As a woman, being a standup comedian in India is not the norm. But Fatima finds inspiration and courage from two onscreen funny women and gives it a go. This week’s essay is read by Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, who play Grace and Frankie on Grace and Frankie.
Grace: Don’t answer it!! // Who is it? // Whoever it is, don’t let them in. // It’s us honey, me and Jason. // Jason and I. Apparently Amanda never went to high school. We’re here just to give you a hug and make sure you’re okay. // Not okay. Not okay! // Can you hold on a second, I’ll be right with you. What is your problem? // What are they doing here? // They dropped by to see me. // Who drops by? You call, you make a plan. You set it up weeks in advance and then you cancel three times.
FATIMA: Mostly I really like the companionship that uh both the main characters have which gave me something to aspire to in terms of friendship. And that’s also when I realized that there are very few role models for women to see what an ideal friendship could be like. That’s the kind of old lady I want to be someday!
Sometimes I like to pretend I am very confident. I go to work at The Boston Globe, giving people love advice like a pro, even though I am a very single person who doesn’t always know what she’s talking about. I try new things like writing a book with almost no imposter syndrome. I can fake it till I make it like I know what I’m doing.
And I know the reason I can pull it off is because of my best friend, Jess. Jess lives in St. Louis now, but long before she got married and had kids, we lived together in Boston for the better part of a decade. We were really good life partners. Because of her, I ate real food. Because of me, she watched … a ton of TV. She’s very happy with her life now, but sometimes she jokes "...okay so when are we going to be two old ladies living together again?"
I know that’s probably not going to happen.. I mean, her husband might object. But that’s OK. Because … the foundation I built when I lived with Jess is what I carry with me now. Having her support when I tried all of these new things in my 20s, made me who I am. It made me capable of taking risks and challenging myself.
Whenever I do something ambitious and scary, like hosting a podcast...it’s so much easier knowing that no matter what happens, Jess will always have my back. Having a person like that makes life so much richer.
Today we’ll hear about how one woman challenged herself, with some inspiration from her favorite TV friendship.
I’m Meredith Goldstein, and this is Because I Watched: A podcast about some of the most iconic Netflix series and how they shape our lives.
This story, written by Jasmine Elist, is about how Grace and Frankie inspired a woman to take her own risks, value her female friendships more, and even try stand-up comedy. Read by Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda from Grace and Frankie
LILY: That’s Fatima, a 27-year-old mental health professional from Jabalpur, India. Fatima recalls the first time she felt like her gender was actively being pointed out to her. She was in college, where the male to female ratio was roughly ten to one.
JANE: Fatima distinctly remembers the first day at her university, IIT Madras. It was orientation. All roughly one thousand new students gathered into the auditorium, and as Fatima looked out onto the sea of students, she sent a text to her friends that read: ‘I have come from an all-girls school, to an all-boys college.’
LILY: It was something Fatima wasn’t used to, having exclusively attended all-girls schools up until that point. At an all-girls school, she says, you don’t point out to each other that you’re a girl or a woman. Suddenly, in college, Fatima found herself in an environment where being the minority became a big part of her identity. For Fatima, who grew up with parents who told her and her older sister that they could do, have or be anyone they wanted, this was all very new.
Fatima is grateful for her parents’ unconditional support. Their confidence made her feel like she would be supported no matter what, and growing up, she felt empowered to dream about a wide range of possible futures. At a young age, she imagined she would become a teacher, an archaeologist, or perhaps a neuroscientist. At 14, she wanted to work at Pixar. Towards the end of school, she fell in love with psychology.
And then, a few years after college, when Fatima’s sister encouraged her to watch “Grace and Frankie” on Netflix, yet another dream was born.
JANE: Fatima was instantly drawn to the friendship between the two main characters, played by my friend Lily Tomlin,
LILY: And my friend Jane Fonda.
JANE: Their bond reminded Fatima of her own relationship with her girlfriends. The “I got your back” attitude — sharing everything from family pressures and work expectations, to hair ties and plates of fries.
Fatima recognized that same warmth in Grace and Frankie’s connection with each other, and realized how few representations of ideal female companionship she’d seen on TV.
But it wasn’t just friendship goals that Fatima gained from binging all five seasons of “Grace and Frankie” in one go. She felt a deep connection to Tomlin’s character, Frankie, who Grace affectionately calls “a hippie.” Frankie is a free-thinker, an adventurous soul. She’s the type of person Fatima wants to be in the future: someone who travels the world, meets different people and tries new things, who speaks her mind frankly, and without inhibition.
Fatima started Googling Fonda and Tomlin, and quickly found herself watching every video she could find on YouTube of Tomlin’s comedy. She felt like a kid in a candy store.
LILY: Fatima fell in love with Tomlin’s witty and astute observational stand-up comedy, as well as her instantly recognizable characters - like Ernestine, the brash, uncompromising telephone operator who waits for her calls to be picked up with the recurring catchphrase: “one ringy dingy...two ringy dingies.” And Edith Ann, an earnest five-and-a-half-year-old girl, in an oversized rocking chair, who shares her philosophy on life, capping off each observation with her own catchphrase “and that’s the truth.”
And Fatima also loved Tomlin’s opening monologue when she hosted Saturday Night Live in 1983. The monologue centered around Tomlin’s worries for the world, for herself, and for the people around her.
To take care of all these worries, Tomlin ended the monologue with an anti-worrying song, encouraging the audience to forget their woes.
Fatima was inspired by the nuanced details and facial expressions Tomlin brought to every character she played. But what really struck Fatima was the confidence and charisma that shot out from the screen. Before long, Fatima realized she wanted to try stand-up comedy for herself.
JANE: Fatima and a friend were already in the habit of going to open mics in Bengaluru, India. The city is filled with pubs, bars, and comedy clubs, so they had plenty to choose from.
But Fatima was dismayed to discover that at many of the open mics, they kept seeing the same people performing again and again. And on top of that, all of them were men.
After many nights of seeing the same men tell the same types of jokes, Fatima had a thought: “Why not me?” What was stopping her from getting up on stage and trying her hand at stand-up?
Fatima pretty quickly realized that the male comedians had one major asset working in their favor: most of them had a large group of male friends hanging out, getting drunk, and encouraging each other. Even if a male comedian was up on stage, bombing, he had a crew of buds on the sidelines cheering him on, assuring him that each set up and punchline was brilliant, man. She wondered if she’d feel safe jumping on stage without any guarantee that her jokes would land.
FATIMA: I think as women we spend so much time trying not to draw attention to ourselves, that you don’t want to be stupid, you don’t want to make a fool of yourself. So I think that stops a lot of women from trying things unless they’re really good at it. And I don’t think this is an Indian thing. I think this is true across places. But I feel like when a man is bad at something he does, then it’s just him being bad at what he does. But when a woman is bad at something she does, it’s because she’s a woman.
LILY: Fatima distinctly remembers the very first time she did stand-up comedy. One night at an open mic, she and her friend challenged each other to go up on stage. Her friend performed poetry. And Fatima was the only female to perform stand-up comedy that night.
Fatima has written her set a couple nights before the open mic. The show started at 7 PM and sign ups were at 6 PM. Fatima signed up for a slot time of 8:30, thinking the crowd would be buzzed enough by then. As the reality of what she was about to do sunk in, nerves quickly followed. She started thinking thoughts like: “...is this a bad idea?” and “um...why am I even doing this?”
When Fatima’s friend showed up, and the two had a couple drinks, those worries transformed into new thoughts, like: “it doesn’t matter” and “no one’s going to remember it.”
Fatima had done some theater in college, and knew she had a genuine love for entertaining people and making them laugh. Still, when she took the stage, clutching her phone, where she’d written her joke notes, she felt a rush of fear - stand-up was something completely new for her. She remembers changing the sleep mode timer on her phone to 30 minutes, so it wouldn’t lock in the middle of her set, leaving her to scramble to find her next joke. And then, Fatima took the mic and went for it.
Her first line to the audience, a confession: “this is the first time I’m doing stand-up so it might not be funny.” Quickly followed by a caveat, “but if it is funny, you can all buy me drinks.”
JANE: During her five-minute set, Fatima shared a mix of personal anecdotes and experiences on the very universal topic of “bad dating stories.” She spoke about her experience on dating apps, revealing that she would often come across profiles with buzz-words that men thought women wanted to hear. Words like “animal-lover” or “wanderlust” or “bibliophile” or “sapiosexual.” Fatima was certain most men didn’t know what half these words meant -- that they were just thinking ‘what are cool words that girls like? What are cool words that will make me sound smart?’ She kept seeing the word “polyamorous” come up on guys’ profiles. Fatima believed that if men actually knew what polyamorous meant, they wouldn’t be into it -- because, according to Fatima, men think it means less effort, but it actually means more.
She told a story about the guy she matched with on Hinge because his dating profile said he wanted to talk about the patriarchy and feminism. Since these were subjects Fatima had studied for five years, she wanted to have a conversation with him. When he couldn't keep up with her arguments, he called Fatima a right-winged anti feminist, and told her she didn't understand women's issues. He unmatched her.
And then there was the story of the guy she matched with who got angry with Fatima over text because she didn’t find his jokes funny. You know, just your classic fairytale love stories.
LILY: To Fatima’s surprise and delight, she got constant laughs throughout her set. And she never once looked at her phone. When she got off stage, the audience was cheering and clapping for her. Fellow comedians and audience members came up to her, congratulated her and told her she was funny - they offered to buy her drinks. Her drink of choice? Old Monk.
Fatima’s friends had always told her she was funny, but she knew that friends’ opinions are subjective - they’re always going to be on your side. Even after you’ve had too much wine and have accidentally given yourself bangs, your good friends will still tell you that you’re perfect and runway-ready. Sometimes you just need a random person on the street to tell you they like your bangs in order to believe it - and that’s how Fatima felt when the audience at the comedy club cracked up at her jokes.
Even if it had been for just five minutes, knowing that she had gotten up on stage and gone for it, let alone made people laugh, that meant a great deal to Fatima. She knew instantly that she wanted to do it again.
A year after that fateful night, Fatima is still doing stand-up. A storyteller at heart, she loves to fill her sets with bits about real experiences from her own life. As she likes to say, truth is stranger than fiction. She finds herself constantly looking for more opportunities to perform, and new topics to take on with her act, everything from small, relatable moments like taking an Uber Pool, or getting a haircut, to more complex issues. For the last few years, Fatima has been working in preventive mental health, training college students on life skills and mental health awareness. She also holds workshops on gender and sexuality, internet and safety, as well as substance use. All of these are subjects she wants to incorporate into her stand-up.
JANE: Fatima has seen a few comedians discuss mental health in their sets, but the comedy always comes from the comedian’s own personal experience with mental health issues. She’s never seen a set from the point of view of someone working in the field of mental health.
Fatima wants to talk about how people treat her when they find out she’s a mental health professional. When she tells people she works in mental health, they often take it as an opportunity for a free session. They start unloading their troubles onto her, expecting her to be non-judgmental and ready to listen at all times. It’s difficult for people to understand there’s a separation between Fatima’s personality and her profession.
When Fatima performs, there are sometimes only one or two other female comedians on the bill. Most nights, she’s the only one. That’s something she’d like to change. She’d love for more aspiring female comedians to see other women on stage. She wants them to know they don’t have to wait until they have the perfect material or the perfect set to go up and try comedy. That they have permission to try. That they might fail, or struggle - that they may even have some early successes. But above all, to keep trying.
FATIMA: Be completely shameless. I mean just go there and do it and not worry about what people are thinking or saying. Or whether they’re talking about you when you’re on stage or whether you’re making a mistake. Just stop that internal dialogue and go up there and have fun.
LILY: It’s one of the many things Fatima loves about Lily Tomlin’s comedy. She radiates a palpable sense of confidence and fun. For Fatima, the spirit is infectious - she says it’s like Tomlin doesn’t give a fuck about what other’s think. And that’s something to aspire to. She often wishes she could sit down face to face with Tomlin to say “Thank you.”
Friends who have observed Fatima’s tenacity and attitude towards life have started asking her how they too can be more assertive. Fatima’s advice is clear: “all we need to do is start showing up. Instead of waiting until we’re perfect, we should just support each other even when we’re bad. We’re allowed to be stupid, we’re allowed to be bad, we’re allowed to be mediocre.” After all, says Fatima...
Fatima (on tape): Why should amazing women be competing with mediocre men?
JANE: I mean, is anyone else getting that question engraved on everything they own?
LILY: I was a little stunned. And to hear, I mean to hear all those exclamations over me and I’d have to say my name. And I was sure people in the audience would say, well she just said her own name, didn’t she? I was terribly proud and felt like my life has been worth something.
JANE: It absolutely blows my mind. Makes me so happy. But you know, waht I love is that watching Grace and Frankie motivated her, Fatima, to go and research all of Lily Tomlin’s career as a comedian. She’s a smart cookie, that Fatima. That’s worth researching. Don’t cry.
LILY: I’m trying not to.
JANE: I’m extremely impressed with her go get’em attitude, and her willingness to open herself up to inspiration and just to go for it. So do you have any advice for people who want to be comedians? And women in particular?
LILY: Oh gosh. You know I never knew. I was just so absolutely in love with creating characters and monologues. I thought that’s how I can reach people. I can talk about people that I got so much delight out of. And I would be at the laundromat on second avenue when I lived in New York, and I would. I’d see a friend there that had seen everything I’d ever done like twenty times. And I would change one syllable and I’d change the whole monologue, and I’d drag him up five floors to my walk up on sixth street and I would have him or her sit in the kitchen and listen to me do a monologue. An old mono--not an old monologue but a current monologue that was just living inside of me. And they would just like be dumbstruck. I can’t believe she dragged me up five floors to see this you glue eating rubber and that kind of thing.
JANE: And did you ever get good ideas from them or critiques?
LILY: No. I don’t remember. If I did, I probably. I mean they would have just had to laud me with praise because I would have protected myself against any kind of criticism. I would have said who asked you.
FATIMA: I think what we need to do is start showing up. And I think instead of waiting until we’re perfect we should just support each other even when we’re bad. You know let’s just get drunk and be stupid and not blame each other when things go wrong. It’s ok. We’re allowed to be stupid, we’re allowed to be bad, we’re allowed to be mediocre.
Thank you for listening to Because I Watched. Next week we’ll hear how Orange is the New Black paved the way for one woman’s journey to self acceptance.
If you like what you heard, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts! It makes it easier for other people to find the show.
Because I Watched is produced by Netflix and Spoke Media. Today’s essay was written by Jasmine Elist and performed by Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda. Special thanks to Fatima for sharing her story. This Meredith, we’ll see you next week.