Jewish comedians Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer can’t bring themselves to make light of our current political climate. The broads behind “Broad City” recently released their Inauguration Day “Hack Into Broad City” sketch, which is an appropriate mix of funny and serious.
In the sketch, they prepare for a political disaster (“Remember what we learned in Krav Maga”), but when they receive a news alert that Donald Trump has become the 45th President of the United States, they get real: “It’s not even funny.” Very on-point. On Inauguration Day, Jacobson was interviewed by Elle at the Sundance Film Festival and talked about how she and Glazer have decided to respond to Trump becoming president:
“We shot it last week because we were like, ‘We have to react to this.’ We want to do a winter season—it’s pretty much always summer on the show. It’s happening at a good time too, because during the winter it tends to be a little more sad. I think we are going through an interesting time in our country starting from today, and I think the show will reflect that.”
Because of the surprising election result (at least to both actresses), they had to actually rewrite some of their forthcoming season to reflect that:
“They’re not like political geniuses or anything—they’re figuring it out and how to become more politically evolved. The ‘Hack’ we just released ended with Ilana saying, ‘We will Google how to Google our local representatives.’ It’s not really telling the audience what to do…we get to comment on the fact that we are all learning how to be more political.”
Like many women in the country, Jacobson is worried about the future of women’s rights, affordable access to health care, and the possible defunding of Planned Parenthood. As such, she believes it’s her duty to highlight these issues and use her visibility to make a difference:
“Ilana and I talk a lot about making sure we are on the side of anyone that is disenfranchised…it’s hard, we are still white girls making this show and the show has an opportunity to speak to more than that. We can’t help that, but we can try and tell other stories and be more inclusive.”
Right on.
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