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Clinton is Woman of the Year
By Reva Blau
Banner Correspondent
She can make people laugh and she can make people think, and that is why comedian-activist Kate Clinton will get special recognition during Women’s Week. The first annual Woman of the Year award, organized by the Women Innkeepers of Provincetown, will be awarded to Clinton during the kick-off gala Masquerade Ball on Saturday, Oct. 13 at 10:30 p.m. at the Paramount at the Crown & Anchor.
Clinton will perform her cogent and very funny new show, “Climate Change,” during Women's Week, also at the Paramount.
A former high-school English teacher, Clinton has been doing stand-up for 25 years. She has seven collections of comedy, many of which are also CD recordings and videos. She writes a monthly column for the Progressive, where, along with the late Molly Ivins, she has been a voice of reason that combines a fierce intelligence with a gift for language and comedy.
The Provincetown award will be the start of a tradition during Women’s Week. The intent of the award is to honor a woman who has made a significant difference in the lives of other women and who has contributed in an extraordinary way to women and to her community.
Reading Clinton’s blog, one feels palpably the difference that Clinton has made in people’s lives. Clinton’s warm, funny and upbeat persona engages people and encourages dialogue and openness. One post is from a woman who found her gay identity having discovered a role model in Clinton.
“First of all I want to make people laugh, because it is a pure pleasure,” Clinton said from her home in New York City. “If, afterwards, I make people think, whether they agree with me or not, that is the ultimate goal.” She loves it when people use her lines. On her blog, she asks people to post their favorites.
Clinton’s fusion of laugh-aloud humor and dead-on political critique makes you question even subtle forms of conventional thought in today’s consumer culture and what she calls “niche marketing” of people. Her comedy ranges from papal apologies and fashion glitches to her own aging (“back in my day, there were no glossy gay magazines”) to a culture of surveillance and alarmist politics.
Clinton talks about airplane conversations that go awry (a young man seated next to her assumes she is a Republican), George Clooney (her favorite celebrity), reading tabloids in doctors’ offices, and the way people voice dissent.
Clinton thinks that people are now more willing to counter the conservative agenda. After many years of Bush-made policies, such as the war in Iraq and the attack on gay and women’s civil liberties, she believes that people are now ready for change.
One sign of change for Clinton is that people are much more willing to laugh at the political humor than they were right after Sept. 11, when people were laughing at the lesbian humor and got quiet during the political jokes. (“You know things must be bad in that case.”)
Clinton feels that after a period in which the country swung to the extreme right, there will be an inevitable “pendulum swing” back. “It is like the tides,” she says. “I think Provincetown is a great way to learn about how things work by looking at nature. The tide goes in, the tide goes out; there’s that inevitability.”
While she is convinced Provincetown folks are just trying to keep her up late, she loves performing in Provincetown, where she owns a house. She loves biking to her shows. In celebrations like Women’s Week, she sees an example of the strength of the gay community. “Things like Women’s Week, an opportunity for women from all over the country to just be together, are really important. People are out at work, to their families, out to their friends and it is great to come for the week to get recharged, and then go back out there to keep up the work.”
Clinton is indeed hopeful for the future of progressive gay politics. “Sometimes you can measure your progress on the basis of what is ranged against you. The fact that a 40-year-old gay identity movement so threatens a 2,000-year-old Christian identity movement shows that we have done our job.”
Kate Clinton will be performing “Climate Change” at the Crown & Anchor’s Paramount club at 7 p.m. on Oct. 11 and at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Oct. 12 and 13. Call (508) 487-1430, ext. 232, or visit onlyatthecrown.com for ticket information.
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Oct 4th, 2007