By Emily Cutler | Videos | August 20, 2015 |
By Emily Cutler | Videos | August 20, 2015 |
Just to make sure before I move on, everyone here is a Tig Notaro fan, right? RIGHT? Good. Then you’ll all enjoy this clip from Conan last night of her discussing her decision to perform parts of her recent tour topless. Including during her HBO special airing this Saturday.
Why the double mastectomy you might foolishly ask? Oh, my dear, sweet, stupid reader. It’s the result of the two tumors found in her breasts back in 2012. Basically Notaro was having an incredible year in terms of her career when she began a two-month period so terrible most of us could only imagine living through it. And one single day after being diagnosed with cancer, she performed a set talking about everything she’d been through. It is now the stuff of stand-up legend. The aftermath of her terrible period and the show are detailed in the beautiful documentary Tig.
And while I don’t want to focus exclusively on the cancer or even on her the breakthrough show (she was funny before the cancer, she’s been funny after the cancer), I do hope more people listen to the album. Or watch the HBO special where she performs comedy without a shirt. Revealing the “scars across [her] chest and no nipples.”
Because there has recently been a folliclly-degenerate fuckstick who keeps claiming his sudden unexplainable popularity is a result of his “honesty.” Or others claiming that we as a country have become too PC, and people are responding to an ability to “tell it like it is.” Fuck those guys. Being an asshole isn’t being honest. It doesn’t take any courage to insult other people, it only requires a lack of empathy and decorum. Being honest is about being open and sincere about who you are. It isn’t about revealing truths in others, and if you think it is, you’re doing it wrong.
But you could watch Tig Notaro and learn how to do it right.