Janeane Garofalo

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Janeane Garofalo
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Janeane Garofalo

Janeane Garofalo (born September 28, 1964 in Newton, New Jersey), is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist, writer and former co-host on Air America Radio's The Majority Report.

Contents

[edit] Background

Janeane Garofalo is of Italian/Irish descent, the child of Carmine Garofalo, a former oil executive, and Joan Garofalo, a secretary who died of cancer when Janeane was 24. She grew up in various places, including Houston, Texas and Ontario, California. While studying history at Providence College, Garofalo entered a comedy talent search sponsored by the Showtime cable network, winning the title of "Funniest Person in Rhode Island." Her original gimmick was to read off her hand, which was not successful in subsequent performances. Dreaming of earning a slot on the writing staff of the TV show Late Night With David Letterman, she became a professional standup upon graduating college with degrees in history and American studies. She struggled for a number of years, working briefly as a bike messenger in Boston.

[edit] Entertainment career

[edit] Comedy

The winner of numerous comedy awards and recognitions, she officially began her career in stand-up comedy in the late 1980s during the pre-grunge era. Her appearance was often in line with very late 1980s style: disheveled with thick black glasses and unkempt hair. Her comedy is often self-deprecating; she has made fun of popular culture and the pressures on women to conform to body image ideals promoted by the media.

When in San Francisco, Garofalo was a frequent guest at the San Francisco Comedy Condo.

Garofalo is a self-described pessimist: "I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth." [1]

Garofalo's comedy shows involve her and her notebook, which is filled with years' worth of article clippings and random observations she references for direct quotes during her act, and uses current events to enhance the improvised, fully conversational aspect of her standup. Garofalo feels she does not tell jokes but makes observations and hopes to get laughs. In her act, she once told of getting mugged and having her notebook stolen. "So, if you see two guys bombing at the Funny Bone, that's them."

Garofalo and comedian Marc Maron helped organize the weekly alternative Eating It standup comedy show, with different line-ups each week, which played for years at the Luna Lounge in New York's Lower East Side before the bar was finally razed. Later Garofalo and Maron would again work together to create a liberal radio network.

In April 2004, she was selected as #99 on Comedy Central's list of the 100 greatest standups of all time.

On July 15, 2006 she appeared as the "Not My Job" guest on NPR's news quiz program Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. Audio of this appearance is available at here [Scroll down for the link to "Not My Job: Janeane Garofalo". (Real Audio file).]

[edit] Television

Her television series debut was on the short-lived The Ben Stiller Show on Fox in 1992, on which she was a cast member alongside longtime friends Ben Stiller, Bob Odenkirk, Andy Dick and David Cross (who was a writer on the show). A chance meeting on the set of that show led her to be offered the role of Paula on The Larry Sanders Show on HBO, earning her two Emmy Award nominations in 1996 and 1997.

Following The Ben Stiller Show's cancellation, Garofalo joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (SNL) in its ill-fated 1994-95 season, as detailed in Tom Shales' book Live From New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live and mentioned in Jay Mohr's Gasping for Airtime: Two Years in the Trenches of Saturday Night Live. Upon arrival at SNL, she gave an interview in which she called fellow cast member Adam Sandler's comedy "childish". Writers on the show expressed dismay at Garofalo's apparently negative attitude, dismissing Garofalo as insecure. In one instance in Live From New York, Garofalo complained of suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (after hearing a pitch for a sketch about an army of alien fighters being sexually molested one by one by the unseen aliens inside the spaceship--a sketch that actually appeared during the season in an episode hosted by Deion Sanders) and drinking a lot during her tenure. In the same book, the other writers cited that she rarely assisted in writing sketches, never doing an "all-nighter" for a skit unlike several cast members. In an HBO comedy special, Garofalo described her tenure on SNL as "being the Indian given the blanket infected with smallpox by the calvary." On a more positive note, Garofalo mentioned in the same HBO comedy special that the only good part about her tenure on SNL is that she got to meet Alec Baldwin and George Clooney (both were hosts during the 1994-1995 season).

The tense, bitter atmosphere discomforted Garofalo, and she left in January 1995 (mid-season) after only six months, claiming that the material was weak and a sexist attitude pervaded the show. The material on SNL at the time was widely deemed mediocre, and other writers, such as Bruce Vilanch, have stated in interviews that many male members of the show frown upon women and homosexuals. Reliably outspoken on issues of sexism, Garofalo was later asked in an interview if SNL deserves the reputation of overt sexist treatment of women writers and cast members, but she said "everyone" was unhappy during her tenure, not just women. In Shales' aforementioned book, she is quoted as saying of SNL executive producer, "Lorne Michaels prefers the house divided."

Despite her short and unhappy tenure on a dismal season, Garofalo did participate in sketches and impersonated several celebrities, such as Hillary Clinton, Jackie Stallone, Martha Stewart, Madonna, Jodie Foster, Mary Lou Retton, Susan Sarandon, Juliette Lewis, and Susan Molinari [2].

[edit] Post-SNL

Garofalo has done many special guest star roles, including a former girlfriend of Dave Foley's character in Newsradio. She also has been offered many television series roles but has accepted few; she turned down the role of Monica, for which she was the first choice, on the hit NBC sitcom Friends. Two television pilots starring Garofalo, the 2003 ABC show Slice O'Life about a reporter consigned to sappy human interest stories appearing at the end of news broadcasts, and the 2005 NBC program All In, based on the life of poker star Annie Duke, were not picked up by their respective networks. Her persona, thanks to her Larry Sanders character, provided the basis for the lead role on Steven Levitan's Just Shoot Me!, though the part was taken by Laura San Giacomo.

Throughout the 2005-2006 television season, Garofalo appeared on The West Wing as Louise Thornton, a controversial campaign adviser to the fictional Democratic presidential nominee. Garofalo participated in the series' first live episode, most of which was a debate televised live on the East Coast and then reshot live for the West. Garofalo's character can be seen walking backstage with her advisee before the start of each debate.

In 2006 she provided the voice for the animated character "Bearded Clam" on Comedy Central's Freak Squad alongside her friend David Cross.

[edit] Films

Garofalo's first critically-acclaimed starring role in film was in 1996 in The Truth About Cats and Dogs, a variation on Cyrano de Bergerac which featured Uma Thurman in the top-billed but smaller role as a beautiful but vapid model, while Garofalo played a highly intelligent radio host. Initially an independent film, it became a studio movie when Uma Thurman was signed to play the shallow model. The film was a modest hit, but Garofalo detests it to this day, calling it anti-feminist (and admitting discomfort in the "ugly duckling" role).

Based on the success of this film, director Cameron Crowe then offered her the leading lady role in Jerry Maguire with Tom Cruise if she could lose weight, but after trimming down, she learned that Renee Zellweger had won the part instead in what was to become a career-launching smash hit.

The mid-1990s were what Garofalo has termed the height of her popularity. Before The Truth About Cats and Dogs, she was visible from television work and memorable supporting roles in films such as Reality Bites, Bye Bye Love and Now and Then and a leading role in I Shot a Man in Vegas. Garofalo has had a variety of leading, supporting and cameo roles in films as diverse as Cop Land, Wet Hot American Summer, Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Dogma, The Cable Guy, Mystery Men, The Wild and Clay Pigeons.

Garofalo also played the leading role in the The Matchmaker, a 1997 film about the about the misadventures of a cynical American woman who reluctantly visits the West of Ireland.

A puppet version of Garofalo appeared (and was rather graphically killed off) in the movie Team America: World Police, although it is stated in the credits that she did not authorise or endorse this screen appearance at the time, but took it in good humor.

[edit] Politics

Garofalo has been open and outspoken regarding her liberal political views, appearing in the past with figures such as Ralph Nader (whom she supported in 2000, but opposed in 2004) and Jello Biafra at various events. She has expressed feminist views in interviews throughout her career and more recently, advocated pacifism. She is an atheist and has done radio spots for the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

She became more prominent as an activist when she voiced opposition to what became the 2003 Iraq War, appearing on CNN and Fox News to discuss it. She said that she was approached by groups such as MoveOn.org and Win Without War to go on TV, because these organizations claim that the networks were not allowing antiwar voices to be heard. Garofalo and the other celebrities who appeared at the time said they thought their fame could lend attention to a side they believed was being ignored by the corporate media. Her appearances on cable news prior to the war garnered her praise from the left and spots on the cover of Ms. and Venus magazines. Garofalo has had frequent on-air political disputes with Bill O'Reilly, Brian Kilmeade and Jonah Goldberg ([3]).

Prior to the 2003 Iraq War, she took a position on the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. For example, in a February 24th, 2003 FOX News Sunday interview with Tony Snow (3 weeks before the war began), Garofalo said of Saddam Hussein, "Yes, I think lots of people are eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction. But there's no evidence that he (Hussein) has weapons of mass destruction. There's been no evidence of him testing nuclear weapons. We have people that are in our face with nuclear weapons. We've got Iran and North Korea. We've got a problem with Pakistan. You know, I don't know what to say about that. There's a whole lot of people that are going nuclear. And I think that Saddam Hussein is actually, with the evidence, the least able to use nuclear weapons and the least obvious offender in that area at this moment."

In March 2003, she took part in the Code Pink antiwar march in Washington, D.C. That fall, she served as emcee at several stops on the Tell Us the Truth tour, a political-themed concert series featuring Steve Earle, Billy Bragg, Tom Morello and others. Throughout the year, Garofalo also actively campaigned for Howard Dean.

Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, she was quoted as saying (in the November 2001 issue of Commentary magazine), "Who would have thought that I'd be angry on behalf of my country? I'm used to being angry at my country."


[edit] Air America Radio

In late March 2004 she became a co-host for Air America Radio's new show The Majority Report alongside Sam Seder. Garofalo once said getting on the radio was an early career goal of hers. A program advertisement: "The battle to reclaim America from the forces of darkness continues with hosts Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder." The early days of Air America Radio are chronicled in the documentary Left of the Dial, which includes a debate between Janeane and her conservative father Carmine, who was initially a regular guest on The Majority Report.

Garofalo came under fire ([4]) from her listeners for her comments on her April 28, 2006 show supporting Scientology-linked New York Rescue Worker's Detoxification Program ([5]), a questionable treatment for workers now suffering ailments from 9/11 clean-up efforts in New York City.

On July 14, 2006, Garofalo announced that she would be leaving her co-host position on The Majority Report. Although several reasons for her departure were cited, including her outside acting responsibilities, the relationship between Garofalo and co-host Seder had become increasingly strained, largely due to her support for the Scientology-linked program. Garofalo responded to Seder's opposition to the program, suggesting that he would not have a problem with it if it were linked to Jews rather than Scientologists. Seder, who is Jewish, and his producer walked off the set in angry protest ([6]).

During a July 19 broadcast, while Seder and Garofalo were interviewing Jason Bateman, Garofalo cited her reason for leaving the show as precipitated by several "unrecoverable" on-air arguments with Seder; she also said that she regards Seder as the better radio broadcaster and therefore a better choice to continue The Majority Report.

Her last broadcast as co-host of The Majority Report aired on July 21, 2006, although from time to time she will call in to The Sam Seder Show. She recently called in on October 4 to discuss the Mark Foley scandal and on October 31st she was in studio where she portrayed an evil/crazy Katherine Harris (former Election 2006 Republican Party candidate for US Representative from the 13th Congressional District of Florida) in a Halloween skit. Garofalo has continued to portray Harris on the show in numerous appearances following the election.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Movies

[edit] Short films

  • Suspicious (1994)
  • The Cherry Picker (2000)
  • Housekeeping (2001)
  • Junebug and Hurricane (2004)

[edit] Documentaries

[edit] Television

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

    [edit] External links

    Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


    Air America Radio (List of affiliates)
    Hosts (past & present): David Bender • Angie Coiro • Chuck D • Steve Earle • Jon Elliott • Laura Flanders • Al Franken • Gia'na Garel • Janeane Garofalo • Thom Hartmann • Kyle Jason • Marty Kaplan • Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. • Katherine Lanpher • Rachel Maddow • Ben Mankiewicz • Marc Maron • Mike Malloy • Mike Papantonio • Jill Pike • Randi Rhodes • Betsy Rosenberg • Mark Riley • Sam Seder • Jerry Springer • Cenk Uygur• Peter Werbe 

    Programs (past & present): Air America Mornings • The Al Franken Show • EcoTalk • The Marc Maron Show • The Majority Report • The Mike Malloy Show • On The Real • Radio Nation • The Randi Rhodes Show • The Revolution Starts Now • Ring of Fire • Springer on the Radio • State of Belief  • The Young Turks

    Related articles: Sheldon Drobny • Talk radio • Progressive Talk • Evan Montvel Cohen • Danny Goldberg • Air America-Gloria Wise loan controversy
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