Charlie Pee: Those of us who have been marginalized have a pain inside that comes out when we are on stage

BarcelonaTo Charlie Pee, one of the most prominent comedians of her generation, known for her live shows and her collaboration with the program La resistencia, she likes to make people laugh, but what she likes most is to make herself laugh. This, she says, helps her better digest difficult experiences. We talk to her about the connection between laughter and happiness and how people who make us laugh from a stage also seek this joy through the laughter of others.

Do you think that laughing makes us happier?

— I don't know if it makes us happier, but at least at the moment you are laughing you feel less. You can feel sadness or pains you might have at that moment less. I believe that laughter numbs our pain. I don't know if it makes us happier, because being happy is something longer term, but laughing does make everything a little less sad. It happens to me that the need I have to make people laugh doesn't align with the desire I have to laugh.

Is it not directly proportional?

— No. In fact, the better I am, the less I feel the need to make people laugh. That's why I say it's a tool we use to alleviate pain, or sorrow, in moments when we are not doing well.

So in your case, making others laugh makes you feel better afterwards?

— Yes, because when I make others laugh I have first made myself laugh, and that's what's important. If I'm completely honest, I don't do what I do because making others laugh benefits me, but because it helps me. Everything I do, everything I say, has first made me laugh. And then it's great to see that the thing that is helping me also helps others at that moment.

How does the process of building what makes you laugh work? Does it always arise from a daily experience?

— Yes, in fact everything I've built in my career is basically about taking the things that happen to me, and that are not funny at first glance, and finding the comedic angle, because everything has it. And from there, laughing at these things. This makes them less painful for me afterwards.

Comedy serves to defuse drama.

— Yes. They say that comedy is tragedy plus time. Sometimes this time is relative, sometimes a person needs two years and another ten minutes. Things have happened to me that I haven't yet been able to make comedy out of, but that I know will come at some point.

Do you have any limits or is everything subject to comedy?

— I always say that humor has no limits. For me, humor has contexts and also voices. This means that the joke I can make, having a certain voice because I am a woman, white, heterosexual, and with certain privileges, is not the same if another comedian tells it. There are contexts and voices when we talk about the limits of comedy. But I believe that comedy can be made about absolutely everything, you just have to know from where and to where.

I imagine there are audiences and audiences.

— Exactly. Yes, and very different contexts. It's not the same if you perform in a bar for an audience that has come to see you, who knows what you do, knows who you are... as it is if a city council hires you to do a festival event or present a charity event. You have to know that you can't make the jokes there that you make in the bar. And the context in this case is the limit.

Are there any topics that are particularly interesting to make comedy about right now?

— Any topic is interesting for comedy. stand-up comedy, which is the discipline I practice, was born as a tool to laugh at things that could not be spoken about openly, and it was done in spaces like bars and private clubs because it was a way to talk about what was happening and to criticize it. When you have a microphone on stage and people are listening to you, there is a very powerful feeling of being able to say things for or against, or to touch on topics that affect us all. But I must say that when I do comedy, I don't go that way. I don't do my comedy thinking about what society needs, but rather about the things I like. But I also tell you that any woman who gets on stage is a very powerful message. I have never done a bit about feminism, for example, but any topic I have touched on from my experience has a feminist undertone. I think it is very necessary that we continue to get on stage, because afterwards, every time a woman comes out and talks about something that is supposed to be about women, a lot of voices come out to criticize and say "Oh, she's talking about this again". And I think: but men talk about their things all the time and nobody says anything!

Are you still encountering this double standard that values a woman on stage differently than a man?

— Yes, I have experienced that particularly with the topic of sex. I relate to sex without taboos, I talk about it very openly and without any fear. Although in reality I am a very introverted person, in life I find myself in uncomfortable situations that I use in my stand-ups. And what happens? Well, the most uncomfortable situations and those in which you feel most vulnerable are often sexual acts. And I have spoken very openly about these things. I began to notice, especially at the beginning, that because I was a very young girl – when I started I was 22 years old – that I would go on stage and explain that one day, while sucking a dick, my jaw dislocated and I tried to hide it, that caused a lot of scandal. For me, this anecdote is not about sex, it's about a person who doesn't know how to say excuse me, stop, wait a moment. Suddenly I became the girl who always said 'dick', the one who always talks about the same thing. But if you stop and listen to me, I have three anecdotes about dicks and that's it.

This reductionist view applies.

— Yes, and now this topic has made me feel self-conscious, to the point that sometimes I would tell an anecdote and I think, no, I won't, because I don't feel like having to endure all the comments again. Maybe it's been five years since I've made dick jokes, but if any of my colleagues were explaining these things that I'm explaining, absolutely nothing would happen.

This feedback you should experience a lot on social media. How are you handling it?

— I've been through a bit of everything. Social media is a work tool for someone like me, I can't not be on it. I have a lot of self-confidence, I've always had it, I know I'm good at what I do, and when I read a negative comment, I always didn't care, but there came a point when there were so many comments, good and bad, so much interaction, that it ended up affecting me. It's not pleasant to read an insult: even if you're sure of yourself, you take the hit. And when you receive a thousand hits a day, it's most normal that it affects you. This was greatly accentuated by appearing on La resistencia, because I started reaching all of Spain and South America. But then over time I've realized that negative comments make a lot of noise and positive ones don't. There are many more people who give likes than who insult you.

Earlier you said you are a very introverted person, so it strikes me that you chosestand-up comedy, which is a discipline that puts you in the spotlight.

— Yes, it's a reflection I've been having for years. I remember in university when I had to give an oral presentation, I would vomit from nerves. But I've met many comedians –who happen to be the ones I like– who are very introverted. Stand-up has given me a safe space; sometimes saying something very personal in front of a hundred strangers is easier than saying it in front of five friends. The first day I went on stage, I explained that my boyfriend had left me. It was a moment of opening up to people I didn't know at all, and I discovered it was a space where I could say things that are very difficult for me. Over the years I've grown and had therapy, and I still have an introverted personality but I've changed, and stand-up has helped me a lot. For example, until two years ago, whenever I performed, I would have at least two beers; I couldn't perform without them. Now, on the other hand, for two years now I've been performing without drinking any alcohol, because it had become a necessity. Now the nerves I have before going on stage are much stronger, but I manage them in a different way.

Does being introverted affect the way you do comedy?

— There are two types of comedy and there are two types of comedians. There are those who used to bully us in school, we were introverts and outcasts and we found that the only way to explain things is to grab a mic and get on stage in front of strangers. And then there are the class clowns, who are people who like to be in the center of attention, put on a show, like to get on stage. When the show ends, there's the comedian who gets off and stands at the door greeting everyone and taking pictures, and then there's me, who hides behind the curtain and waits for everyone to leave and then goes home.

And when the proposals take the stage, are they different?

— Yes, I think so. The comedy I do is very personal. There are other types of comedy that are very generic shows that talk about things we have all experienced, like going to Ikea on Saturdays. I talk about things that have only happened to me. I think that people who have been marginalized have inner pains that come out when we are on stage.

Were you funny even as a child?

— I realized that when I explained something that had happened to me, it was funny. But I wasn't very aware of it. I was shy, I was introverted, and it seems that doesn't go with being funny. When I told my group that I had signed up for a stand-up comedy course, they thought it was a joke. Neither my boyfriend at the time nor my family believed me. I signed up more for the part of learning to write a script than for doing stand-up comedy, but when the day came to present what we had prepared, it was incredible. I remember my monologue was precisely about how shy I am and the first sentence I said was a joke. I remember saying it and people laughed. That feeling of seeing people laughing with me made me feel something very special and I told myself I would do that for the rest of my life. With all my shyness, with all the difficulty I had being there, being able to make people laugh was fantastic. And since then, jokes protect me, they make me relax.

They are your protective wall.

— Totally. If there are no jokes, I get nervous. Sometimes I'm in serious contexts and I feel like I have to tell a joke. It's happened to me before in a funeral home where I feel jokes coming to my head and I have to hold myself back. I'm bad at it, yes, I'm very socially awkward.

Now you have two shows at the same time: Maricarmen, at Golem's Teatre, and Our Father Who Art on the Ceiling, at Espai Texas. Isn't it difficult to juggle?

— No. Think that in my head the structure works with anecdotes, because they are things that have happened to me. I could explain them to you right now. Besides, I don't even have them written down, the monologues. One of the keys to naturalness is that on stage I explain things as I am explaining them to you now.