Every issue, GRAZIA USA highlights Game Changers, who inspire, educate, and celebrate individuality, beauty, and style. Meet Saturday Night Live comedian LaKendra Tookes who’s spent years delivering laughs. Now, she has advice for a world ready to smile again.
Out of all the art forms, creative outlets, and mediums, comedy is the roughest and the toughest of them all. In that way, it’s never been more vital in our country than it is today. It is not for the faint of heart, the weak, or any clinically sane, normal person. You’ve got to have just the right amount of kooky, quirky, and crazy running in your veins to even think you’re funny. And then, you have to have the guts to share your kooky, quirky, and crazy thoughts with a judgmental audience that’s usually chock-full of drunk men. Online, it takes boobs of steel and honey badger levels of courage to create comedic content, post it, and leave that comments section open. (“Nice boobs, more jumping please” is NOT the feedback I was looking for, sir.)
By no means is this any shade to the painters, sculptors, musicians, and singers who work so hard to bring beauty and meaning to the mess that is modern life. If you’re out there sharing your unique and special creative talents with this undeserving world, I tip my wig to you. But, what makes comedy unique is that it’s the only art form that requires an immediate response—in the form of laughter.
If I can make you think about something you never thought about before, or feel a feeling you’ve never felt before, that’s a bonus; but, it means nothing if I haven’t made you laugh. Are you going to heckle a violinist who’s slightly flat? Probably not. And a painter can just call his work abstract and some eccentric billionaire will buy it. Comedians don’t have these luxuries. All we have is the sound of your laughter. It’s what fuels us. Hopefully, at the same time, that laughter fuels you.
You can imagine, then, that the last two years have been tough out here for a comedian. We lost live performance venues, hangouts with friends, and even the opportunity to test out new material on an unsuspecting cashier or two. (I’m sorry. Literally nothing over Zoom is funny. Except for that guy who turned himself into a cat.) We’ve missed the laughs: both getting them and giving them.
How can we all learn to laugh again after a tough couple of years, and with still more challenges facing us every day? I got a note from a comic I admire once. He said, just keep the funny stuff. Now more than ever, why not give it away? If your Ring camera catches the mailman slippin’ and slidin’ up your driveway or your baby makes a funny face or you’d like to share a photo of your dog dressed up in business attire, do it! Keep the funny stuff flowing and post it, share it, support it. It’s scary but you’re strong enough. And we all need the laughs.
-As told to Melissa Cronin
