![]() Given the scarcity of sketch comedy that deals with so-called feminist themes, it’s tough to watch the show without thinking of Inside Amy Schumer, one of BVS’s only counterparts in that respect. (IFC picked it up after its second season.) Taylor brought Browne and Whalen into the fold, and they sold the show to the CBC, which offered them the freedom to do things their way, such as writing and shooting at home in Toronto with a predominantly female crew and writers room. In 2012, MacNeill and Taylor - who were both working on the Canadian news satire show This Hour Has 22 Minutes - started putting together the pitch for BVS. Taylor (who serves as showrunner), Browne, and Whalen are all Second City alums, while MacNeill is a classically trained actress who has worked with Royal Shakespeare Company. The Baronesses all have deep roots in the Canadian comedy and theater worlds. When I was in Britain I was seeing a ton of female-fronted shows, like French and Saunders, Victoria Wood - women of a different age that made their own work and had a voice,” says MacNeill, sitting in a bathrobe in their trailer in downtown Toronto, where she has just come from shooting a scene from their upcoming third season. ![]() “I think one of the things the four of us saw was a space. It draws its humor from the minutiae and idiosyncrasies of everyday life - in particular, the everyday lives of middle-aged women, whose perspectives have traditionally been absent from the sketch comedy landscape. “When you have an idea and are blessed enough to see it through, and then everyday people talk back to you and say ‘I see myself in this’ - that means a lot.”īaroness von Sketch Show (whose first two seasons are airing now on IFC ) is a half-hour Canadian sketch series created by and starring Meredith MacNeill, Aurora Browne, Carolyn Taylor, and Jennifer Whalen. “When the response came back, it was so moving,” says MacNeill. Yet the sketch’s viral success surprised its creators, who were concerned that the sight of so many nude women over 40 would garner trolling instead of praise. In a way, the sketch is the inverse of Amy Schumer’s “ Last Fuckable Day” instead of pointing out the ingrained misogyny that women face as they get older, it locates an underrecognized kind of joy in getting old - aging not as a burden, but a source of liberation. “I’ve never felt so entitled to a space.” “You’re one of us now Kelsey! You own this room! You can hang out here naked all day,” says another woman, toweling her ass crack with abandon. “Welcome to not giving a shit at the gym.” Kelsey (Meredith MacNeill) surveys the room: a flock of naked middle-aged women sprawled and spread-eagled, nonchalantly shaving their bikini lines and plucking their armpit hairs without a care in the world. ![]() “Welcome to your 40s, Kelsey!” says the gym employee cheerily. In it, a woman walks into her gym having just turned 40, and finds she has graduated to the special section of the changing room where modesty has been thrown out the window. The first segment Baroness von Sketch Show released online was called “Locker Room,” and it was a jubilant celebration of the age when women finally stop giving a fuck.
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