Ilana Glazer and Miranda July: Authentically Representing the Overlooked Stages of Women’s Lives - podcast episode cover

Ilana Glazer and Miranda July: Authentically Representing the Overlooked Stages of Women’s Lives

May 31, 202418 min
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Episode description

Jon Stewart and Ilana Glazer chat about Glazer’s new film, ‘Babes,’ which provides a much-needed and accurate portrayal of pregnancy and motherhood. And filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist Miranda July discusses with Desi Lydic how the topics covered in her new novel, “All Fours,” like perimenopause, traumatic childbirth, and female sexual freedom, often go undiscussed.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

You're listening to Comedy Central. Hey there, it's Michael Costa. The Daily Show's on a break this week, but don't worry.

Speaker 2

We handpicked some of our favorite recent moments from the show in case you missed them. We'll be back with brand new episodes next week. Until then, enjoy today's episode. We're back to show I Got Tonight.

Speaker 1

She's an actor and a comedian.

Speaker 3

She co wrote and she co wrote in stars in the new film Babes.

Speaker 2

Please welcome to a lot of guys here. Please No, I love you.

Speaker 4

I just love you, John Stewart, I love you a lot of.

Speaker 3

And boy, this movie is so good, thank you. And it's so funny and you're so good in it, and I'm just I'm thrilled to death for you.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's are you? Are you excited for?

Speaker 2

It's coming out?

Speaker 1

What is it coming out?

Speaker 4

It's coming out in select cities May seventeenth, and expands and expands the twenty fourth.

Speaker 1

Then did you yourself personally?

Speaker 4

No, just the demographics, you know.

Speaker 3

So, Alana Glazer didn't say I would like to go to Louisville with my mouve. It's the relationships. So it's it's yourself. It's Michelle Boutteaux and it's Hassin Mena plays her husband, and he's the most wonderful husband.

Speaker 1

It's not believable.

Speaker 4

They are such a delicious couple. And also, like Michelle keeps saying, it's giving such queens, we look like we grew up in Queen's together.

Speaker 1

You know, it really does.

Speaker 3

I have to tell you though, Like at the end, I'm not going to give any away, but like I did get a little like tiary.

Speaker 4

Yeah good like it? Oh yeah, baby, why.

Speaker 1

Would you do that?

Speaker 4

You feel your feelings?

Speaker 3

I was feeling my feelings. What about your feelings? Not only is this about the mom?

Speaker 1

You're the mom? You had your Mother's Day?

Speaker 4

I was actually we were doing a Q and A screening in Lincoln Square. I was with Julie Louis Dreyfuss. I was like, happy Mother's Day to me, dog. So I got to yeah, yeah, that's lovely Q and A for us. I was like, thank you girl.

Speaker 1

Okay, So she doesn't live there.

Speaker 4

At the Lincoln Square, AMC No, That's what I'm wondering. No, but I'm so glad you liked it.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it's really and how did was it strange to sit in the theater and watch it go down.

Speaker 4

Didn't scadaddled after the Q and A.

Speaker 1

You don't watch the people watch the movie?

Speaker 4

Well, you know, I've seen it a bunch of times. We did the test screenings too, and it was like in Burbank or whatever. They lured people at the mall to come see the movie and you know, give us feedback. And so I've just seen it so many times. And I just watched it in la at like a little private screening and we have tomorrow the premiere.

Speaker 3

So how did they lure So I did that once? And what do they do to lure them? Because I think they should use gummies?

Speaker 4

Yeah, I think they use gummies. I think that's legal.

Speaker 5

Now.

Speaker 4

I think I think people need work. They lore them with employment in an employment based insurance system. So people are just desperate.

Speaker 1

And they like to have the opinions.

Speaker 3

Do they after something like that happens, do they come does the company come to you and say, Phil, yes from kIPS Bay for sure, said do they really?

Speaker 4

Yeah? Oh yeah, they definitely care about their the people's opinion, which I do too, and like also, you take some stuff with the grain of salt. Sometimes They're like it was really gross, and it's like, yeah, well, you know, you just don't usually see women talk like this or experience pregnancy through their own voice, So I could see why you think it's gross.

Speaker 3

That's the perspective of the relationship between you and Michelle, so.

Speaker 1

Lovely and easy and just natural.

Speaker 4

And we've been friends for twenty years, oh for real, for truly twenty years. So you know she is likes a real oh big titty just oh, we are dead, we are dead. Just Michelle loves top titty meat, our top titty meat, just spilling over just twenty years. She is effervescent. She is effervescent. She is she is effervescent. She is vibrant, top titty meat. John Stewart, you know what I mean. But you know, to be honest, to

be honest, like this is this is how women talk. Yes, And you know, when we first sent this script out, I wrote this with the we My mom just called you backstage the number one mench. You're like number two compared to Joshua, who I wrote this wrote, sorry, you

got to meet him number one, such a mensch. And you know, when we were and Susie Fox, our producer as we were writing this and collaborating it, we put a list together of the most surprising and absurd experiences we were having becoming parents, and we couldn't believe that these things hadn't been covered in film, you know, And we send the script out sort of to the industry or whatever to see if anybody wants to make it, and you know, some people got it, and then some

people found it like really gross, really blue, and it's like, no, it's just real. This is how women talk to each other and this is what pregnancy is.

Speaker 3

You know, you get well, that is the thing about it as you watch it as someone who is non woman.

Speaker 1

I don't know if that's the term we're using.

Speaker 4

Now, whatever you say becomes the culture being.

Speaker 3

It was yes, you ate and left no crumbs. Oh my daughter talking nice, and she has me say it at times out of context nice nice. It's brutally embarrassing, but it really the repartee, the way that you guys talk, the friendship that around it comes so naturally to the characters that it's incredibly infectious. And you just also the fis you guys are like the just dirty dirty.

Speaker 1

Laverne and Shirley, like it is so like the.

Speaker 3

Physical comedy as well is also such a big part of this.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I mean I think like women are dying to just be themselves, you know, and it's like, weirdly, we're in this time increasingly where our bodies are more and more policed, and it's it's just funny what people are like. This is a ranch calm, shocking, and I'm like, God, I to woman, you ever laughed with the woman?

Speaker 6

You know?

Speaker 2

I gotta tylo And then if you guyanas are, can I can I give.

Speaker 1

Away at least the one line? Can I say?

Speaker 4

On street you can do whatever you One of my favorite.

Speaker 1

Lines is the whole thing.

Speaker 3

She has this incredible sort of relationship with this gentleman uh, and it's it's really this lovely kind of walk through your evening. And it ends with they're both obviously feeling very amorous, and Alana turns to him and says, uh, let's ruin some towels.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 1

I was just like, score, it's so awesome.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Shout out to Shout out to Stefan James who plays that actor and the incredible cast, Oliver Platt, Sandra Bernhardt, John Carol Lynch Hassen Manhaj The Lucas Brothers fan favorite.

Speaker 3

Lucas Brothers are They're really funny.

Speaker 4

Incredible And Dragona is played by Elena Spinskaya. Can you believe Dragona Dragana was Yeah? First movie ever?

Speaker 1

Can I tell what?

Speaker 4

Yes? Girl, first movie ever?

Speaker 1

Are you serious?

Speaker 4

Slate crush. It goes back to her like spot you know every take and it was just like, thank you.

Speaker 3

Is there anything more fun than talking about a movie that they haven't seen yet? There's very little I enjoy more than the secret information that you and I have that they dude, I imagine the Oppenheimer people did that. They'd come around and they go, you know what he said to Einstein and the audience would be like, I don't know.

Speaker 1

What the movie is.

Speaker 4

Should I give a summary?

Speaker 1

Do you want to give amy? Give a summary?

Speaker 4

Please? Okay?

Speaker 1

So yes?

Speaker 4

So this movie is about two best friends who are in very different points in their lives. Dawn, who's played by Michelle Buteau, has two kids and a husband, and my character Eden is single and a free spirit and gets knocked up and decides to keep the baby and their friendship is tested thereafter, and hilarity and also pathos Pathos, Mad Pathos, mad mad mad Pathos.

Speaker 2

Crumbs, no crumbs.

Speaker 3

I just love you so much, and you're so good and everything you do is just filled with just bangers after bangers, like just the lines are so funny and your stuff is so good and and for God's sakes.

Speaker 4

Woman, Oh, it is my honor of pleasure, my heroes.

Speaker 1

Stop it.

Speaker 4

Welcome back to day.

Speaker 7

So my guest tonight is an accomplished filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. Her new novel is called All Fours. Please welcome, Miranda July. Oh, thank you for being Do you do you want?

Speaker 5

Do you want to take it home with you?

Speaker 6

Such a weird shape for a desk? Okay, it is my book.

Speaker 7

It's yeah, great, segue. I am so happy that you're here. I loved your book. It's exceptional. It's so funny and honest and brave.

Speaker 4

I am.

Speaker 7

I was very leisurely enjoying it over the last two weeks, and then I got to that point in the book where I only had like twenty pages left, and I started to panic that it was almost over. So I saved the rest for Mother's Day Perfect, and I locked myself in the bathroom for some alone time. So I could enjoy the rest of your book. I could not imagine a better way of celebrating. Mother said, truly, I'm not done.

Speaker 5

That's a hard one. Leave me alone.

Speaker 4

I'm still in the shower. The water's not running.

Speaker 5

It's phenomenal.

Speaker 7

Congratulations or I don't want to spoil it, but give us the synopsis of the of the book.

Speaker 6

Ah, well, do you have secret desires?

Speaker 7

Okay, don't say I mean you sound like that. I feel like you could do the voice of Omni.

Speaker 4

But I mean, yes, why do you live?

Speaker 5

I know everything?

Speaker 7

You take only money?

Speaker 6

The book is it's really for every woman who's aging and has secret desires and anxieties about those desires, and is wondering what's going on with her body and her.

Speaker 5

Marriage and just her whole self.

Speaker 6

And uh, I mean you, I don't know what you were doing there in the bathroom, but.

Speaker 5

I wrote it for you.

Speaker 4

It does feel that way.

Speaker 5

You.

Speaker 7

You made a very specific choice to not name your main character, your narrator of the novel, be honest, is it me?

Speaker 5

Because I wonder I left.

Speaker 6

It open as so you would be able to Yeah, I mean, I feel like the secret thing that you're wanting to know is did I have a very hot emotional affair with a young man who worked at the Hertz rent a car?

Speaker 7

Well, I would, I would never be so bold to ask, but did you and tell me everything?

Speaker 5

I mean, you have to read it and.

Speaker 7

Is kind of into it. What I appreciated so much is the fact that you explore all of these different topics that are sort of unspoken in our society. You talk about perimenopause, you talk about the trauma involved in childbirth, you talk about finding sexual freedom and intimacy in all of its forms. Why do you think those things aren't talked about very often?

Speaker 5

I know, I why aren't they?

Speaker 6

Like I was looking, I was like, probably right, I started writing the book when I was forty five, but probably at like forty I was looking for that book or like, honestly, I would have taken a pamphlet.

Speaker 5

Like I was that desperate, And I mean all I could figure.

Speaker 6

Was like, oh, what's coming must be so humiliating that it's like out of respect to us that we don't talk about it.

Speaker 7

You know, it does feel like that. Do you think that the conversation is changing? Do you think more women are talking?

Speaker 4

Right?

Speaker 6

Well, the thing is like, so that was happening, this like absence right, like this cliff, like there's a cliff on the cover, because that's kind of a mapless place that we're talking about.

Speaker 5

But meanwhile, in real.

Speaker 6

Life, me and all my friends were having these really incredible conversations about our bodies and our our marriages and our we were questioning. Everything was like this radical questioning and exciting. It was exciting, like heart pounding real not boring times. And so I thought, it, is there something bad that happens if you write about that?

Speaker 5

Yeah, I guess we'll find out.

Speaker 7

I mean it, it really it, It really spoke to me, and in so many ways you One of my favorite parts was when you talk about having a conversation with another character, I should say your character, not you. Your character had a conversation with someone and uh and they said people are either parkers or drivers, not both. You can be one or the other. Explain what a parker is and what a driver is, and which are you?

Speaker 5

Okay?

Speaker 6

So I always feel like there's this other kind of person who j can have a good.

Speaker 5

Time more easily.

Speaker 6

It's it's it's like another kind of woman who's just like chill.

Speaker 8

You know her, And then there's then and those are drivers, right, they can do a cross country drive and it's just like, you know, a fun time.

Speaker 6

And then there's parkers and they need a discrete task that's nearly impossible and for which they will receive applause, which is I mean, you don't end up here if you're not a parker, either of us. Yeah, yeah, so that's the I mean, I don't know. Everyone can decide on their own heads at home which.

Speaker 5

Kind they are.

Speaker 1

You.

Speaker 7

I love that you have described this as a coming of age story, and it made me wonder, like, why do all coming of age stories have to be about teenagers? Why can't a coming of age story about a woman in the middle of her life?

Speaker 6

Right, I know, And it's so funny all those teenage coming of age stories, which is literally also what every love song is about too. The unspoken thing is there's a hormonal change that happens at this age. But we build all this meaning on top of it, right, you know, all this and it's beautiful, all the stuff that that time of life means. There's also a hormonal change that happens at this time of life, but.

Speaker 5

No story, right, Like, what is the love story about now, you know, And.

Speaker 6

I think it's like not just a benign accident that there's no stories like I think, you know, maybe we're just supposed to think we're done now that we had.

Speaker 5

Our kids, or you know, I hope not.

Speaker 6

No, No, it's I absolutely I think I'm like just barely old enough older than you to be able to say, like, no, don't worry.

Speaker 7

I'm so grateful that you wrote this book. It really it spoke to me. I think it's going to speak to so many other women. It is such a fun read. It is saucy, it is funny. I'm so happy for you. Congratulations. I can't wait to see what you do next. Thank you for being here.

Speaker 4

All four.

Speaker 7

Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching.

Speaker 2

The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.

Speaker 4

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