TheCable

FEMINISING COMEDY

Though Rivers, especially as she aged, let jokes about her looks roll off her back, she says she was the first female comedian to refuse to try to be one of the men. The few female comedians working when Rivers began disguised their femininity behind frumpy outfits. Rivers, on the other hand, dressed undeniably like a woman with full hair and makeup. She once quipped: “Women should look good. Work on yourselves. Education? I spit on education. No man is ever going to put his hand up your dress looking for a library card.”

Some women resented Rivers’ obsession with looks and her conviction that women must present themselves as beautiful. But she opened new doors for women comics who can now decide to dress however they want during a set.

“I don’t think there’d be a Tina Fey now if I hadn’t tried to look good in the beginning,” she told NPR in 2010.

Rivers made it clear she didn’t do this for her fellow comedienne but in order to distinguish herself and her own career.

“But I think of opening doors not just for women comedians — I never think about women,” she continued. “I think just [that I’m] always trying to push for myself, push the boundaries [and] make them listen. Make them listen to the truth and laugh about it.”

JOKING ABOUT ABORTION

Joan Rivers was perhaps the first comedian to joke about abortions. In one of her bits, she spoke about how friends of hers would leave the country to have “appendectomies” when everyone really knew it was an abortion.

“And by making jokes about it, you brought it into a position where you could look at it and deal with it. It was no longer something that you couldn’t discuss and had to whisper about,” she told NPR. “When you whisper about something, it’s too big and you can’t get it under control and take control of it.”

JOKING ABOUT BEING GAY

Abortion wasn’t the only secretive subject that Rivers brought to light: the comedienne also joked about being gay at a time when even talking about homosexuality was revolutionary. “My original record, not even a CD, that I played for my daughter, which was called Mr. Phyllis & Other Funny Stories — Mr. Phyllis was my hairdresser, and that was very shocking, that you dared to say your hairdresser was gay,” she told the A.V. Club in 2010, referring to the comedy album she put out in 1965. “I know it sounds so stupid.”

SHE DIDN’T NEED TO BE LIKED

Rivers withstood lots of criticism throughout her career. In doing so, she demonstrated that women don’t always have to be appealing and likeable.

“When people hate me, that’s good,” she told the A.V. Club. “They know I’m there. You’re not a chorus kid. Remember in A Chorus Line, she’s having trouble and he keeps saying, ‘You’re standing out,’ and she’s trying not to? They hate me? That’s good.”

SHE EVEN JOKED ABOUT HER DEATH

In her 2012 book, I Hate Everyone, Joan made known her burial preferences, which she directed to her daughter, Melissa saying:

“When I die, I want my funeral to be a huge showbiz affair with lights, cameras, action…I want Craft services, I want paparazzi and I want publicists making a scene! I want it to be Hollywood all the way. I don’t want some rabbi rambling on.

“I want Meryl Streep crying, in five different accents. I don’t want a eulogy; I want Bobby Vinton to pick up my head and sing “Mr. Lonely.” I want to look gorgeous, better dead than I do alive. I want to be buried in a Valentino gown and I want Harry Winston to make me a toe tag. And I want a wind machine so that even in the casket my hair is blowing just like Beyoncé’s.”

An undeniable workaholic, Rivers had been hosting an online weekly talk show called In Bed with Joan, and had just filmed a special award-show episode of E!’s Fashion Police before going ill. She was frequently performing live stand-up, and had finished the fourth season of Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best, the reality show in which she starred with her daughter.

Even as she prepped up for the surgery, she was seen in a video telling her daughter to be brave if anything happened because she had had an amazing life.

Joan’s funeral will take place on Sunday September 7th at the Temple Emanu-El in New York.