An Interview with Kathy Griffin
Funny Lady Kathy Griffin Chats with MatthewsPlace
Emmy award winning Chicago native, Kathy Griffin, a multi-faceted performer with a rapid fire wit, is probably best known for her four-year stint on the NBC sitcom “Suddenly Susan” as Vickie Groener, Brooke Shields’ acerbic colleague.
After moving west and joining the famed Los Angeles Groundlings comedy improvisational troupe, Kathy began building her resume with guest starring roles on such series as “ER” and “Seinfeld” where she created recurring character Sally Weaver.
Kathy has supplied voices for characters on the animated series “Dilbert” and “The Simpsons”, and she appeared in a dual role on the “X-Files” as well as in Eminem’s video, “The Real Slim Shady”, which was co-directed by Dr. Dre.
Kathy has co-hosted The Billboard Music Awards three years in a row; and appeared on numerous talk shows including “Late Night with David Letterman”, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”, “Howard Stern” and “The View”, as well as having been featured in the films “It’s Pat” and “Four Rooms” among others.
Kathy has a great passion for reality TV. She participated in, and won “Celebrity Mole” on ABC, and then hosted the NBC reality series “Average Joe” as well as the MTV series, “Kathy’s So-Called Reality”.
Kathy has yearly performed a set of four very successful stand-up specials for Bravo. The first in 2005 called “Kathy Griffin…Is Not Nicole Kidman”, the second in May of 2006 called “Strong Black Woman”. Kathy’s third DVD stand-up special “Allegedly” is in stores now. Her newest entry “Everybody Can Suck It “will be aired in the summer of 2007.
In August 2005 Kathy’s reality show, “Kathy Griffin: My Life On The D-List “, debuted on Bravo to rave reviews. It has run for four seasons, the latest of which was premiere on June 8, 2009 on Bravo.
For more info on Kathy, visit www.KathyGriffin.net.
KG: How’s Judy doing?
MP: She is doing well, thank you for asking.
KG: Now is Judy a professional activist/lobbyist now?
MP: Since Matt was murdered Judy travels most of the year advocating for inclusive hate crimes legislation and equality for all Americans and spreading the message that what happened to Matthew does not need to happen to another young person.
KG: Wow. So she’s like a comedian? I have to say that I am surprised by the resistance to hate crimes legislation and I have talked to my Republican friends and their theory doesn’t quite hold water with me and they are like “well, the legislation is already in place and why should people get special treatment”, but for me it is so clear. It is the same reason discrimination laws had to be written in. I don’t see it as an extra cost, like when people say, “oh its gonna cost more money to have task forces”, well, ya know, there are friggen task forces for the swine flu.
MP: Well, a hate crime is a crime committed against a class if individuals, not just the primary victim. So after Matthew was murdered, glbt people in Laramie were scared for their safety. It is just not a crime against one individual; it is a crime against a community. Our conversation today is for MatthewsPlace.com, our website for glbt and ally young people. The Foundation spends a great deal of time chatting with young people around the country and we wanted to ask you if there was ever a time in your life in your life when you were picked on or bullied for something that made you different?
KG: Of course, I was always a thinly, ugly kid and so I was picked on as long as I can remember. I remember a couple of times getting jumped, I remember getting jumped in Catholic school right on the stairs of the school and you know, those nuns didn’t do [anything]. Then one time I got jumped in the local park. And ya know what those two experiences taught me are that you shouldn’t sort of count on strangers coming in and helping you because I think that sometimes strangers are apathetic; sometimes they’re confused and don’t quite know what is going on. There is a sense; I think in the country of quote, “I don’t want to get involved”. I think it is important to know those things without being overly paranoid. I don’t want to make young gay people feel that every time they walk outside they are a target, cause that’s not true and nobody has to live like that, however, I feel that there are a few logistical things that young gay people should take care of for their own safety. For example, I always think it is good to have easy access to someone who could come help you. I have information in my phone, in my car written down of the police department. Ya know there is actually a hate crimes division of the LAPD and it’s good to have that information handy, God forbid anything should happen, you at least do not have to spend twenty minutes figuring out who to call. Also, I think it is important as gay people, and as a woman it is an important thing too, because I think as a woman, we are worried about being overly polite and so if they feel they are not maybe in a completely safe situation, maybe if they see a suspicious guy walking towards them on the street they are afraid to cross the street because then it might make them look like they’re suspicious or something. I think it is good to trust your instincts and if you are a gay person and you feel like there are four dudes walking towards you and you don’t have a good feeling about ‘em, turn and go the other way. Sometimes I think that we just get in our own way because we are trying to be PC, politically correct, that sometimes we don’t take care of ourselves when we need to.
MP: Why do you think that young people tend to pick on each other?
KG: Well, you know what, I think that I am learning this as I get older that humans really are pack animals and sometimes they get to a tribal mentality and I think that in Matt’s case it was the most extreme, horrible example of that. One of the things that always shocked me the most about Matt’s case, is as a woman, I can never get over how those girls covered up for those guys and they’re still doing it. Part of me thinks, not that I want to cut guys slack, but part of me thinks that historically men are obviously more physical and therefore more violent than women. In my opinion, men tend to give in to peer pressure more than women maybe because they can have children and [are] a little more nurturing and you know that situation with those girls who covered up for the murders has always baffled me. It’s not really a female’s nature to be physically violent and I know that women can be, but I just don’t feel like it is our innate nature and I often so question what those girls are thinking and I honestly believe and I am not trying to be condescending, I honestly believe that they must be filled with so much self loathing that they had to – actually had to – go against their own DNA. And when I think about what those two guys did, as heinous as it is, it is more baffling to me that a girl, wom[en] I don’t really what to call them – I almost don’t want to call them a girl because I don’t want to make them seem vulnerable, that a female could look at that behavior and not step away from it. That is something that I like to talk to young women about, and I almost like to say, “look girls guys are a little different sometimes you can’t always control them, but if you ever see anything like this, you know in your absolute soul, this isn’t something we do girls, we’re not violent by nature, you don’t ever need to prove that you’re cool by witnessing something like this and sticking up for your baby-daddy, all that stuff”. It is something that really struck me about Matt’s case.
MP: It seems that young people think that what happened to Matt happened ten years ago and it is not something that is still happening today. We just had a trial wrap-up regarding a young transgendered woman, Angie Zapata, who was murdered last summer and in the last month we have heard of the two middle school students, Carl Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Hererra, who came home and committed suicide because they were bullied so much. That is something that we appreciate about you and the way you use your public forum, is that you don’t shy away from these issues. They are things that you talk about.
KG: Oh no, I’m jumping right in because, first of all, I know a lot of gay people and I have heard many of their stories and through them I have met so many more gay people and heard their stories etc. But one thing that is really important to me and I am proud of is the Prop 8 episode that we are doing on “My Life on the DList.” You know every year we do kind of a serious episode and it has really turned into a story about oppression and lgbt issues in general and the reason it was so important to me to invoke Matt’s story and kinda his participation from heaven. The way it started is, I went to the LA Gay and Lesbian Center and I met with, I keep calling them “my gay youth”. Their LGB[T] kids and they’re really 18, 21 or something and some of them have lived on the streets for a while and some of them are dealing with families that have shunned them and it is a difficult life that I feel was made more difficult because of their sexual orientation; I can’t say for a fact, but when I heard their stories, a lot of their struggle had to do with the fact they had been gay bashed or shunned by their families or dealt with challenges they would not have had to deal with if they were not homosexual. But, somehow, organically in the conversation I brought up Matthew Shepard and do you know that not even one of them had heard of him.
MP: That is not uncommon. We would say that most of the young people we encounter do not know Matt’s story.
KG: WOW! I’m sorry, I’m not having that bulls! I love my gays and I’m calling bulls on the gays [for] not educating the younger gays about who Matt was. One of my goals, when I talk to younger people, I need them to let go of the idea that they don’t need to know about something that happened before they were alive. And I have a joke in my act about it and my joke is when I meet younger people and I ask them a question about Abe Lincoln and they look at me and literally say, “How and I supposed to know who that is, I wasn’t even born yet” and then I say, “Oh, that’s when time began, the day you were born. Nothing happened in the world till the day you were born”. But anyway, I was very shocked by that, so in our Prop 8 episode we talk about equality and marriage and yet, I said to the producers, to help them understand why they have to have equality, sorry but we have to have sort of a scared straight moment, (were is this where), well, no pun intended. You wouldn’t think that Matt’s story and marriage go hand-in-hand, but I said for me there is a link, because it is the same mentality that thinks Matt sorta had it coming or Matt came onto those guys, or well if a guy is going to come onto a straight guy he’s taking his own life into his hands. I kinda make a link that is kind of a gateway drug to thinking that that is why there should not be equality in marriage or that is why gay people should not have the same rights and civil liberties and so on moment on The DList episode that I think is going to be very powerful is when I kinda surprise the teens and I show them a tape about Matt and of course there is not a dry eye in the house. Then we immediately go to a rally and I say this is what the rally is for, and you know, I think they were going to the rally thinking that it would be sorta fun and sorta fabulous and they were going to be with some fun people and you know it was fun and fabulous, but I said “you always have to keep in your mind that when you go to a rally or even if you are at a dinner party and you’re voicing your opinion, that’s its not quit as simple as: ‘but I want to get married and I want to register in Crate and Barrel just like straight people’ and if we don’t stop fighting it is possible that one of us could end up beaten to death and tied to a fence.
MP: We also have to acknowledge the people that came before us that made what we have today possible.
KG: Well, also, don’t even start with Stonewall. So I was like this isn’t going to be a gay history lesson going back to the cave men, but I thought these kids in particular need to know Matt’s story. You know they do drag and a lot of them are very out and proud which is fabulous, I said to them, “Have you ever been walking either to a car or to the bus stop and have you ever been in drag or whatever and felt unsafe?”, and they all said yes. And these are guys who live in a gay neighborhood, and I said “yeah, and you need to know what could potentially happen to you or one of your friends if we don’t keep fighting”. And that was why the link was very clear to link Matt to the Prop 8 thing. Let’s say that a million people are going to watch the episode when it first airs there’s going to be a lot of people who did not know Matt’s name. We all know about Prop 8 and we are all reading on the news about Miss California and that’s all very important, but you know, to tell you the truth, I am more concerned about people in Matt’s situation than I am about getting the ring. And I think that getting the ring is very important, but it is not as important as the fact that gay people are dying for being gay.
MP: I know that your time is precious and I have one final question. You are probably one of the most vocal straight allies of our community and when we talk to young people, we try to help them understand the power that comes along with that straight ally voice, and the innate privilege of being heterosexual that makes someone whose straight voice maybe more powerful than someone who’s a member of the community
KG: Thank you and by the way, when I am talking to gay people I believe a big part of it is ok guys and girls and transgenders its great if you guys are talking to your own community, but you have to know when you are preaching to the choir and then you have to know when you can change one mind. You know I am on tour constantly and when I play markets that are not you know, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, LA that’s so great to me. When I go play Birmingham Alabama. When I go plan Greenville South Carolina and when I say “where[are] my gays at” and for someone to be able to cheer and know that they are safe, that is a huge deal to me. And also to know that obviously not just those markets, but anywhere in the country it’s so gratifying knowing that there might be a gay guy that drive three hours just to come to my show, because it is going to be two hours where you can literally stand and cheer and be himself and boy I am extremely cognizant of that fact that a lot of these people are going to leave my show and drive back to a hostile environment. I mean it is a dumb thing, I just tell jokes, but I mean…
MP: It’s a safe space you are creating and don’t underestimate the value of two hours of safe space when you have had none.
KG: Two hours of safe space and come and have fun and I always make the joke that my shows are like gay.com and it’s a networking and stuff, but the truth is that that makes me extremely happy to know that someone drove from three hours outside of Tulsa and they’re going to meet another person, they’re going to exchange email and a teacher is suburban Tulsa is going to be able to have a conversation with a firefighter from another city in Oklahoma and that’s a great thing.
MP: And that is what MatthewsPlace is all about, it is about that young person sitting at their computer and thinking that there is no one else like them out there or that nobody loved them.
KG: And realizes that they do not have to take their own life because he is freakin’ different and is not even hurting anybody.
