Robby Hoffman Thinks There Are Worse Things Than Being Offended

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2:13Welcome to The Political Scene. I'm Tyler Foggett, and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker. We're doing something a little different this week. Today's show comes to you live from the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle, where I was able to sit down with one of my favorite comedians, Robbie Hoffman. We spoke about her approach to comedy, as well as her views on politics and the strange political moment that we're living in. I first came across Robbie last year while watching an episode of Everybody's Live with John Mulaney, a Netflix talk show. Mulaney was riffing on the rollout of The Real ID and airport security, and then Robbie jumped in.

2:48I don't even take my sweatshirt off going through security now. If you have a hoodie on, they go, do you mind taking your hoodie off if there's a shirt under? I said, nah, I'm too lazy. Taking a hoodie off, it's a big process. It used to just be jacket, but now they're going after hoodies too. And they say, well, do you mind? We might have to pat you down. I said, can't wait. It's my favorite part.

3:10Robbie is a stand-up comedian and an Emmy-nominated actor and Emmy-winning writer. You might know her from her debut Netflix special, Wake Up, or from one of her television roles. She played Randy in Hacks, the beloved HBO series that sadly just came to a close, and she's currently in another HBO series called Rooster, where she plays Mo, an extremely blunt graduate student. I was able to talk with Robbie about how growing up poor shaped her politics and why she believes that the real divide in America isn't left versus right, but rather the rich versus the poor. Plus, is humor a superpower for politicians?

3:44I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

3:50Robbie, welcome to The Political Scene. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you for having me. When did you first realize that you were funny? I come from a funny people, and everybody was funny. When I was, like, put against normal people, it seemed that it was unusual. But it was not unusual growing up. So even when you were a child, you were just cracking people up? Everybody I knew was funny. My mother was funny. My brother Shmuley was funny. I was funny. We didn't even think it was funny. Everything was funny. And how much has your humor evolved since you were a kid? Because at least in your stand-up, it's not like you're going on stage and doing these, like, elaborate bits.

4:32Your comedy is a lot more of you just kind of saying what you think, which feels kind of like a pre-existing personality trait. Not to cut you off, but your ring is blinding and beautiful, and he did a great job. Thank you so much. He did a great job. Okay, go on. Just credit to whoever got this done. I see you. My husband's going to be thrilled. Okay, fantastic. He did a great job. But it seems like your comedy is mostly you just kind of saying what you think, sort of like what you did just there. Okay. Which feels kind of like you leaning into a personality trait rather than like cultivating a certain kind of act.

5:11How has your humor evolved over time? Like, have you kind of just kept doing the same thing? Or do you feel as you progress as a comedian, you're trying things out or doing a new kind of joke or just leaning more into being yourself? Yeah, I think just always being more me. I think like as a kid, you're born and you're you. And then you go through school, you go through other things where it's like, oh, it's not really that good to be you. I was annoying. I was loud. I didn't like authority. So you press back and then I was boyish and that wasn't good. So I always was kind of watching myself. You know, you start to get self-conscious maybe as a teenager, you know, and I used to change how I talked, you know, because I moved from the U.S.

5:52to Canada, and in Canada, small things like the word orange. I used to say orange, but I was like, oh, you sound poor if you say orange. That's what I thought. Stand-up allows me to be the most me. It's not like I'm not the most me now, but it's just, it's almost like a THC. It's like, it's so concentrated in the stand-up, and then it's a little more like a hybrid in life. Yeah, I'm not such a weed person, but, you know, I think we know enough of the language here in Seattle, so. Have you ever been surprised by a person or group who got offended by a joke that you thought was, like, pretty anodyne?

6:32And then vice versa. I'm wondering if you've ever been surprised by someone not getting offended by a joke that you thought was pretty hardcore. This just has come up for me. You're catching me on the tail end of my first attempt at one of these groups coming for me. It's amazing. of all the things I said in my special. And thank you for anyone who's watched the special by the grace of God and all of you. So good. It's gotten the recognition that it has solely by word of mouth. But of all the things I talked about in that special, the only people to come after me was the pit bull community. Okay, like the dog people.

7:05I talked about raising the age of abortion to the age of 10. Okay, the pro-lifers were, you know, nobody cared about that. I've talked about so many things, but when you touch dogs, oh. And then recently I did call her daddy. She asked me a silly question about gluten or something, and the celiacs came after me. So of all the communities, it's like these ones. And when these groups come after me, it's fine. I know people are frustrated, and they're trying to silo it, and nobody is spared, so to speak. I joke about everyone and everything. It's not personal. and find the celiacs are allergic to gluten and comedy, apparently.

7:46But it's just also to point, and I go after my own communities and groups, it's just to point that there's other things going on. It's important not to always center ourselves in the victim narrative, especially when it's easy to get caught in those small traps. And I think if we just came together, more of us, and stopped siloing so much, That's why the nobody is spared. It's like, actually, OK, I make fun of you like this. You can make fun of me like this. People call me a dyke. They call me a kike. It's all good. We're on the same side. It's the people versus the power. So, yeah, just an idea not to take ourselves so seriously unless it's about serious, really big things that we can come together and work on together.

8:31I don't know how articulate that was, but they'll let it. just i have to go back to the pitbull community coming after you just because that's like maybe my worst fears i mean i know they're as scary as the dog i had no idea i had no idea because they said that the dog sometimes looks like the owner you ever see this that they hear that the dog is looks like the owner but i never knew it acted like the you know what i mean i didn't know the personality side of it but it really is true you got to be careful out there You know, transitioning into talking about your television acting a little bit more.

9:07I mean, I mentioned you're in Hacks, Rooster. I should also say that you were in the FX series Dying for Sex, where you played opposite Michelle Williams. Thank you. But just going back to Hacks, which had its series finale last week, you played an assistant in an entertainment agency who rises very quickly. But the show partially centers on a young comedian named Ava, played by Hannah Einbinder. Really? Who's navigating the industry in her own way. That's for like the one person in the audience who maybe hasn't seen the show yet. No, no, no. Tyler, I'm giving you a hard time. I love this. Go on.

9:36And let's talk more specifically about your character. I mean, I know that the character was initially written for you, but how much did you have to do with the character's eventual narrative arc? Nothing. Nothing. Yeah, they liked me and, you know, they wrote Brandy for me. And it's like all the roles I'm doing, you know. I do a little version of myself, you know, I'm not necessarily the Meryl Streep version of acting. I'm more the Adam Sandler. Yeah, I can push it. You know, he's pushed in Uncut Gems and maybe for the tiniest taste, I had my push in a dying for sex role, which I think was surprising for people.

10:16But then on the other roles, some of the fluffier roles, so to speak, Randy, she's eager, she's nerdy a bit, she's fresh eyed and all that. Maybe in real life, I'm a little swaggier, a little more confident, but it was fun to play that. And then, you know, in Rooster with Steve Carell, I play like, you know, the opposite. I'm still me, but I'm like this lazy roommate in a robe, you know, who's not eager and all this stuff. Randy and I really did have a very similar story in that I was new to acting. Randy's new to the business. Randy's trying to do a good job as an assistant, you know, keep her job.

10:53And I'm trying to do a good job with the character to keep acting. So we were both in a very similar, we're both new to the thing that we were doing in real life and on the show. So you've spoken about your childhood during your stand-up and in other interviews. But in case anyone in the audience doesn't know your backstory, I'm wondering if you could tell us a bit about your upbringing, since it was pretty unique. Oh, my God. What a disaster, my upbringing. I'm one of 10 kids. I was raised predominantly by a single mother. I'm seventh of 10 kids. My parents had us all by the age my mother was, I think, 30 by the time she had the 10 of us.

11:30Yeah, enormous vagina. I know it's insane. It's insane. No, that's where I get mine from. I'm very blessed. I'm very blessed. No, I'm my mom's seventh kid. She had me at 27. So we grew up poor and really limited in many ways. but also, I don't know, it's very hard to explain to a family, maybe a nuclear family or somebody who grew up normally, like comparing a family of like 12 people to a family of four, you know, two parents, two kids versus my mom, my great uncle Eddie and the 10 kids, how I grew up. But there's a lot of co-raising that goes on. It's more of a community situation. There's the parentification that's unhealthy, but there's also a beautiful part to it.

12:17Like, my little brother is not just my little brother, he's also my son. So the way that we were, it's just a totally different way of growing up. And what did they all end up doing? I mean, you're the only one who went into comedy, but you were saying that they were all so funny. Yeah, a lot of them sales, very successful. Beware. But yeah, people are doing really well. My sister in tech, I think we grew up so hungry. I mean, that figuratively, obviously, mostly. I don't know. We just had that grid. I think, you know, I think sometimes something people could learn maybe who are having kids. I'm starting to be friends with people who maybe live in nice places.

12:57They live in apartments in New York and stuff like that. And then they have a kid and they want to move to New Jersey or they want to move somewhere a suburb. But I think one of the greatest things was I grew up in a city and that was like a free education in itself in terms of adversity and overcoming and just figuring it out. So I don't know. If you guys are thinking you need to have kids in the suburb, I mean, by all means, but I think there's something really helpful about the free education I got just living where I lived. So, as you mentioned, you grew up poor, and I hope this doesn't sound weird, but I really appreciate the way that you talk about just sort of that experience.

13:35Why would that sound weird? Well, I mean, I don't know, because it's like, I don't know. You don't sound weird at all. You sound great. No, I mean, I also grew up poor. I mean, a totally different upbringing, but like, I just feel like it's one of those things where even once you get to a place of like relative financial stability, you just never get over it. And I think that poverty tends to get romanticized in TV and film, like this idea of like the starving artist and like the, you know, like the kid who makes it and that kind of thing. And just like, it just really means a lot to me, like personally, that you like try so hard to consistently counter that narrative and just be like, yeah, actually that really sucked.

14:11Yeah, yeah. And that's why it's like, I don't mind when people get, you know, caught up on the pit bulls or whatever the issue is. I always bring it back to that. Okay, you had your two seconds, back to this. People still poor, people still poor, people still poor. I just will never get distracted. I'm like, and we're back. People are still poor, here we are. I can't get over it. My chip is only getting bigger. I'm horrified by the whole thing. I mean, how has the experience changed your orientation toward politics? Like, I think you said in the past that Republicans and Democrats are the same thing and it's really just the rich versus the poor.

14:46I mean, that's what I think. Yeah, I think it was, you know, nominal differences at the top. Think about who was on Epstein's Island. So, you know, it's like they were hanging out, you know, and they weren't hanging with us. And that's how it always was. I've been through as a kid, I've been through Democratic administrations, Republican administrations, nothing. It didn't affect our lives at all. I mean, we live in a time where there are so many like so-called populist politicians, both on the left and on the right, who talk about their working class backgrounds and run on affordability platforms.

15:20And sometimes it feels real and sometimes it just doesn't. Like one of my favorite jokes of yours, which I think you've said on like a couple of podcasts is just like, you're the only person who can actually prove that you worked at McDonald's. That is true. The pictures, I know, I know. And maybe she did. We don't know. But anyway. But would you say that there are any politicians out there who are actually doing the populism thing right. And when it comes to conversations about poverty, especially policy conversations, is there something that you feel is just consistently missing from those conversations that you wish people talked about more?

15:53It's not that something's missing from those conversations. It's that that conversation has to be the conversation. It's that sometimes they go, well, we were having the conversation now, so what's the problem? Well, we need to keep having it for 200 fucking years. Because how long have they been having the red versus blue before it became the way that we do things? They've been talking red versus blue for 200 years. So 200 years on poverty and then maybe I'll be OK. Maybe I'll be OK. But it just started happening. And every time the conversation about income inequality or the classism of it all comes up, it is shut down.

16:32There are moments of it. We had Occupy Wall Street, you know, Bernie before the DNC squashed his ass, too. So there are conversations, but the idea is like, OK, we had it and we're moving on. No, we're not moving on. It's just like when Trump was asked about Epson, like we're still talking about this. You better believe we are still talking about this. And I am still talking when, you know, when somebody is mad about a loaf of bread or they're mad about a dog, I go, that's fine. Back to here. I want this to be the only conversation. I'm repetitive. Every interview, I go back to this because we need 200 years of this being.

17:13It's not just a conversation. Classism is the conversation. The haves versus the haves not is the conversation. And how much worse does it need to get for you to realize that that's what it's all been about? It's literally the people versus the power. The people versus money and power, period. Until we can get a better grip on that, I can't see myself really screaming about anything else.

17:46Are there any politicians who you think are centering the conversation that way? Oh my God, I do. Yeah, and they have to get, but you know, but it's hard to keep them there. I think Mamdani is fucking awesome. Amazing. You know what? People don't like me about this, but I feel like Mamdani is like, like New York is like so New York again. It really is. Like, Mamdani is, like, for the people. And maybe the Knicks is also up because of it. I think they're kind of a huge part of it. I do. I do credit him. I don't know if I should. But Mamdani has just brought the spirit of the people back to New York, which New York felt like it was founded on.

18:24I don't know. I feel like the world's healing a bit. I think Mamdani is tremendous. I thought Bernie, I still think Bernie is unbelievable. I mean, I would take a senile Bernie over. I would even take him at 90. You know, we accepted Biden for so long. I'm like, I'll take an old Bernie. Even if he has half a thought, it's better than most of the full thoughts of some of the people we have. You know what I mean? So I think, of course, of course there are people. It's just, it has to be, again, the focus. It shouldn't be fringe. And I'll keep screaming about that until red versus blue moves back to people versus power.

19:03We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'd like to talk about whether humor can give politicians an advantage. More with comedian Robbie Hoffman after the break. This is the political scene from The New Yorker.

19:31So I know we literally were just talking about how Republicans and Democrats are the same thing. But I want to ask you about the divide between conservatives and liberals in terms of comedy audiences. Do you think that people of different political persuasions genuinely find different things funny? Or do you think that everyone secretly finds the same things funny, but it's just a matter of some people not allowing themselves to laugh? I think it's the latter. I think I'm a testament to that. Yeah. Because I go everywhere. I literally, like, know what's going on before. It's so funny. Like, it's not even funny.

20:05It's tragic. But, you know, living in L.A., I think people, so many people around me were stunned when Trump won again. And I was like, are you joking? Like, I'm around this country. I am boots on the ground. I've been to almost every state. And it's funny because I go to some states where people go, oh, you know, I'm doing the South again and stuff like that. And they go, I have some people come to a show. They didn't even want to like me. You know what I mean? They have preconceived notions what kind of person I am or whatever. They didn't want to like me. And they go, all right, can I get a picture?

20:37You know, so it's like whether, you know, it's just, yeah, laughing can be guttural. and expansive, and I've just gone person to person. There's nobody I really won't talk to, and I think that's a testament to how I grew up. You know, I was born nine other siblings there, well, six other, and then three more came, and yeah, I'm so comfortable being in a space where we don't always agree, and with tolerance, you know, to some extent. Like, I also didn't have my own room or, you know, space that was my own, so it's like, maybe if you're a rich kid, and you fight with your sister over a t-shirt or something, you go to your room, she goes to her room, you know, bye, bitch, bye, you know, whatever.

21:18But in, you know, if my sister and I were fighting, it's like, the bitch is in my room. Like, we got to go to sleep somehow. You know what I mean? Like, we had to figure it out. So I'm so comfortable coexisting with people. We're just, we might see not, it's just not an issue. I don't see it as a thing. You know, my brother, for instance, is somewhat homophobic. And by somewhat, I mean he's homophobic. So I'm not encouraging. But the way he calls me, he goes, you know, because he's a security guard and he goes, they're having me do Pride. And I'm like, well, you're not on a float. Like, are you taking your shirt off?

21:56Like you're working security for the event, which you do many events, you know? So and he goes, yeah, I just don't like the whole gay agenda, this and that and the gay people. I said, well, I'm a gay person. He's like, well, not you. Like, he doesn't even connect. He's like, I'm not talking about you. You're my flesh and blood. Take a bullet. He's talking about gay. So I'm like, you know what? I'm just leave it there. You know, love is love. But he doesn't really, I think people sometimes just say stuff because the heart isn't there. And I think we were so comfortable growing up with different things and just tolerating and we could hang and think differently and know that we were still in it together.

22:33Like all is possible at the same time. And maybe that's just because I grew up in that nucleus that I'm naive about, hey, we could all fuck around. We could split a picture. Like, what's the big deal? I don't know. So maybe it's too idealistic, but. But I mean, I think it's a better way to think and hope than the opposite. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like there's no one I really won't talk to unless, you know, violent or whatever, apart from that. But and I think the conversation is shifting. The younger generation, I think starting with my generation, we kind of were already sensing that legacy media or legacy things like there was a design and tip for tap, you know, and gotcha moments.

23:12And I think it's starting to come around and people are seeing that, you know, there's been so much exposure of information. Yeah. And people are starting to really see like, oh, maybe they were working together and we have to start regrouping and we have to really work together. You know, it's not the us and the them and the way that they designed it for it to be. The poor will fight against each other while we're on the island or whatever, you know. So I think it is shifting. I feel a shift. I don't know. I do feel like people are waking up to what needs to be the conversation. Do you think that Donald Trump is funny?