No (White, Straight) Boys Allowed

Article here. Excerpt:

'From Jerry Lewis' Chinese chef to Dan Whitney's Larry the Cable Guy, playing on stereotypes has long been an integral element in the fabric of comedy. The reason is simple: It's easier to deliver a quick punchline about a shared preconceived notion rather than explain a lengthy set-up.

No Straight White Guys, a monthly comedy show at Foam Coffee & Beer, attempts to place a mirror in front of cultural and gender assumptions promoted within humor. In the process, however, they may have unintentionally raised questions about stereotypes in the world of comedy itself.

Though hosted by local comedians Amy Milton and Milly Naeger, ironically the show was conceived by Jeremy Hellwig -- described by Milton as "a pretty straight, extremely white man." Aware that he couldn't host the show himself, Hellwig turned to Milton and Naeger, who he described as having "some of the funniest, most original voices I've seen in comedy, and I don't just mean in St Louis."
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For Kirkwood native Nikki Glaser, however, this was never a problem. Glaser, one of the most successful comedians to emerge from the area over the last decade, says she had no problem starting out on open mics that were dominated by men.

"Male comics are a mostly docile, socially anxious group," Glaser says. "They were never mean." If anything, she explains, "It was another woman who made my few first years of comedy the hardest. Saying that I had slept with comics for stage time and material. I was a virgin at the time. It was straight out of Mean Girls."
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Yet as the show embraces an agenda of social progress through laughter, there are those that have taken offense to the show's exclusionary title. Mikey Manker, a Chicago comedian with St. Louis roots, was taken aback when he passed a poster for the show last month.

"I had gone on this rant about how I was tired of seeing straight white men in comedy falling into this stigma that we are nuisance and we all dress the same, and talk about the same things on stage," Manker said. "I understand the need for diversity. And I get that white men have dominated the standup scene for a long time. But that's not our fault."
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"I think comedy is a powerful means for social transformation because it hits on a different level," he says. "I think women's voices are important and need to be heard, and we need to remove the stigma that feminists can't have a sense of humor. Also, I think racial and gender stereotyping is generally weak comedy and No Straight White Guys helps make people more conscious of this fact. I think when/if we lived in a post-sexist, post-racist, world, NSWG wouldn't make any sense."'