she’s found over the years is that when a female comic talks about sex, there’s a constant “barrage of comments” like, “Oh, another woman talking about her period, talking about her vagina, talking about sex.”

So, Fuchs has made sure audiences knew exactly what they are getting into.

“I wanted to be really clear with the intention of this show, so that if anyone came and then they were like, ‘Oh, she spoke about sex’, it’s like… it was in the title,” she laughs.

“Like I said, don’t clutch your pearls. I was very clear on what this show was.

“And so in that way, it is a bit of a like, ‘oh, piss off’ energy. If you don’t want to see a female comedian talk about sex, you probably also don’t want to see a woman on stage. So it’s quite clear, it’s sex and women.”

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When she first began planning the show, Fuchs said she didn’t know what the message behind it would be, explaining that often comedians will have an overarching message to help ground the performance and move it forward.

But, as she finished planning all the stories she wanted to tell, Fuchs realised that the message behind Sex Jokes for Women is that there is no message.

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”It’s kind of like the tokenistic thing. I think [for female comedians] it’s often seen as like, well, what are you doing to push forward the needle? Like, how are you pushing the needle forward? How are you helping?” she says.

“It’s like, I don’t want to help all the time. Sometimes I just want to talk for an hour and be really funny, and not have to like improve the female agenda, you know?

“And so I wanted audiences to also be able to come and not have to think so hard.”

Fuchs’ audience won’t be learning anything new, she says she evens opens the show by warning “you’re gonna be worse off in an hour”.

“You’re not coming here to be a better person,” she laughs.

“We’re just gonna have a laugh and then you’re gonna leave.

“And it’s empowering without intentionally being empowering because it’s a woman just doing what every man does, which is just take up space for an hour.”

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