The Politics of Who Gets to Be Funny: Trans Comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle Tells All!

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In this episode of Messy Liberation, host Becky Mollenkamp sits down with comedian and writer Mx. Dahlia Belle to pull back the curtain on the deeply political world of stand-up comedy. From gatekeeping and blacklisting to biased algorithms and the consent politics of who gets to make jokes about whom, this conversation is an essential intersectional feminist guide to understanding comedy as a site of power and resistance.

In This Episode, We Get Into:
• How Mx. Dahlia Belle went from writing a viral Guardian piece about Dave Chappelle to appearing on Hannah Gadsby's Netflix special Gender Agenda, and what happened to their career immediately after
• Why comedy is a pyramid scheme: how the most powerful comics in any scene control who gets booked, who gets stage time, and who gets shut out
• The self-replicating myth that women and trans people "aren't funny," and how internalized bias keeps marginalized audiences away from shows that could change that
• How biased algorithms compound gatekeeping, and what it means when a comic's social media following matters more than their actual craft
• The nuanced take on punching up vs. punching down, and why Mx. Dahlia Belle's real gauge is whether the joke lands for someone who loves them and someone who hates them
• The violence and predation inside comedy scenes, and how it was the women who blew the whistle on abusers who got blacklisted, not the abusers themselves
• Why stand-up is uniquely inseparable from the artist's character, and why "separating the art from the artist" doesn't work the same way for comedy as it does for painting or fiction
• The concept of consent in comedy: who has the right to tell a joke about a particular identity, and what it means when that consent is absent
• Where to actually find queer and alt comedy in your city (and why you should probably boycott your local mainstream comedy club)
• Why marginalized people tend to be more creative, funnier, and more imaginative because survival demands it

Resources Mentioned:
• Mx. Dahlia Belle's "Dear Dave Chappelle" piece for the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/oct/09/dave-chappelle-letter-trans-comedian-netflix
• Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81607199
• "The Algorithms of Opression" by Safiya Umoja Noble: https://amzn.to/439nUPL
• Comedian Devi Kersh: https://www.instagram.com/devikirsch/
• Comedian Sir Lance Edward: https://www.instagram.com/sir_lance_edward_comedy/
• Mx. Dahlia Belle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MX.DAHLIABELLE/
• Mx. Dahlia Belle on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@mx.dahliabelle/
• Mx. Dahla Belle on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mxdahliabelle

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