Making Parenthood and Politics Sexy with Comedian Ilana Glazer
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On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.

On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org slash bots. It's on!

Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is comedian, writer, showrunner and political activist Ilana Glazer. I've been watching Glazer since her hit Comedy Central show Broad City, which she wrote and starred in together with her longtime collaborator, Abby Jacobson.

Ilana has a new movie, Babes, about getting pregnant after a one-night stand and choosing to become a single mom. She and her best friend, played by Michelle Boutot, go through a lot in those nine months. Those months were the best of my long life, so I have some notes for Ilana. I also want to talk to her about her media journey from her early days of YouTube sketch comedy to TV to the big screen. And we're obviously going to talk about politics.

Ilana is not just a weed-smoking comedian, she's also an activist. In 2016, she co-founded The Generator Collective, a nonprofit that aims to help voters get more informed about the issues and more involved in the political process. We'll talk about this election cycle and how it gels with her comedy and what the hell is funny anymore.

Our question this week was an obvious choice. It comes from Anne Lamott, whose first big hit was a confessional memoir, Operating Instructions, about the trials and tribulations of being a single mother. And it was the single biggest influence on me starting on my journey of motherhood, which has lasted a very long time. She and I fortuitously had brunch on Sunday with two of my four kids, and we talked about motherhood and more. So I can't wait to hear Alana's thoughts on that. ♪

I'm hearing your beautiful child in the background. Let's point that out. That's one kid. That's amazing. That's an astonishing situation. Yeah, that's one child who's vocal and has a lot of agency and

I suppose in a way feels she should be here with us. Yeah, well, she shouldn't in a weird way. She don't have a lot to say. Three years old, right? Is that correct? Three years old. Yeah, almost a month shy. Yep. I have a two and a half year old and a four and a half year old and a 19 year old and a 21 year old. So it's very noisy when they're all here in this house. Anyway, thanks for being here. You have a new film out, Babes, which...

was what we're talking about, motherhood. You've been at the forefront of using social media to launch new ventures. I want to talk about that, where you see...

creative shifts in that space and also economic shifts, obviously. You've also been politically active. You've spoken out about the war in Gaza. I want to hear your thoughts on that and the fall election. So we've got a lot to get through. But let's talk with Babes. I watched it last night with my wife. It sounds like the name of a bro comedy, which I kind of like, but it's kind of the opposite, but it's not. Talk about why you called it what you called it. We were searching for this title. We were going through a damn list, you know?

And we had some good ones, and then we had some terrible ones. What are the terrible ones? Yeah, I'm trying to remember now. This is so funny. Mom shit was one of them. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, that would work. And it would work, but it was like too, not dirty, but like not inviting. Right. But Babes was the one that...

was fitting the scope of the movie we were going for, which is a studio comedy. You're right. It does. It does sound like a bro comedy. And it, you know, I guess that's, that's been my brand for a while with Broad City, you know, it was kind of like a bro comedy, but we were women, you know, but we were, we also were like two dudes and we're like, dude, dude, dude, dude, you know? And it's like, not dude, where's my car? And it's,

Whatever. Feminists because we're women, but we're like knuckleheads. All right. Can you give us a brief synopsis of people who haven't seen it? Talk a little bit of what it's about from your perspective. So Babes is about two women.

lifelong friends who are in very different places in their lives played by me and Michelle Buteau. I play Eden and Michelle plays Dawn. And Dawn has a husband and two kids and she just had her second. And my character Eden is spontaneous and free spirited and has no clue about the responsibilities it takes to be a parent.

When my character gets pregnant by a one-night stand and decides to keep the baby, it tests this lifelong friendship. And the movie is really funny and really heartfelt as well. Yeah, it really is. It has a very heartfelt ending, which I think was... I was not...

seeing coming that way. But some people have called it the bridesmaids of pregnancy, which I think is meant as a compliment, but it only seems like the only way people can refer to female-dominated movies, comedies, is that movie, for some reason. I don't know why. It's a good movie, a fantastic movie. Very funny. And bro-like, too, in a lot of ways. But you co-wrote the script with Joshua Benowitz while you were pregnant. His wife was also pregnant at

at the time. You had a lot of cast and crew who were parents. Talk about the different experiences in making the movie. Everybody does kids differently, for sure. I do, than other people. Did you agree or disagree or come together? I assume they also contributed, or not, maybe not. Yeah, I think

for Josh and I what we were and Susie Fox our producer who had a one and a three year old when we started writing this she really had the seed of the idea that came to her in a flash in the shower and she brought the idea to me and Josh and we were like we love it and we're pregnant so it was just perfect timing for us and

I think what you're touching on is that the scope of the comedy spans the joy and the suffering of parenting. It's not one. And I actually think it's funniest to have both and most compelling to have both. But yeah, and the story is focused on the friends. Like this story isn't...

I would say pregnancy. No, it's about friends. Yeah, and I would say pregnancy and raising young kids is the backdrop in front of which this friendship is shifting. When we started putting this idea together, Susie Fox and Joshua Benowitz and I put together a list of the most surprising things and most absurd things that we were experiencing becoming parents and being young parents and...

It was really funny. Really, really funny. Pregnancy, I was like shocked at how...

physically funny it was. You know, it's either shrouded as this like, you know, almost ironically virginal thing. Madonna-like. Or it's like a pissed, unsexy mom, you know, is the other end of the spectrum. Who's exhausted all the time. And so it was really funny to have the nuanced experience that was sexy, that was grotesque, that was insane and never talked about. But...

But the thing that kept pulling us and being able to really drive a story was how your friendships change and how you prepare for it and you brace for it. But it's not like anything you can prepare for. One of the things that I was noticing is the reviews are all over the place. Some think it's too raunchy. Some want more emotion.

Some love it. I've never seen so many different reviews of a film. You've pushed back on reviewers calling it raunchy. I like the dilation scene myself, and I liked a lot of those things. And the pooping when you're having a baby, I recall that. Were there things that got left on the table because they were too much? Did you think about that at all? No.

Things got left on the table more for length. You know, and also I've been reflecting on the raunchiness and hearing myself like say it a couple times that, you know, my response is like it's raunchy and gross because it's women's bodies and we're not allowed to...

traditionally talk about our bodies, talk about what's actually happening, and we are labeled as gross. Maybe I do still side with my prior. Maybe I do still feel this. I do, but I'm also like, well, that's what is raunchy in this world. That is what is considered gross. And if I want to occupy that space, then I might as well be okay with being like, it is gross. And we can talk about why it's seen as gross, but if that's what gross is in this world, then maybe I should

more proudly claim it. But why do you think people think it's gross still? Because we... Because they do. They absolutely do. Yeah, because it's a woman's body. I think women's sexuality and women's bodies are seen as gross unless they are being manipulated and controlled. I think of a woman's free sexuality and free control

freedom with her body and comfort with her body is seen as, um, crass and like blue in comedy. Um, why? Because of the whole way the world is set up. Um, so one of the things that you had was, this is not your first one. It was interesting. And I hadn't recalled this. Um, but this is not your first film about being pregnant. You started in a horror movie about in vitro fertilization in 2021 called false positive, which you also co-wrote and produced. Um,

Right before you had your baby, it's pretty dark. The main character, Lucy, is kind of opposite of Eden. As you were talking about, she's caught in this male-dominated world being controlled by men. Is there a connection to babes that are so close in timing? There is for me personally, where I think false positive was like my fear of having a baby. Not only of like the change of becoming a parent, but also of being pregnant and giving birth.

And of entering the medical system in this way. It's such a vulnerable...

situation to be in. Absolutely. You know, I got pregnant relatively easily. I had a healthy and a relatively smooth birth experience. And in False Positive, it's about IVF. I became obsessed with this fact years ago that IVF doctors have been found to put their own sperm in their patients unwittingly. Common. Weirdly common. Common. Weirdly

towns of siblings because of this. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And so that's like the, that's sort of the crux of this movie and the villain behind this, that movie. But really, I think it was also about like entering the misogynist medical system and how scared I was to do that. You know, I had a baby at, I was 38 and they kept calling me a geriatric pregnancy. Yeah. All the names, which was like,

Are you kidding me? And one of the things I did, I got pregnant the first time I tried. So I now own a lot of sperm. This is a piece of information I don't know if I should be sharing with you, but I don't know what to do with it. But at the time, I know. I love it. 22-year-old sperm at that. It's sitting there. Vintage. My ex-wife also got pregnant right away because you're so mad at the way they treated us. It was really interesting, including women, although I had a great...

woman, OBGYN. But the whole process was very much, it was that. I was sort of mad and that's why I got pregnant so quickly and therefore I own a lot of sperm. What do you mean? You think your hormones were raging and accepting sperm quicker because of your anger? No idea. No idea. I was mad. I was like, fuck you. I can get pregnant. I'm not, I don't smoke. Fully. I don't

from false positive to this, because this is a very, your Eden character is a weed-smoking yoga instructor living in Queens, has her own business, who gets pregnant after this one-night stand, and seems very chill about single motherhood, even though her friend, Dawn, doesn't

Thinks she's ready to be a parent. There are other films about single mom journeys that make it a bigger dilemma until the end, really. This one is celebratory. Talk about the shifting from false positive to this. I think false positive was...

Yeah.

So when I started Broad City, the web series, I was 22. When I ended Broad City, the TV show, I was 32. It had been a third of my life almost at that point. And false positive was true to me and my fears about entering parenthood. And also, I think a way to do something so different. And after a few years, it's been five years since Broad City ended, I'm feeling...

secure enough in who I am personally and comedically to like return to my big comedy, big heart, you know, big comedy, big feelings, roots. What you had done. You know, I still, I'm still finding myself outside of Red City, especially because, you know, I, I,

I was so Alana Wexler and I am so Eden in this movie. And we change as we started off this conversation. Like, we change. What remains and what changes is something I'm still noticing. They're similar characters. They're not the same, I would say. Yeah, there's like a bit of a hyper manic energy in Broad City. And something I've been noticing is that

Babes is able to hold more loss than Broad City was. Broad City was so the denial of loss of, you know, the loss that comes with adulthood. And right when our characters are ready to individuate, we end the show. And, you know, the whole movie, Babes, is about the separation. And, you know, in 2019, part of what was so...

So painful about the end of Broad City was that we lost our dear friend, the late, great Kevin Burnett, a fantastic, talk about miracle, a miraculous human being. Just one of my best friends, Josh's best friend and writing partner. And Kevin died like the day season five premiered. It was so strange and painful.

That was the first big loss I've ever had like that. And I think, I think Josh too. And part of, you know, we started writing this in 2021. So it only had only been two years at this point, but the character of Claude is based on Kevin. We realized like what we were trying to talk about was like the loss of friendship from that experience and that loss. And yeah, I think, I think this movie is able to hold, hold that more and certainly more than false positive. Like, yeah. Yeah.

So one of the things I want to get back to Abroad City in a second, but one of the things that did strike me about the whole setup is that you're very politically engaged and you wrote the movie in 2021. The Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade was 2022, two years ago.

Oh, my God. Did your thinking about the film change after that? Does it feel like now a decision to have kids is becoming so political as everything else is now? But did that shift at all, the decision? My body is filling with the anger that allowed you to get pregnant so easily. Yeah. Stay angry. Stay angry.

Yeah. Oh, I'm, I'm, my anger only grows as my capacity to hold more love grows as a parent, my capacity to hold that anger and is growing as well. And, um, you know, like no, my, my, I mean, yes, the, the experience of making it and the bizarre surreal, you know, we were in prep when it, when it happened and, uh, preparing to make this movie and there's a surrealness about it where it's like,

You know, I kind of struggle with shows like The Handmaid's Tale because I'm like, you're kind of showing them what to do, you know, in a way where it's almost like... Atwood, Margaret, what are you doing? Like Mitch McConnell's getting hard watching this. Not anymore, but, you know, like he's loving this. They're just like getting horny watching Handmaid's Tale. So for me, you know...

It was just surreal in that I was like, this is so eerie. But my experience of making art that is, you know, I'm told is feminist is something that my awareness increases around gradually. Mm-hmm.

You know, it doesn't change the way I make it. I just, it changes, it just heightens the surrealness as we fall into like a fascist free fall. One of the things that has happened is, you know, is the idea of what pregnancy is, right? It's becoming such a thing. And I'm sure you're aware of the pro-natalist movement. Basically, Elon Musk stans who think that having a lot of babies is critical for the world or worried about other people.

you know, other countries having more babies than us. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but it's a big thing happening. Did you think about that idea of being, the movie is very pro-baby, I would say, right? Obviously. Did you worry about being pro-life or pro-choice? Or is there, you know, did that enter it at all? Because

I'm offended by the pro-natalist movement, yet I have four children, right? And I like that. So that's, you know what I mean? I feel like a mini Elon Musk in that regard. But I like having a lot of kids. Other people be critical of it. It makes me angry when they talk about you need to get your sperm out there. And I'll tell you, tech people talk about it too. So we can't let them own it, I guess. Gross, gross.

It definitely, you know, crossed my mind once I wrote it. It doesn't affect the story I'm telling. The story I'm telling is coming from within and making its way outward beyond my skin into the world. Like my job as an artist is to protect my process so that it is authentic by the time it reaches another person's head. Yeah.

So otherwise it's propaganda. Otherwise I think it's unhealthy. So if I were, if I said, wait a second, this has to be an abortion movie now. I just think that would actually be propaganda. What I think, because there's a magic between human beings. There's a magic in art. There's a magic in authentically made art that is, um,

like an unspeakable will that reaches people. So I know that audiences that this is resonating with no, like are receiving a story about a woman making full choice over her body. That's right. You talk about that full choice over her body. Well, well, one of the things that is important though, and so he is this friendship, which I don't want to get away from for a second, because every week we get a question from an outside expert. Um, and this week we have, uh,

One from a guest we had on recently, you wrote a book called Operating Instructions about having a baby as a single parent. It's Anne Lamott. I don't know if you know her. She's amazing. I know I've heard of her, but not that book. That's so cool. You should read it. It's all about being a single mom. Many years ago, so it was very early when people were not writing about the topic. And I recommend it completely. Have a listen to her question. Hi, Alana. This is Anne Lamott. And I love, love, love your work.

I want to ask you a question about being a single mother and preface it by saying I'm someone who loves to be alone. And I love my baby Sam literally more than life itself. But there were periods of time, usually after he had gone to sleep, when I would relish the quiet and the peace of

But after about an hour of it, I would feel this sort of sheet metal isolation. And it might be too late to pick up the 200-pound phone and call someone.

And so my question is, how do you prepare and how do you deal with this very new kind of existential aloneness as a single parent? So, of course, personally, you aren't a single parent, but your character in the movie is. And friendship and the limits of friendships is at the centerpiece of the film, being pregnant, having the support of a friend, but in the end being alone.

Talk a little bit about that because that was, to me, that was the love story here. Yeah. And wow, that was such a beautiful question. Oh my God, how deep. And also viscerally said such that you can feel her experience. So before I made this movie and while writing it, I was like, I can't imagine choosing to have a kid alone. I couldn't imagine it. And it's

you know, cut back to false positive, my fear of having a child at all, but couldn't imagine having a child alone because it is so hard and so effortful.

and laborious to have one child with a partner. I couldn't imagine it. And after making this movie, actually, once we were in the edit and seeing it and watching it, and also Pamela's show, Pamela's show, Better Things, I was like, damn, that looks hard. On set every day, I'd be like, you have three kids. Three kids as a single mother. Damn. And after really...

putting this movie together, like after the edit, after we were like doing test screening, seeing people respond to it, I shifted into really feeling like I do get it. Not like I get it, like I've done it, but like,

I understand wanting that organizing principle of your child and you. And like the way Anne just said, being alone. Well, one of the things is the idea of what a family is, obviously. The idea of creating these communities of families, because this woman is very alone. She doesn't, her mom is dead. Her dad is not present, tries to be, but has issues and stuff like that. So she needs to create her own version of a family. Right. You know,

My parents, I grew up on Long Island. I live in New York City. You know, people used to live here in Brooklyn around their entire extended families. Right. We don't have that anymore. Right.

And this idea of the nuclear family that has been fed to us. Isolating. It's so isolating. And the way I grew up in the suburbs, the segregated suburbs of Long Island was very isolated. And I remember that feeling as a kid wanting to come to the city, being like, almost like just a vacuous silence. Like, what is going on out there? So I'm happy to be

But it really is about finding chosen family. I have friends from Long Island I grew up with who are having kids here in Brooklyn. And even just like finding parents that we parent the same, but we just met. We just like had...

had pizza this weekend with these, my husband and I really get along with these two moms and their kid. You know, I only know them from having babies and being around, around the neighborhood, but it's like, wow, we get along on a deeper level. And I hope we're, I hope we raise our kids together for the next 18 years. We'll be back in a minute.

I want to talk more about Broad City for a second, if you don't mind. It started as a web series on YouTube in 2009 with, as you said, Abbie Jacobs. And for the people who haven't seen it, go back and watch the shorts. They're two-and-a-half-minute sketches.

Did you have the idea then that YouTube was going to get you noticed and then do the Comedy Central show? Talk a little bit about how it happened. I've interviewed Issa Rae about her show that turned into Insecure. YouTube is still the most popular social media site ahead of Facebook where a lot of discovery happens. I know my older kids, that's where they watch everything. Talk about your experience and do you think it's still a path for content makers or

or young comedians. It's so funny. Or it was making us laugh. We just met up with Abby and her wife in the park this weekend. And Abby and I were cracking up because we really thought that the web series was going to get us a writing job. That was our goal. Elliot Page and Alia Shachat had a show in development at the time at HBO. Yeah.

And Lucia Agnello and Paul W. Downs, two of the three creators of Hacks, who wrote on Broad City every incredible season. Talk about a relationship, a love story.

Incredible show with Jen Statsky created that too. But Paul and Lucia were on, you know, every season of Broad City. And because they initially wrote us the day the first webisode came out and they were like, this is something, this is something, this shows in development and you should see if you can write for them. That was like, that was, we were part of the wave of web series to TV, but we were in the water. So we did not know where it was leading. Right.

And we had no idea, no idea that we were going to make the TV show Broad City. And we really didn't picture ourselves on TV. We were just making it more as like a showcase of writing and comedy. But there's so much content out there now. And a team, for example, at the University of Amherst estimates there are 14 billion videos on YouTube right now. Wow. Wow.

Is it a path anymore or not? I do think so because I think that, you know, they did the right thing by creating the infrastructure to incentivize artists.

What I'm watching and, you know, from inside happened to the television industry is such a shonda, as my grandmother would say, such a shame, such a shonda to watch these people come in and say, we have an idea. We'll all copy HBO. And then they say, and now we have another idea. We'll all copy the original business model of

take $50 million a year while our companies are failing and not show our stockholders the numbers. Oh, you have an idea to run ads on your network? Were you watching television in the 90s or 10 years ago? That's how it works already. You're not inventing something. There's no, again, you know, denying the fact that these people are not creative in any way, only destructive, pretending that they're creative.

So all that to say, I love YouTube. I think it's brilliant. I think it's incentivizing and it's relatively fair. And the only thing that is, I think, perhaps boning YouTube's efficacy is our attention being split on the other apps.

our attention. Like TikTok? Yeah, and Instagram. How do you look at videos on these huge accounts for less than a minute? Is that where you would suggest a content maker go now? I would advise not to follow my advice on how to enter the scene now because I have no idea. I think Instagram is like more mainstream. TikTok feels like off the radar and a little more, not off the radar and like everybody's on it or whatever, but like

it's more random. Anyone can go viral and then not be viral. Whereas Instagram feels more, uh, like your resume, you know, it's, it's a little bit, uh, but I have, I truly have no idea. I have friends, Jen Statsky, the creator of hacks, her, her career starts on Twitter, tweeting really funny tweets, Twitter. Right. Right. And it's just like, what? Like, I don't, I feel, um,

I feel like the culture of the currency of our attention has been so stolen that I'm not really sure how one breaks out. How would you do it? The thing that I would say no matter what is make stuff, make stuff and make it better and better and better and as excellent as you can. And then I don't know. I don't know what medium I would use. I don't even, I really, I really don't know. AI has been a huge topic in Hollywood. Yeah.

Could you imagine using AI in future projects for yourself? I can't imagine using it. I just did this conference with the Wall Street Journal, and they showed me ChatGPT's response in the voice of me. And I'm like, this is just not good. You know what I mean? This is not good. And I think it's not good yet. May I tell you, please? The early internet was terrible. But go ahead. It's pretty good now. Right.

So it's pretty good, but it's also, well, I guess it's better than it was. I think the plan is rather than for chat GPT or AI to get so good, I think they're just hoping to scramble the signals and immerse audiences in AI.

average, like just below average content so that our taste levels are lowered. But I think what these tech companies are hoping for is such an infinite inundation of mediocre to shitty content that our brains rot and we accept the drivel that they give us. But I, among this nihilistic attitude, I do have faith in

that people will still select touching content. Not the majority, though. I just don't think it will be completely snuffed out, the human spirit. Right. I would agree with you. Substance does tend... It's our heart you're talking about. But one of the things...

We were talking about social media as a launch for your creative career, but you're also using it for political activism. And that genre you were just talking about in 2016, you co-founded the Generator Collective. On the group's LinkedIn, it says that you, quote, get people together to talk about the government and politics at a level Homer Simpson could understand. What's it doing now? What are the politics of it? Do you support candidates? Explain how it started and what you think it does now.

So it started in 2016 as conversations that I was having with hosting with politicians and

And activists and trying to illustrate the hinge between the ideal hinge between one to the other, ideally activist to elected official. But, you know, like in the case of Eric Holder, who was Obama's attorney general, he became an activist creating the National Democratic Redistricting Committee and fighting with an army of lawyers to fight gerrymandering nationally. Yeah.

Um, but Gloria Steinem, I mean, she never became an elected official, but like organized so much, you know, policy that has, that has been created. Um, and then we expanded to dance parties that we called Jenny socials, uh, where we dance for 20 to 30 minutes, take a pause and hear, uh, from an elected official or an activist about an upcoming election and create a cheat sheet for everybody hanging out and dancing a cheat sheet for an upcoming election. And then when COVID hit, I was touring, um,

doing a stand-up tour, but adding to every city a Jenny Social so that every city could come see me and we could laugh together. And then the next night we go dance and get a cheat sheet for the upcoming election. And that was 2020. So I was planning to do that in March and then September before the election and hit at least all the swing states.

But then COVID hit, so we pivoted into digital cheat sheets to get cheat sheets out for the election. And...

We've repeated that again and again in 2022 and 2024. What are in cheat sheets? What do you put in them? It's candidates for swing states for key elections. Down ballot, you're talking about. Yeah, exactly. Down ballot for key elections.

So that people can share. We have like little baseball cards for candidates, like something just about the person, something they love and that they're into and what their platform is and their history, like real quick, really easy. Homer Simpson meeting, like you don't have to know much. I don't know much. I'm involved and outspoken, but I don't, I'm not, let's put it well read in the situation. I, you know, so not only do we create these videos just where I'm like running people through everything, but also, uh,

assets, digital assets that you can genuinely take into the voting booth. Do you support specific candidates or info about all the candidates? I would assume you don't have a Marjorie Taylor Greene card, for example. No, we are currently a C4, meaning we are a nonprofit that raises for a

political party, which is the Democratic Party. At this point, we do support specific candidates. However, the tone, because we're aiming at Gen Z and millennial voters, our tone is more realistic. In 2020, it was, I'm not stoked, but I'm down to vote for Biden. I'm not going to like...

you know, put like a shit eating grin on my face and expect Gen Z and millennials to be so excited to vote for Biden. They certainly are. But yeah, yeah. But, um, you know, but being realistic and, and having a little more nuance about, uh, about the messaging, um, um,

So we're continuing cheat sheets and we also did microdosing democracy. Like you don't want to trip balls on democracy weeks before an election. You want to microdose and build a base and get ready to do the thing you got to do. So you're targeting Gen Z or millennials. How do you feel of their tone? They're moving towards Trump.

A lot of them. A lot of these statistics are showing maybe they may be just angry for the moment and will shift back. But it's really quite something to see. We're not like reaching into the right. We're not reaching into really Trump. We're more reaching into like the middle of the bell curve of people who don't want to vote, who are—

disenfranchised and, um, trying to connect the dots, um, you know, to get down to reality, what's going to happen if Trump wins versus if Biden wins. And like, at this point, you know, um, you seem aware of my, um, politics about, uh, the war on Gaza and, um,

You know where I'm coming from as a Jewish American, a white Jewish American. I'm not going to at this point, it's late May when we're recording this. I'm not going to tell my fellow Americans who are Arab, you got to vote for Biden. But I'm going to find the people who can be swayed and who are like,

I don't want to. I'm so grossed out and feeling so disgusted. So old, both of them. Yeah, it's all bad. And I agree. I'm like, this is not sexy. I like when shit is sexy. I like having fun. I like when shit is hot and we can get down. That's why we made fucking dance parties about voting around voter empowerment. This is not sexy. I'm not digging it either. And I'm like, ceasefire now. Ceasefire yesterday. Ceasefire seven months ago. I'm right there with you, but

if Donald Duck wins, as I like to call him, because I can't even have his name in my mouth, if he wins, it really feels very over. It feels very over for the planet. So, you know, striking that balance and playing that chord. You know, there's many notes in that chord. It's not just one note. We'll be back in a minute.

One of the things you did do, which I think is roiling Hollywood, let's talk briefly about Gaza, as you noted, a huge controversy in Hollywood after the Oscars, over a thousand Jewish creatives signed a letter criticizing Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer for a speech in which he denounced the, quote, occupation of Gaza.

Palestinian territories. You're part of another group, wrote a second open letter in support of him. In a statement variety, you said, I signed this letter to help counter the climate of silencing of many workplaces and industries are facing around Israel's war on Gaza now entering its seventh month. The controversy surrounding Jonathan Glaser is just one example. Talk about the climate of silencing. And have you had conversations with people who signed the first letter? Yeah.

Has it changed? I heard the two sides a lot within the Hollywood community. How is that bridging that gap? I know. I'm like boiling. I'm boiling because the thing is like, I started learning about the Holocaust against Jews, the Jewish Holocaust. I started learning about this at like age seven in Hebrew school, which is...

very young, very, very young. Part of anti-Semitism, uh, I think part of the, the, uh,

for the rise in anti-Semitism is the forgetting and the lack of education around the Holocaust, around true anti-Semitism. I grew up learning about anti-Semitism for thousands of years in our exile and Passover. I know the history from being a Jew, but I think what's available to mainstream American culture is the Holocaust.

I've learned since October 7th, Hamas's murdering 1,200 Israelis and then Israel's disproportionate response punishing Palestine for Hamas's action. I've learned that not a lot of people know about—a lot of Gen Z, especially a little younger Gen Z than me and millennials, don't know about the Holocaust, don't know a lot about the Holocaust. Jonathan Glaser's zone of interest—

educates the world about the Holocaust. It's, I thought, a perfect movie showing us genocide from our perspective, which is we Americans, we mainstream culture are at the center. We're staring at our phones. We're posting ourselves. We're at the center. And all these genocides happening are happening around us to the side. I was so upset to see this letter condemning

Jonathan Glazer's words because he's doing the good work of educating the world about the Holocaust. People are forgetting about it. But these people who signed that letter so badly want to remain the victims, remain the center of the story, deny Palestinian personhood and centerdom, that they're twisting this

Jewish educators' words to fulfill their own desires to stay the center. It's about centering. Because I think if you accept what the zone of interest is really trying to say and what Jonathan Glaser was really trying to say, it's connecting one Holocaust to the other. If we don't connect one Holocaust to the other, then we are ranking people. You know, Gloria Steinem's saying, we are not ranked, we are linked.

Well, if you want to say my Holocaust is worse than yours, Roxane Gates says the oppression Olympics. If you want to play the oppression Olympics with genocide, then you are staying ranked and you are serving the genocidal system that created Hitler, that was supported Hitler's Holocaust. But if you link us, then we can actually stop these Holocausts from happening. Who wants to hoard the currency of being at the center of a genocide? That's

Speaking of Anne Lamott, that's some scary loneliness that I don't understand why certain Jewish Americans want to retain that terrifying loneliness.

solo position. I want to be linked so that we can rise up out of genocide as a form of organizing large populations. How do you come together with people? Because you have all these people signing this thing, then you all signed an opposite thing. What happens? How do you get to a place of that linkage that you're talking about? You've had to cancel events because of anti-Semitism, for example. Oh my gosh, it's true.

Yes, I was hosting a Generated Live wildly with Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! when this anti-Semitic—there was like swastikas suddenly all over the building we were in, which was like a synagogue. The way that I come together with people is by organizing with others and organizing specifically with women. Yeah.

who seem to be at the center of social justice organizing in my experience so far. I organized this video to Dr. Jill Biden with Cynthia Nixon. She's terrific. She is just my hero. She is my hero. The engine inside that woman is phenomenal. And to witness it and to work with her is such a privilege and an honor. It's

Oh my God, it's incredible. And her wife and this fantastic Palestinian American organizer, Rania Patrice. Yeah.

So, you know, we have our, it's all about context. We have our private conversations and then we talk about public facing and public facing is, is human centric, is, is value centric where it's like, we can all agree that a child's life is sacred and deserves to be protected. We can all agree that bombing civilians is wrong.

We can, most of us, agree on that. So we circle back to mothers and motherhood. You're talking about children, which I think does, it gets away when you start to focus on that. People tend to focus together, as you say, linked in some fashion. Not everybody, but a lot of people. There's a lot of fear happening among everybody. And it's sort of brought out very different emotions in people that aren't logical in any way, obviously. Yeah.

When you think about it, by the way, your stand-up special is called The Planet is Burning. But you also did the, I think, the most future belief in the future thing you can do is have children. I've said that to people. When I get a cute, like, oh, liberals don't believe in the future. I'm like, I have four kids, so I really believe in the future. I clearly believe in the future. When you think about that as a parent, because let's get back to the idea of parenting, you

Your special is called Planet is Burning, but your movie is about moving forward, right? It's a heartfelt movie. Is it hard to be funny when you're so clearly invested in politics? It's a very difficult time right now. And yet your daughter is almost three years old. You're making art about politics.

forward movement. Is that what you'll keep doing? Or is it more difficult than ever to do that? What I was surprised at this movie was how positive leaning it was in a difficult time. I will continue to do this. I do find this time still fertile for comedy because it is the tension between joy and suffering where, for me...

Things are funniest. I am a hopeful person. I do have hope for the future. But this, since October 7th, my perspective has shifted, almost like my consciousness has shifted. And I, you know, you say fear on both sides. From my side, wanting a ceasefire now, the fear is...

is that it's coming for us. We have this idea in America that we're shielded from anything, but it is coming for us and it is happening now. And because of being a proud Jew, I love being Jewish and I love my Jewish education. I know that our humanity is connected. So part of my desire for Palestinian safety and

Sovereignty is for my own because of the connectivity I see so clearly. And like I said before, I chose to have a child because I wanted this growth from the inside out and my capacity for love and wonder and love.

has grown so much and I'm so grateful that I have this child. My capacity to hold suffering and loss has grown also, but I think, um, I think that only makes, uh, for funnier, uh, premises for funny premises. Right. So what's the next project, the trial and tribulations of toddlerhood. You did have that in the movie with the little boy who crashed me out. Um,

Yeah. Oh, he's so cute. Caleb, he's such a cutie. You know what? I'm working on it. Josh and Susie and I, we just worked so well together. We're working on like the next two ideas. And I have a show I'm developing right now, another friendship-based show that takes place in New York, but among like a different kind of group of people. Yeah.

But I mostly am trying to take off for the summer. I was touring from June 2023 to May, this early May. And I really want to give some space to my mind and my body to see what comes up too. I find the resistance of...

Making love during war, of rest when everyone wants more, and productivity. To be so badass and to feel so powerful as this little flame inside. I really want to protect that.

protect that little flame for a few months and kind of reemerge in the fall and see what I'm dying to say and tell. Excellent. I really appreciate it, Alana. Thank you so much. What a thoughtful and substantive interview. I really appreciate it. Oh, I'm like verklempt. Verklempt. I love all your things. Verklempt. Shonda. It says Shonda. Yeah, I'd love to stay in touch, Cara. This was such a special conversation. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Absolutely.

On with Kara Swisher is produced by Christian Castro-Russell, Kateri Yochum, Jolie Myers, and Megan Burney. Special thanks to Kate Gallagher, Andrea Lopez-Gruzado, and Kate Furby. Our engineers are Rick Kwan and Fernando Arruda, and our theme music is by Trackademics.

If you're already following the show, you get a baby. If not, you get a toddler. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On With Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On With Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.