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 outstanding comedians of her generation, known for her live shows and for her collaboration with the program La resistencia, 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 laughter makes us happier?

— I don't know if it makes us happier, but at least at the moment you're laughing you feel less. You can feel sadness or pains you might have at that moment less. I think laughter turns off pain. I don't know if it makes us happier, because being happy is more of a long-term thing, but laughter does make everything a little less sad. It happens to me that the need I have to make people laugh doesn't align with how much I want to laugh myself.

Isn't it directly proportional?

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

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

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

How does the process of building what makes you laugh work? Does it always come 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 in them, because everything has one. And from there, laughing at those 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 one person needs two years and another ten minutes. There are things that 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 susceptible to being comedy?

— I always say that humor has no limits. For me, humor has contexts and also voices. This means that the joke I can tell, as I have a certain voice because I am a woman, white, heterosexual and with some 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 think comedy can be made out of 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 if you are hired by a city council to perform at a town festival 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 to make comedy. stand-up comedy, which is the discipline I do, 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 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 I do it about things that 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 believe it is very necessary that we continue to get on stage, because then 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, he's talking about this again." And I think: but men talk about their things all the time and no one says anything!

Do you still find yourself with this double standard that values a woman on stage differently than a man?

— Yes, it has happened to me especially with the topic of sex. I relate to sex without taboos, I talk about it very openly and without any fear. Even though I am actually a very introverted person, in life I find myself in uncomfortable situations that are what I use in my stand-ups. And what happens? Well, the most uncomfortable situations and 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 first, that because I was a very young girl – when I started I was 22 years old – I would go on stage and explain that one day while sucking a cock, my jaw dislocated and I tried to hide it, this generated 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 cock, the one who always talked about the same thing. But if you stop and listen to me, I have three cock anecdotes and that's it.

This reductionist view is applied.

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

This feedback you have to live it a lot on social media. How are you managing?

— 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 always have, I know I'm good at what I do, and when I read a negative comment, it never bothered me, but there came a point where 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 are sure of yourself, you take the hit. And when you receive a thousand hits a day, it's normal for it to affect you. This was greatly accentuated by appearing on La resistencia, because I started to reach 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. likes than who insult you.

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

— Yes, it's a reflection I've been making for years. I remember that at university when I had to give an oral presentation, I would vomit from nerves. But I've met many comedians – who coincidentally are the ones I like – who are very introverted. Stand-up has given me a safe space, sometimes saying certain very personal things in front of a hundred strangers is easier than saying them 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 in front of 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 have grown and had therapy, and I still have an introverted personality but I have 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 have 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 beat us up at school, we were introverts and outcasts and we found that the only way to explain things is to grab a mic and go on stage in front of strangers. And then there are the class clowns, who are people who like to be the center of attention, put on a show, like to go on stage. When the show is over, there's the comedian who comes down and stands at the door to greet everyone and take photos, and then there's me, who hides behind the curtain and waits for everyone to leave and then goes home.

And when you take to the stage are the proposals 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've all experienced, like going to Ikea on a Saturday. I talk about things that have only happened to me. I think people who have been marginalized have pains inside that come out when we are on stage.

Were you funny as a child?

— I realized that when I told 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, but when the day came to present what we had prepared, it was incredible. I remember that 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 laugh with me made me feel something very special and I told myself I would do this my whole life. With all my shyness, with all the effort it took me to be 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 has happened to me once in a funeral home that I feel jokes coming to my head and I have to hold back. I'm awkward, 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 hard to balance them?

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