Backburner will host a variety comedy show educating on sexual and reproductive health premiering on April 9. Credit: Courtesy of Emmy Pratt
Backburner Sketch Comedy group hopes its upcoming show “Vagina Dialogues” will be the funniest sex education class ever held.
“Vagina Dialogues,” a variety comedy show and fundraiser centered around women’s reproductive health, will be streamed on YouTube Live Friday at 7 p.m. The event will feature original sketches written by club members, personal narratives, performances from Fishbowl Improvisational Comedy and sexual health education for all sexual orientations and identities, Emmy Pratt, a third-year in English and vice president of writing for the club, said.
“I think we’ve come a long way talking about these issues more, but it’s still something that I think can be uncomfortable for people to talk about, and there’s certain things that people simply don’t know or don’t have access to certain information about,” Hallie Stelzle, a third-year in environmental policy and treasurer for the club, said.
Stelzle said presenting this information through comedy makes it more digestible for viewers.
“That’s a very easy way to communicate and connect with people,” Stelzle said. “If you’re telling an experience through a joke or through a sketch, that can be a little bit easier to understand or empathize with.”
This annual event started in 2018 and featured several comedy groups on campus as well as a donation drive for menstrual products. Due to the pandemic, this year’s show will be smaller and online, but Backburner will be raising money virtually for Restoring Our Own Through Transformation, a reproductive justice foundation serving Black mothers and women in the Columbus area, according to the foundation’s website.
Leading up to the performance, the group has been hosting a variety of Instagram story takeovers from the Advocates for Women of the World and Student Advocates for Sexual Health Awareness on topics related to reproductive health education.
The name for the show was inspired by the play “The Vagina Monologues,” which also highlighted women’s sexuality. However, Stelzle said their show will be more inclusive than its namesake.
“The name ‘Vagina Dialogue’ comes from ‘The Vagina Monologues,’ which was a play in the ’90s that got a lot of criticism for it not being trans-inclusive and for kind of missing the mark, I think, on some bigger things,” Stelzle said. “It kind of generalized gender and sexuality and experiences in a way that we want to be broader.”
“Vagina Dialogues” will not be the only way the group plans to promote inclusivity. Backburner has and will continue to push for representation of women of all races and identities in comedy, Pratt said.
“I think the face of Backburner has changed a lot since we first put on the show in 2018,” Pratt said. “It definitely wasn’t a space that had as many women who were leaders and just women in general doing comedy. So I think that over the past three years it’s really taken a turn to be an organization where women are really at the center of it.”
Even with the changes in leadership roles within the group, Stelzle said there’s still more to be done to promote inclusivity of all people in comedy.
“I think comedy has traditionally made fun of trans folks, or they have been the butt of jokes, or people of color and disabled folks,” Stelzle said. “What I think is changing and still needs to change is just how these comedy spaces are crafted. Are they safe spaces for these people?”
Students can find more information about Backburner and “Vagina Dialogues” on the group’s Instagram and Twitter. Pratt said membership for the group is open and no auditions are required.
